It’s hard to make direct “better” or “worse” comparisons between distros. Each has it’s advantages and disadvantages. They’re really similar and offer similar beginner-friendly experiences. I disliked that popOS doesn’t use Grub, I ran into issues getting the bootloader to show my windows drive.
I think it’s important to question the idea that the US has “always rejected fanaticism”. Sure, our state doesn’t want to be viewed that way. I just think that looking at our history shows a lot of fanatic shit, from the way settlers treated the native population, to all of our conflicts in the 1900’s to now.