This is the missing piece most people don't get. If any one European power has access to an entire continent of resources they would be pretty well off. This is American Exceptionalism in a nutshell.

Of course it wasn't actually our continent. We had to engage in a lot of genocide to acquire the land. The strangest part is that there was so much land we could have easily lived in peace. So it really was a conscious decision to go around and exterminate all the tribes.

Between genocide and the slave trade the US was absolutely abysmal when it came to human rights. Something that has never changed. The only reason ithe US was so successful was again because of so much space.

Not only does the size of America make organizing to influence the federal government hard it also acts as a buffer for the decline that is being engineered by the wealthy class. There is plenty to go around, but it is never enough for them. If our country was smaller people would feel these shit policies much quicker and react.