People look over the pond and they see, oh, Germany has universal health care and pays half as much per capita. They then conclude: "if only we got government more involved, we could do that too."

That last bit of logical reasoning is, in my opinion, not supportable. Let's look at the things the government already does in America in compare it to what the government does in Germany. Germany spends $11,000 per student on public education. We spend $12,800 per student. But our schools are much worse. Transit is the same story. Germany spent $250 million per kilometer to build the U55 line in Berlin. New York spent $2.2 billion per kilometer for its most recent line: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/1/1/14112776/ne....

So yes, America is exceptional. For whatever reason, we are uniquely bad at running public services. Contrary to popular belief, its not because of "lack of funding." (The American government does less, but in the areas it does something, like education, it usually spends more to get worse results.)

Americans understand this intuitively, and that's why they say "it won't work in America because." They may not be able to pull up statistics about how their municipal water/sewage system is poisoning kids and destroying the environment, but they perceive that their government just doesn't do a good job. When polled, they say so. Since 2006, 80-90% of people polled reported being "frustrated" or "angry" at their government: https://www.people-press.org/2015/11/23/2-general-opinions-a.... Even in 1997, 2010, and 2015, all during Democratic administrations, only 1/3 of Democrats thought that the federal government did an "excellent" or "good" job running its programs. For the population as a whole in 2015, 33% said it did a "poor" job, and just 20% said it does an "excellent" or "good" job. As of 2015, 53% would rather have a "smaller government" offering "fewer services" than a "bigger government" offering "more services."

The most remarkable statistic is for millennials: https://reason.com/wp-content/uploads/assets/db/140488628178.... When you ask millenials whether they want a smaller government providing fewer services (with low taxes) versus a larger government providing more services (with high taxes), 57% want a smaller government with fewer services, while just 41% want a larger government with more services. Basically, when you ask millenials--the most pro-government demographic there is--whether they want more of a European-style government, they say "no" with a 3:2 margin.

Yes, America is exceptional. Americans hate taxes, hate their government, and frankly, on various measures, their government isn't very good at what it does.