[anigbrowl]

You know there are people on HN who come from or live outside the US, right? Instead of ruminating on how incredibly hard it is for mere mortals to understand the historical forces in play, you could just make your attempt at articulating what you think the key drivers were. Granted, a HN comment only allows for so much depth and references to books or academic papers involve work to generate and read, but as it is you've advanced no thesis whatsoever.