Why is the USA so far to the right of other Western countries politically, both economically and socially?
Is it any surprise that the highest density cities tend to be the most liberal? High-density forces people to tolerate personal freedom and cultural differences. Low-density allows people to ignore uneven distributions of wealth and standards of living.
.. There is a tendency (not direct correlation) amongst Western developed nations that the more homogeneous the population, the more generous the social safety net.
.. I think a full analysis of the factors involved would show that it’s not overall population density that weighs so heavily (thus e.g. Phoenix) but the fact that certain kinds of people do or do not move to cities. It’s common cause, rather than cause and effect. There are people whose cultural/psychological makeup makes them both want to vote conservative (which they would do even in the city) and stay rural (which they would do even in a more liberal country).
.. From the other perspective European states entered into a social contract in the wake of World Wars 1 & 2 and the bloody Russian revolution (and more distantly the French one). The motivation was to avoid a revolution.
Once the principle of the state providing welfare and healthcare has Been established, the suggestion that the majority of the electorate should loose these provisions is electoral suicide.
Americans have never had them, so it’s easy to point to the cost, and anyone who has never needed a prohibitively expensive intervention (such as heart surgery) will oppose such communal provision of healthcare (or other welfare).
.. The US was built up out of heterogeneous immigrant groups and the newer immigrant groups were never liked by the older. This means that the populace doesn’t feel a close kinship with itself. As such they distrust social safety nets and similar blanket federal programs and prefer smaller ones run by people you identify more closely with. This leads to a more libertarian perspective on life. I describe it this way because European countries are seeing similar forces in their populations now that they have significant immigrant populations.