I've come to think that "rugged individualism" is itself a threat to the West. We Westerners lean toward individualism, but the individual can never stand up against a tribe.
Individualism only works so long as you're not being invaded by tribes that favor their own. At that point, you either unite with and favor your tribe, or be destroyed.
The founders understood that:
Individualism can work if men get together to stop tyrants from enslaving them, then disbanding to go home and live their lives
But when people decide to appoint a king after the freedom is won, soon the tyranny will begin again
True individualism is being free but understand the need to fight together as one to stay free,
Even Washington understood the proclivity of humans to want a king. So he declined the off to be king. Thank God he was wise enough to know that, and thus we became a Republic instead of a Monarch under him.
We were warned by God not to appoint a king like others, but we did not listen, and thus we continually fall under the rule of those who desire to be our overlords, and in time those overlords become our slave masters.
I desire to be free, I would rather be killed fighting as a free man than die fighting for a king. Unless that King is Christ.