I have travelled through out Great Britain and worked there. Class distinctions are still rampant even now. You either do not understand the US or have your blinders on
You may have lived and worked in the U.K., but your comments on the House of Lords indicate that your perceptions are more grounded in the past than in the present and future.
As I understand it from my colleagues who have lived, worked, and immigrated, the U.K. is now a politically correct hell-hole that has serious Islamic and demographic problems.
The question at hand is not whether or not in private settings some distinctions are observed, but whether the government has institutionalized distinctions.
Centuries ago, the nobility in England could get away with murder because they were a member of the governing class. I do not believe that now, in practice, they are either part of the governing class or can get away with murder. I don’t think that English police can get away with murder either.
In the U.S., the police can get away with murder, the IRS can get away with extortion, and the executive branch can arbitrarily decide what to enforce and what not to enforce. This is more evident in some places than others.
One further comment on your observation about people not aspiring to be King—Kate Middleton’s parents were flight attendants, so it does seem that, unlike the past, anyone can aspire to be Queen, and anyone can aspire to have a grandchild as King. The flight attendant angle also points to class distinction greatly subsiding in private society. A hundred and ten years ago, as a boy, my great-grandfather was punished for tipping his hat to the social equivalent of such a person, and today a person in direct line to the crown has married such a person.
Another angle to be aware of—the U.S. now follows class distinction through affirmative action.
In point of fact, rich people in nearly every society are treated differently; likewise, people with power, and these two classes often overlap. How differently does vary.
England was an oligarchy in the classical sense of the word for about four centuries. The U.S. was a land where everyone was treated equally with its hay days from the abolition of slavery until the rise of affirmative action. However one needs to be sure that the past and mythology that arises from truths of the past do not unduly colour one’s perceptions of the present.
Police in the U.S. can be very careless about taking innocent lives because they can get away with it. This makes them a priviledged class.