Europe is more politically progressive (in some ways) than the USA, and sustainability is a progressive standpoint. Political identity politics in the USA means that even if you have a ranch in rural Texas and are directly observing the negative effects of fracking on your local environment, you still support the people that are trying to make more of that happen because if you don't, well, you must hate pickup trucks and beer and Christians too (drawing on personal experience as a Texan).
I've poked around on this topic here and there when bored and never found many good explanations for why this is the case. Probably a million weird little reasons, historical, economic, cultural. IMO the country is just too damn big to try to claim a single cultural identity, and it's resulted in absurd caricatures of polarized political identity, fostered as well by a two party system where it's basically impossible to be represented well per your values. In the USA you can't vote for someone that's promoting reducing government spending without also voting for someone that's attacking trans people's right to exist, or at least in the same party as such a person. Or someone that's trying to take away your wife's healthcare rights. Same way you can't vote for reducing oil dependence without also voting for, idk, taking everyone's guns away.
I've poked around on this topic here and there when bored and never found many good explanations for why this is the case. Probably a million weird little reasons, historical, economic, cultural. IMO the country is just too damn big to try to claim a single cultural identity, and it's resulted in absurd caricatures of polarized political identity, fostered as well by a two party system where it's basically impossible to be represented well per your values. In the USA you can't vote for someone that's promoting reducing government spending without also voting for someone that's attacking trans people's right to exist, or at least in the same party as such a person. Or someone that's trying to take away your wife's healthcare rights. Same way you can't vote for reducing oil dependence without also voting for, idk, taking everyone's guns away.