Does american culture resist coercion? Yes, excluding a few big bandwagon issues and incidents. But that's not really the point.

One might say when something needs to get decided or done, does the country get together and get it done or bicker and in-fight? Let's check some big "needs to get this taken care of issues":

* Slavery - Somehow, the "land of the free" was one of the last developed nations to condemn this practice. And while racism is a separate issue, even over a century later we're still having large public arguments about whether the slaves had it "easy" (?!)

* Climate Change - There is largely universal consensus that if current trends continue, there has been and will continue to be an accelerating increase in human suffering. Every developed nation on the planet agrees, almost every qualified scientist in the US agrees. We can accept that our scientists can predict the movements of celestial bodies across distances mind-bogglingly vast down to the minute, but trust our "guts" over them. Some might argue that the US is rejecting a goal chosen by everyone else, and doing so as a brave stand of individualism. I'd argue they are just demonstrating the issue.

Do I need to go on?