The high level point is idealism not grounded in historical facts and probably not worthy spending time and going deeper with criticism, because full rebuttal isn’t some expert knowledge - ChatGPT can do that for you. America of 1800s is everything but libertarian paradise and is not truly exceptional. Industrialization in Europe increased prosperity while building welfare states at the same time.
1. The immigrants came by the boatload from Europe to the US. Not the other way around. The Titanic was built for that purpose.
2. The immigrants were the poor of Europe, not the wealthy.
3. The US middle class and upper middle class and the wealthy came from those poor people. I can't think of any American wealthy families that came from the wealthy of Europe.
4. The height of Americans increased dramatically from 1800 to 1900. This is only possible by plenty of food being available. Visit Fort Henry and look at the uniforms of the 1700s. They look kid sized.
5. The uniforms of Civil War soldiers look teen sized. You can see them for yourself in the Gettysburg museum.
6. In WW1 when the US Army arrived on the scene, the Germans were shocked at their height and high quality plentiful food, and then knew they had lost the war.
7. The US supplied all the Allies in WW2 (including the USSR), provided the shipping fleet to do it, floated two navies, one for the Atlantic and one for the Pacific, and simply buried the Axis under the weight of all the hardware it made.
8. The Wehrmacht relied on horses.
9. The European middle class did not have cars until after WW2. The pre-war US filled the country with Model T's for everybody.
10. My grandfather started out shoveling coal in a steamer (a dirty, rotten job). By the turn of the century, he had his own middle class home, and later a vacation home and a couple cars.
Where did you get these facts? Some are extremely cherrypicked, and some are outright false.
> The Titanic was built for that purpose.
It was built to compete with Cunard's Lusitania/Mauretania. While immigrants did board it, elite travel was prioritized.
> The US middle class and upper middle class and the wealthy came from those poor people
False. Those in the top one percent of wealth holders, approximately 3% are European and Canadian immigrants [1].
> The uniforms of Civil War soldiers look teen sized. You can see them for yourself in the Gettysburg museum.
Exagarated at best. Many of those who fought in the war were as young ar 14 [2].
> In WW1 when the US Army arrived on the scene, the Germans were shocked at their height and high quality plentiful food, and then knew they had lost the war.
Do you have a verified source for this? In Erich Ludendorff's memoirs he attributes defeat to logistics / shortages, but does not note the physical stature of US soldiers.
Looks like list of arguments for a beer talk at BBQ party on 4th of July. I mean, are you seriously using „Wehrmacht relied on horses“ as a proof of American exceptionality?
