[scaredtobeme]

This part seems true and seems to be easier for non-Americans than Americans to see, which I suppose is not surprising.

Americans have always been good at policing uniformity by and among themselves. The puritanical streak of shaming and stigmatizing and threatening runs deep. This is the country of extraordinary political and cultural freedom, but it is also the country of religious fanaticism, moral panics, and crusades against vice. It’s the country of The Scarlet Letter and Prohibition and the Hollywood blacklist and the Lavender Scare.

The "puritanical streak" is making one of its periodic historical comebacks right now.