@goatsarah It’s the colonial mindset. I truly believe it is almost impossible for an American to conceive of the world as separate from America. There’s America, there are the friendly Disneyland states you visit to be entertained by the curious displays of the Almost-Americans, and then there are the Brown people ghettos you bomb (with a suitably diverse military, of course)…
As I watched an American tell a Brit once: “Accent? I don’t have an accent… you have an accent!”