The first nation to establish a constitutional republic at the end of the 18th century.
Not true:
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_corse
How did a bunch of religious fanatics who were expelled from England, Scotland and other parts of Britain manage to create such power? I
The founding fathers and general elite were anything but religious fanatics. They were at best deists or weakly Christian, even Washington himself.
I still cannot understand the genesis of the power of the United States in the context of comparison with other nations of that time. It's like some kind of cheat codes.
In comparison to the rest of the colonial New World, America had autonomous, stable governmental structures which focused on internal development. Colonies like Mexico, Brazil, and Peru were tightly controlled to extract as much value as possible for the colonial power's homeland. When abruptly given independence due to the collapse of the homeland, they had no stable governance, no real economy, no native intellectual elite, and no unity. As a result, you get all kinds of caudillos, fake monarchs, coups, border wars, civil wars, revolts, and independence wars. North America also had few and comparatively weak enemies with a vast swath of resource rich land to freely settle.
America may look destined in retrospect, but the country did have its difficulties: a war by the south for independence, ever-present tensions with France, Spain, and the UK/Canada, an unstable and unfriendly Mexican neighbor to its south, no allies, rapid industrialization, tycoons and trusts, constant internal strife due to mass politics, racial tensions, migrant tensions, religious tensions, and more.
