I’ve heard before that The United States could never be socialist because “Those countries are homogeneous.” I don’t think those people are actually thinking that socialism has to be ethnonationalist and in reality Korea is the only homogeneous socialist state, with the other four having large ethnic diversity (Though with high levels of respect for minorities that we do not see in the west) and with Cuba being a colonial country like America with the native population not even being the majority. So how can it be that the average person associates socialism with homogeneity and conformity?
It’s individualism. The answer is that Individualist philosophies and attitudes dominate the United States. This creates a vicious cycle where nobody can support themselves let alone help someone else, and the bourgeoisie find ways to put the masses against each other through economic, social, or other ways that undermine the ability of people to function as a society. Unpopular or oppressive regimes also promote this behavior and attitude because individuals are less able to free themselves than collective groups of people with coherent ideologies.
Anarchism is a contentious ideology within the communist movement. It’s not because they are reactionary or do anything necessarily bad, but the individualist attitude that caused people to go down the path of anarchy as opposed to socialism. The idea that all power needs to be resisted assumes that the individuals cannot come together to ever create a collective that is fair, just, and upholds their interests. Society is like a castle, with certain oppressed people forced to live in dungeons, others forced to farm or be peasants of the castle while the billionaires of the world have miles of luxurious rooms to themselves, and safe places to hide during wars or storms. While communists would argue that we need to work together to take over the castle, anarchists opposing all kinds of power is like destroying the castle under the assumption that the people can never be in control of it. Obviously these ideologies will appease some dissidents but never result in a complete overthrow that would actually endanger and strike fear into the hearts of the bourgeois class.
However you define society, whether it is a country, nation, or even a group of people living together, individualism is the death of it. Humans are social beings and these paradoxical individualistic societies (Since the whole idea of countries or societies are collective in nature) just makes you support a government without it benefiting the members of the society. It just exists for the upper classes to exploit human labor. This kind of regime survives in various ways which you may have seen yourself such as mental manipulation of people, indoctrination, and physical force to protesters. The United States seems to have very little difference economically from feudalism, or even pyramid schemes.