Jack always wrote about America -- never the United States. The "United States" implies government, the bureaucrats, the politicians and the bad stuff about Washington. But Jack wrote of America, which is what he knew and saw On The Road, up a mountain or in the City.

America is the rural highways, the rocky coast and the corner diners -- not government interstates cutting across the fields or winding through the Rockies. It's appropriate Jack predates that time in American history, but even if he hadn't, he probably would've ignored it all anyway.

Jack knew America.