Having a person at the helm who actually experienced the horrors of industrial warfare was a lucky break I guess. Maybe Swiss overall had enough memories and experience with severe poverty and warfare to be motivated for a change.
Btw. in many ways the US was a model for the new Swiss Republic as the Swiss must have felt very close to the American independence movement, having had a similar history dealing with foreign powers. It's kind of a shame that this closeness faded in the 20th century, but in its basic political setup Switzerland still is a mini-US in Europe, just with the major addition of direct democracy - something in turn that I'd hope the US could adopt in order to bring new life into its political system.
There is very very little overlap between US and Swiss culture.
The swiss were known for being good mercenaries and for living in such rugged terrain that few nations dared to take them over.
Unlike the US, the Swiss have universal healthcare, free education and a banking secrecy law.
Politically, unlike the US, the Swiss have a council of 5 elders instead of a president. They also have direct voting rights so the citizens can influence the decisions their country makes. for example: to buy or not to buy fighter jets.
socially, the Swiss are much different from the US, giving women a right to vote in 1978. Also having mandatory military service and strong workers protection rights.
At its core the modern Swiss political system was modelled after the US, albeit with changes that made it better suited for the Swiss landscape: Splitting executive power to 7 ministers (because Swiss just generally don't trust anyone enough to give full presidential power) and adding direct democracy at national level [1]. Later, Switzerland also changed from majority (as the US still uses) to proportional elections. In general, the Swiss political system is much more dynamic, with the constitution being constantly amended.
That's what I meant with 'mini-US' - culturally it's certainly not super close, but I'd also say it's a bit closer to the US than other Western European countries, with the economy being a fair bit more 'liberal' (in the classic sense, i.e. more freedom to businesses with lower taxes and weaker worker protections), but it's somewhere in the middle between Germany and the US in those regards.
To be honest, I never lived in Switzerland and only know about it from my Swiss-German friends which, I imagine is a vastly different perspective than a Swiss-French, Swiss-Romansch or a Swiss-Italian would provide.
On the German side, there is a high sense of Community-First, where your neighbor will tell on you if you don't live according to regulations. This is opposite to individual-first mentality of the US where you won't tell on your neighbor for shooting fireworks in the back yard, in hopes that they don't call in on you for a noise violation later (for example). I imagine this mentality difference is the reason why direct democracy would not work in the US since everyone would pull the blanket to their end.
In terms of EU countries most similar to US, Ireland is most similar in terms of liberal economic policy while Germany is most similar in terms of culture imo.
Small towns here definely feel more community driven. I didn't want to claim it to be the most similar, just a bit closer than other continental European countries - the British isles definitely need to be excluded.
> Unlike the US, the Swiss have universal healthcare, free education and a banking secrecy law.
The Swiss model of mandatory private insurance was used as the basis for RomneyCare and then ObamaCare. However, the Swiss model disallows group plans so everyone is on an equal footing, something the USA didn’t dare to do leading to continued healthcare inequality.
As an American who had lived in Lausanne for 2 years, I would not call CH a mini-US, that seems wrong.
Btw. in many ways the US was a model for the new Swiss Republic as the Swiss must have felt very close to the American independence movement, having had a similar history dealing with foreign powers. It's kind of a shame that this closeness faded in the 20th century, but in its basic political setup Switzerland still is a mini-US in Europe, just with the major addition of direct democracy - something in turn that I'd hope the US could adopt in order to bring new life into its political system.