Americans really love their signifiers of negative freedom (“freedom from”) and negative identity, and they turn those into religions just as much as any religion they might actually practice. So the tradcath thing is partly a silly aesthetic pose (e.g. Dasha from Red Scare), but it also usually serves an actual need, even if it’s something really neurotic. As the evangelical Protestants have become so perniciously anti-intellectual and backward, the tradcath option looks more appealing to those who value education and at least a minimal amount of intellectual content to their spirituality. It also has a big performative aspect (lots of costume dress-up for the clergy, Latin Mass zealotry, etc.) that allows one to differentiate from the evangelicals (negative identity). My guess is that’s why you see so many high-profile converts lately among the power elite.
Another example of this, maybe less important but still notable, is the defiance of many states over Federal scheduling of cannabis (a C-I drug, therefore “totally illegal”). While the FDA claims jurisdiction over all drugs, probably using the Interstate Commerce Clause (be advised, IANAL), the states have looked at cannabis as a states rights issue. Right now, I think they are avoiding really big legal trouble by using a few loopholes (e.g. MN is deriving its delta-9-THC and other cannabis products from industrial hemp, a fairly inefficient process). Outside of Native American reservations, I’m not sure that any state is actually selling anything like cannabis flower. But it is real defiance on the part of many states, since delta-9-THC and other cannabinoids are the substances which are actually scheduled and regulated by the FDA, and they have really pissed off the Feds with their actions. I don’t think you would have seen this at an earlier time in US history, and it’s an interesting development.
Then there’s the Covid response, or lack of it, mostly thanks to the chuds turning it into another front in the culture war. That’s also one for the history books.