> Have you been to the US?

Every state and then some.

> Most Americans can easily make themselves understood (in speech or writing) to most other Americans. They watch the same TV shows and movies.

Intelligibility is not a relevant metric for evaluating statehood. By your measure Canada and the US would already be the same country.

Oh, so now we are talking about levels of political integration? I thought we were talking about cuisines.

> Oh, so now we are talking about levels of political integration? I thought we were talking about cuisines.

If you wanted to talk about cuisines you would have been better served to talk about cuisines instead of mutual intelligibility in speech and writing. Maybe next time you should say the thing you want to say instead of something else, I guess.