Saw this tangential observation in a "Telegraph" opinion piece today:
"[In the US] discontent and resentment are built into the national way of life, because they are the inevitable counterparts of success and achievement. Not everybody can win in this frantic race and if you are one of the losers (or even one of the less spectacular winners), it is deemed to be your own fault: you did not try hard enough or, worse, you threw away the chances you were given. The work ethic of Americans, and the judgemental attitudes that it breeds often strike British people as ruthless. Just as the condescending compassion that is shown to those who do not succeed in Britain is surprising to Americans, who find the complacency and resignation of those who make no attempt to escape the poverty of their origins deeply shocking."
I find this is true in many parts of Canada as well. The puritanical cultural assumptions which seem normal to North Americans also result in a great tolerance for cruelty as long as it's directed against those deemed to have violated a prevailing orthodoxy, as Charlie Kirk did. But the other side of murderous "wokeness" can be seen in those American "conservatives" who cheer on the bombing of Gaza because "they're all terrorists" and support Israel because "God told me so". The idea of dividing up humanity into "people like us" (the "winners", who are angels and deserve to have everything) and "people unlike us" (the "losers", who are scum and should be treated as such) is fundamentally Judaic, but percolated into North American culture via fundamentalist Christianity and has now poisoned the well of public discourse so much that no further unity or consensus among the people is now possible