One Degree wrote:Time. The US is relatively new. Our ancestors thought nothing of traveling hundreds of miles to build a house in the middle of no where. This trait of ‘rugged individualism’ is passed down. As it has become more and more impossible to live as an individual, social programs are reluctantly accepted.
It should also be remembered the ‘rugged individual’ understands better than anyone the need for assistance in the time of need. They see this assistance as temporary and voluntary. Therefore, many Americans still like the idea of private charity over social programs. It is mainly cultural traits and not ideological.
I agree that it's more cultural than ideological. Most Americans, after all, have little or no knowledge of what even capitalism is and how it operates, let alone what socialism is. The 'rugged individualism' of American culture was and is a product of the unusual history and young age of the American nation. It was only made possible by the fact that a frontier existed, with huge expanses of dirt-cheap land up for grabs for any penniless immigrant with sufficient gumption, ingenuity or just plain desperation to make a go of it. In Europe, by contrast, all the land had been claimed for a thousand years or more, and an hereditary ruling elite jealously guarded their class privileges against any hint of a threat from ambitious lower-class upstarts. Under those conditions, any form of 'rugged individualism' simply couldn't make any headway as a cultural thing. The ruling classes would oppose it as a threat to their hereditary social status and wealth, and the lower classes could see very clearly that their only chance of advancement was to combine their forces against the entrenched vested interests of the ruling classes. Individualism simply wasn't a thing in Europe, and still isn't. For example, how many libertarians are there in the United Kingdom? Lol.
Of course, the historical and economic conditions which gave rise to that cultural trait of 'rugged individualism' no longer obtain. The frontier closed more than a century ago, and most Americans are wage slaves rather than pioneers living out on the prairie. This contradiction between the cultural ideal and the sordid economic reality of the modern world has been deeply traumatic for the American people, and they still don't seem to have come to terms with it.
"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies." - Marx (Groucho)