I think folks forget (or never realized) that just about all of Europe will fit within the boundaries of mainland U.S.  While there is population diversity in European countries,  it is nowhere near the complexities with which we struggle in America because of our size and because we are mostly a nation of immigrants.

For example, Poland is about the size of New Mexico. France is somewhat smaller than Texas. Germany is a little smaller than Montana.  Both Portugal and Austria are about the size of Maine.

I wonder how many folks realize that, while Russia is larger than the US in land mass, its population is about half of what we have here in America.  Smaller, less diverse, and/or less-populated countries (theoretically) are easier to govern. In terms of politics,  geographical size matters.  We used to call America a “melting pot”, but it is more like a “vegetable soup”. PBS needs to bring back it’s children’s program Vegetable Soup.

The purpose of the program was to be a television series for children to help counter the negative, destructive effects of racial prejudice and racial isolation and to reinforce and dramatize the positive, life-enhancing value of human diversity in entertaining and affective presentations that children could understand and relate to. Vegetable Soup used an interdisciplinary approach to entertain and educate elementary age children in the value of human diversity.

The show combined music, animation, puppetry and live action film, on the subject of economic, racial and ethnic diversity

Back to  size, there is even less awareness, I’ll bet, of the size of Israel.  It is about the size of Vermont.  And Gaza is about the size of Philadelphia.

I recently posted my own solution to the Israeli war, and oddly enough, Kamala Harris’ comes close.  I urge her to take it further.