What I mean to say is that Amtrak does not NEED Japanese-style HSTs to "catch up to the world".
There is no point in worrying about keeping up with the neighbors. We all have different choices.
But HSRail accomplishes something that no other means of transport does (including Superliners), and it does so economically, despite vast construction costs.
America doesn't "need" electricity. We spent 10 thousand years as a solar civilization, then we have burned stuff for the past 300 years... we could certainly go back to solar (and may have to, since we will have burned up all there is to burn, except each other). But would HSRail bring vast positive change to many people's lives? Yes.
You compared a cramped Shinkansen to a Sightseer Lounge. The comparison is to a 737. And, believe me, the quality of the trip on a TGV (and, I assume, on a Shinkansen) is immesurably better, on pretty much every level there is.
So, perhaps we could be inspired by the neighbors, even if we don't feel the need to keep up with them.
BTW, you did impugne the construction quality of non-American equipment, and have not retracted that. But it does not have an obvious factual base.