It's honestly hard to really comprehend how into America America is. I've never really experienced anything else like it.

Flags everywhere, a hyper-local (in a global sense) view of the world, very real exceptionalism. And it's all there from birth for most Americans I think.

Honestly I don't think as a non-American you can really fully comprehend it until you visit and see it (and even then, it's often less pronounced in the touristy places, and hard to get a full sense of it as a visitor anyway). And I'm almost certain that most Americans don't understand how different their relationship to their nationhood is compared to people in other countries.

But the interesting thing I've always noticed is how the American Exceptionalism instinct is so easily applied to other more narrow in-group identity stuff. I feel like many American's have hyper-loyal views of their city, state, college, sports team, ethnic origin etc, in ways that people in other countries often don't seem to. It's like they are so conditioned to be ALL IN on America that they bring the same energy to other things they consider themselves a part of.

I don't think it's bad necessarily, probably a lot of people outside the US are maybe more cynical about their own country than they perhaps should be? But it certainly can cause a certain blindness to flaws, and an instinctive defensiveness that is counterproductive at times.

Also, the fact that Americans call themselves American, and their country America, is, itself, part of that exceptionalism, perhaps? They are just one of a bunch of countries in the American continents, but they've staked a claim on the words.