If you want to enact political change then the legal structure of the government is most definitely not a “detail at best.” Consider gun rights, for example. Du

If you want to enact political change then the legal structure of the government is most definitely not a “detail at best.” Consider gun rights, for example. Due to the Second Amendment, every level of the US government is greatly limited in its ability to enact gun control. To change this requires not a mere majority vote in congress, nor even a supermajority in the senate, but a constitutional amendment which much clear both houses of congress AND be ratified by 3/4 of the states! These details matter, and they are important specifically when talking about public policy matters and trying to advocate for change. Back to my original point, there is nothing stopping any US state from adopting universal healthcare, but it’s not clear if the federal government even could if it wanted to (see Medicare expansion and how many states have chosen not to opt in!). Thus if you want to make comparisons to the “things that Europeans take for granted,” it is often more productive to look at what individual US states do and can do, rather than obsess over the federal government. Trivializing that is just a road to getting nothing done.