I think what happened in America was, major capital players wanted to change the way things were done here, but they didn't have the political clout to pull it off. They discovered if they could just get the Christian community to go along with them, they could get things change, so they back Ronald Reagan--or groomed him, might be a better way to say it--and with the whakked out religious right, they were able to get the changes they wanted.
            The US and Europe started in different directions when Reagan came to power.