The work of Benjamin Franklin as well as the rest of the Committee of Correspondence in appeasing France were the keys to victory, not ideology. The French gradually funneled aid throughout the campaign and when the rebellious colonist started making strong gains against Britain, France went "full bore" knowing victory could be achieved against their hated rival.
We are not in disagreement. The actual "revolution", as John Adams later noted, was in the minds of the people, beginning some ten to fifteen years before the Declaration of Independence. All that followed, including the marshaling of Britain's european rivals to render military aid, grew out from that ideological shift. It all fit together and worked; the "brushfires of freedom in the minds of men" drove the colonists to rebel - or at least to support the rebellion - and the proof of their resolve convinced the French to move against England.
God help us if those "brushfires" are ever fully extinguished.
I would suggest that the timeframe began long before that, back to the time when the English Civil War and its aftermath left the Colonies to pretty much take care of themselves.