And you'd be right. But you'd also have admit that Americans tend to do that to themselves. "The American Way" and whatnot; less bright people even saying "Unamerican" as if that was a thing. Those aren't labels others gave you, Americans proudly confess them. And then there is this ever-present flag and/or red-white-blue. From far away those similiarities seem to kinda outweigh the differences, it's just real hard to look past that, it being everywhere and all the time.
You've classified "Americans" as one group when your really talking about "American Nationalists". It sounds like your attributing nationalist propaganda you see on Fox News to all Americans. This is also a great example of state/city variation. Living in Boston for 7 years I can probably count the number of times I've heard someone talking about "The American Way" or using the term "Unamerican" on one hand. One week long trip to Texas and you hear it a dozen times or more.
I didn't say all Americans are that way, I just said some (rather loud, rather constant) Americans generalize themselves; while I don't quite get that vibe from Europe. Movies, presidential speeches, whatnot... it's really not just some nationalists, you export that a lot. That doesn't say anything about those who have no use for that stuff and see through it, I'm just claiming you have a lot of people who don't. I cannot think of any country that is so developed and so into nationalism, at least appearing so from the outside.
You're making the mistake of thinking of Europeans as a whole and comparing it to America.
I've met plenty of Europeans who were incredibly nationalistic from France, Great Britain, Austria, Czech, etc. and they are extremely vocal and proud of their national heritage/identity. They love telling people that they're French, English, Austrian, Czech, etc. but they never claim to be European.
Similarities could be drawn between the individual European countries and US states/regions (Texas is a prime example).
As an American currently living outside America, I would like to emphatically state that America's cultural exports almost always represent Eagleland (check TVTropes... or don't waste half your Friday!) rather than the actual United States.
The problem is that it has taken a convergence of demographic tip-over into a mostly urbanized population and a major political/economic/cultural crisis to stop large portions of the American population from deluding themselves into thinking of America as Eagleland.
I never claimed that it's representative, that was a strawman from reply #1. I just said compared to Europe, Americans seem to do a lot of the stereotyping themselves -- and that also means "American media" compared to "European media". I stand by that, and you just basically confirmed it.
