I've been living abroad for well over a year now. I always have to explain when I get the inevitable questions from people baffled by the inanity of our politics that the U.S. is really like two different countries stuffed inside one border.
There's a reason it's referred to as the united states.
In most of the world, "state" == nation. The US is an exception, but it's because the initial concept, pre-pivot, was of a confederated union of independent states.
