Despite what Eurotrash and Eurotrash sympathizers will say, Europe has been late stage Leftist for far longer than the US has AND is the ultimate source of all of it, right down to the Frankfurt School in Germany.
Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand are all countries created by the English and they are all shitholes, yet America was created by the English and it is the greatest country on Earth.
Shitholes only in comparison to the United States. There are countries that beat them in specific things - Scandinavia, for example, has very high GDP per capita, Japan probably has better crime statistics, etc. - but in a big picture way the WHITE Anglosphere bears more resemblance to each other than they do to Europe and are basically the top civilization on Earth.
Was it non-English Europeans, such as the Irish and the Germans?
The Irish, no. The Germans, yes, most of America's inventiveness (and people seem to really underappreciate how many scientific discoveries and inventions of the past two hundred years came out of the United States) originates out of New Englanders and Midwestern "Amerikaners." For a long time Cincinnati, heart of German America, was the Silicon Valley of the 1800s with some of the highest patent rates. Germans were also civilized, industrious, and moderate people who formed the most well-balanced regional culture (Pennsylvania and its Great Lakes and Western offshoots) in America.
Irish at best just melded into the broader nation and did not distinguish themselves in anyways. Scots-Irish, specifically, (ethnically Scottish and Protestant in religion) were the core of America's military and expansionism, Appalachian and Upper Southern people fanning out ahead of the rest of the country, first ones on the scene trapping, hunting, trading, fighting Indians, serving in the armed forces. They were also the heart behind American classical liberalism although they mostly did not develop it themselves, so the American political tradition of liberty is rooted in them, not the English Lowland Southerners (brutal reactionary thugs) or English Yankees (utopian proto-socialist trash).
Jews were massively important in creating our entertainment media.
Were the events that occurred in colonial America during the lead-up to the revolution really so traumatic to the first few generations of Americans that it created a culture focused on the rights of the individual?
No, the Revolution was more of a reaction to encroachment on rights than it was a creative force. The colonies had been founded by the King on paper were mostly various planned societies that were basically built from the ground-up by the colonists and then administered with almost full autonomy until one day the British barged in and started trying to exert power they never had before. Most of the shit the Founding Fathers harped on was rights the British already believed in (no taxation without representation, right to bear arms, etc.). The Americans didn't invent individualism, the British FORGOT it, and they did that sometime around the World Wars.
A nation America's size would be a great power no matter what. But a nation that was not attractive to immigrate to would have never boomed to America's population, and wouldn't have wound up a good place anyways. Immigrants went to all of Latin America, only one nation in the Americas amounted to anything in the long run. If you want an example of another nation with large population (in fact, a more favorable base to start from) and large land, look at Russia. Shithole, from the moment Muscovy took over to now. Capitalism is a necessary condition for a society to be wealthy and innovative (at things besides pure theoretical science and war, and even those it helps) and the cutting edge, pleasant countries throughout history have always been capitalist (Netherlands, Venice, etc.).
Argentina was in the same position as the US around the start of the 1900s. White, federal republic with a war over states rights, frontier with nomadic Indians, mass European immigration (Italians). They went socialist. They failed as a people.
Was it the non-Anglican protestant movements in New England?
Well, maybe? There's a direct correlation between a nation's merit in Europe and how Protestant it is. Scotland is not wealthy but it produced a hugely disproportionate amount of modern science and engineering, and they were Calvinist. New England, Netherlands and Switzerland were Calvinist, and they were ahead of everyone until about 1800. The Lutheran and Anglican countries, next - Germany, Scandinavia, England - were second-rate in scientific achievement or rate of industrialization, and quality of civic life. Then the Catholics, filthy shitholes like Spain. Last, Orthodox basketcases.
Why is that? Nobody really knows. I don't believe it's a Protestant work ethic, but there is an academic argument I do agree with that centralized churches are absolutely toxic to a country's modernization and the Calvinists had the blessings of not having one.
American Evangelicalism then came along to give the US a huge shot of faith around the time Eurofags were losing theirs, and it further reinforced the dispersed church thing at a time when so-called "mainline" churches were ossifying.
It's also been demonstrated around the world that heavy-handed state religions decrease actual religious participation, religious pluralism increases it. People can see when religion is a tool for the state to try to rip them off (Pope).
Did black people have something to do with it?
They're one of the main causes of our very colorful musical and culinary heritage, the former of which has been absolutely crucial for the development of world music. The slave system also acted to stimulate industrialization. Ultimately it resulted in the South underdeveloping and developing, for centuries, a toxic social system and has cursed the modern US for pretty much forever. Black Americans add some brightness to life, but in every other regard their presence here made this country more dysfunctional.
Lastly, I finished reading a book on the French Revolution today. It sucked. But between that and my visits to Presidential plantations (I've been to Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Harrison, and Jackson) I have come to make a few observations of why the US turned out better than France and probably better than the Latin Americans as well.
1) The United States did not have a massive caste system, either racially based or class based (nobility). This meant it was a lot easier to keep a democratic republic going. This was less true in the South, but even in the South slaves were a minority and it was a binary system where the majority were equals in legal status. Made ethnic sectarianism much less of a problem.
2) The most important Founding Fathers mostly came from the same preexisting social circles. Instead of planning to bump each other off they were literal friends before, during, and after the Revolution. Contrast to the shrieking hysteria of the French (disgusting).
3) The Founding Fathers were well-rounded people with interests in things like science. Jefferson was a naturalist and Renaissance man and Franklin was straight-up one of the leading researchers of electricity, and an inventor himself. They were as close to philosopher kings as you could get.
4) The United States had a large middle class based around independent farmers and shopkeepers and such. No masters but themselves, fairly even spread of income. Less true in the South, but even the Southern yeoman farmer was way better off than a European peasant. The ideal citizens for a representative democracy. No huge urban proletariat to (as in France) derail the revolution. No meaningful class conflict. These things got worse as fortunes accumulated. (Which is the downside to the capitalist success.)
