The Church and the USA: Parallel Tracks?

Interesting medium-length paper here from Douthat.  He remarks on the recent (last ~50 years) history of the Church.

This cut won't do justice to the essay:

...In that sense, even after three decades and two ­conservative popes, conservative Catholicism is often still a counterculture within important institutions of the Church. In the pews, too, 

Western Catholicism remains a faith deeply divided....

Douthat goes on to 'splain what that means in more detail.

At that point, it occurred to me that this has been roughly paralleled in the US, which is also "deeply divided."  Look to Congress v. Obama, or even at just the Republican Party.

Is the parallel perfect?  Nope.  Pp. Francis, for all his (frankly) silly talk about Globull Warming and Eeeeevil Capitalism, is a moral 'conservative,' albeit he's being pushed very hard by a small cabal of ultra-liberal Bishops and Cardinals.

Obama has no conservatism of ANY sort to cloud his thinking.

But still, an interesting parallel.