France has nearly the same population density as Ohio, and it has the TGV, which covers more than 5 times the land area of Ohio. So where's the Ohio high speed rail network?

This is the scale of Japan compared to the US east coast:

So why aren't there high speed lines that cover that same distance in the US?

Americans complain about US politicians and US policy on a near constant basis, and yet when comparing the US to other nations its apparently impossible for anyone to have made a stupid or self-serving decision. The US apparently is always operating at the absolute limit of what's physically possible, and if there's any deficiency compared to its peers its never because something was done wrong. Its always because "the US is too big" or "we're too diverse" (what does that even mean? You can't have nice things because black people exist?).

To be clear there are actual answers to the questions I posed above, but its not either of those moronic excuses.