I have noticed and increased tendency recently for people to compare the United States to the United Kingdom. To an extent I fully understand that such parallels are attractive. The United Kingdom is a European country and as such is a wealthy, industrialised nation similar to the US.

They speak a version of English there too, and it makes comparison easier than with somewhere like Germany, Austria, France, etc. It also helps that most Americans actually know where the UK is while many might struggle to place Austria or Belgium on the map.

Then there is the shared history. We owned your asses for a while ... but even that is inaccurate, because when that which became America was owned by the UK, it was actually the UK, and most of the settlers were English, by birth and by loyalty.