Yes, how is this relevant? The point is they were comparing the length of time to cross a single American state to the time to cross an entire country, which are two different things. Driving through Texas isn’t equivalent to driving through Germany, it’s equivalent to driving through Bavaria.
It is because most of the EU participates in an agreement without hard borders and is united by a larger entity that collects taxes and holds elections in its states/countries.
The degree of federalism is higher in the USA than Europeans think it is. After all, each American state has at least one army.
Ah, in that case, no, you’re still wrong and we are not anything like the EU, not really. The of autonomy and sovereignty each member of the EU has is vastly different, and mostly vastly greater, than that of each of the individual states of America. Again, the correct equivalence isn’t America = EU, it’s America = Germany and Texas = Bavaria. Hope that helps.