The United States of America considers itself the world's democratic social prototype. At least most Americans seem to buy into that national self-image.
Just as they believe Adam was intelligently designed in God's image, they appear convinced that the "free" world must be a virtual rubber stamp of the U.S. of A.
But actually, in the non-Western world, it is Japan that more accurately provides the mold shaping the future of societies; and that mold was fashioned a century and a half ago.