America has always been a hyper-individualistic society, but in the turbo-charged Trump era something has changed, says Lewis Liu

“What happened to your country?” 

“Surely most Americans don’t agree with what is happening?” 

Every single non-American I’ve encountered over the last six weeks has asked me questions like this. Over the past month, I’ve spent time in the Bay Area, New York, Switzerland, Austria and now, as I write this column, I’m flying back to the US after spending a week in London.

Americans have changed. I lived in London for almost 15 years before moving back to the US with my wife (an Irish American born in Kansas) and our two young sons three years ago. At first, I felt deeply alienated, experiencing intense reverse culture shock. Did I change, or did Americans change? The service culture wasn’t as friendly as I was used to; even French service seemed warmer! The cars on the road felt much more dangerous – I remember using my horn about once a month, but now it’s almost daily. I also noticed children and parents at my sons’ school racially self-segregating themselves. Surely this isn’t the behaviour of parents and children from the left-leaning American coastal elite?

If you dig into the numbers, you’ll find statistics that support my observations: 75 per cent of Americans believe tip culture is out of control, and the percentage of Americans having dinner or drinks with friends has declined by more than 30 per cent over the past 20 years. The US road fatality rate has increased by 25 per cent post-pandemic and is now two to three times higher than in other OECD countries. Researchers at Berkeley found that more than 80 per cent of the largest US metro areas are more segregated today than they were 20 years ago, with a significant migration of people moving to areas where they share political beliefs and/or racial identity.

What’s revealing is that this segregation even extends to the elite. When I attend a social or professional event in London – whether a reception at Downing Street or a cocktail party in Hampstead – I encounter people of various races and nationalities, and intermarriage is so common that no combination of gender or ethnicity raises an eyebrow. In the US, however, I notice people of the same race congregating together at similar events – charity fundraisers, political galas, my wife’s Stanford reunion and so on. Even in liberal elite enclaves like New York and San Francisco, people sometimes struggle to believe that my wife and I are a couple.

The question, then, is this: With all our wealth, education and “liberal values”, why are Americans still so isolated, lonely and insular? There is ample evidence that technology and the pandemic have pushed Americans even further in this direction, regardless of race or socio-economic status. The US has always been a highly individualistic country – far more so than its OECD peers – and this trend has accelerated exponentially in recent years.