[muyuu]

That is not why I meant by collectivism. Deciding things collectively just means you have organs of government.

By collectivistic priorities I simply meant that given trade offs between individual and collective orders of priority, the collective takes priority, often at the expense of individual rights.

America has traditionally had classical liberal ideals of individualism, as laid out by Locke, Rousseau and Franklin chiefly, and later others. What we've seen in the last few decades is a stronger alignment with continental European mainstream thought and politics. Perhaps because cities and demographics have pushed things in that direction. But I think safetyism is also a strong component.