Puritanism in American Culture

Puritanism might be the word you were looking for.

Strong puritanical roots in the united states, pervasive throughout society.

I'd say OP meant puritanism as it evolved in USA after those puritans were driven out of Europe to new world.Most of W Europe doesn't seem aligned with 1600 views today. Significant parts of US culture is aligned with 17-1800 us puritanism views.

The Puritanical origins of the US reverberate to this day. While coming for "freedom of religion" sounds like a noble origin story, the context was that they wanted the freedom to practice a much stricter, restrictive form of religion than that allowed by the Church of England.

the united states is puritan. we always think we've broken away from our puritanical roots, when really we've just found new expressions of our puritanism.

The US has a different history than Europe. One aspect of that history being the strong influence of religious puritans who were among the earliest colonizers, and whose impact has and can still be seen today in various aspects of American society and culture.

That's not political correctness, it's Puritanism.

Remember the Puritans settled in the North. In any case wherever this originates, the US's puritanical tendencies (compared to continental Europe) don't seem to be exclusively a southern thing.

Weird (mostly American) puritanism.

It makes sense when you think it was colonized by puritans.