Philosophy was actually pretty popular in the US up until 1950 or so. In particular, for the latter part of the 19th and first part of the 20th century the coun

Philosophy was actually pretty popular in the US up until 1950 or so. In particular, for the latter part of the 19th and first part of the 20th century the country had Pragmatism, a philosophy designed for America. But then the field got taken over by Logical Positivists and Analytic philosophers following Russell and early Wittgenstein,and they tried to turn it into a rigorous and mostly irrelevant science. And in the meantime in the humanities people turned to continental philosophy and eventually postmodernism,and in political science there were the Straussians. All of these went off in very different directions from the country, and as a consequence attracted followers who didn't have much useful or persuasive to say to the vast majority of people. There are exceptions, like Martha Nussbaum or Peter Singer. But academic philosophy today is mostly irrelevant.