"Its unelected politicians demonstrate utter contempt for its for its electorate. Not something, I think, that can be levelled at the USA."
Oh, I'm fairly sure that the political elite in the Senate are about as disengaged from the people they represent as the EU are.
Also, I think you're taking the comparison a little too literally, in one sense: it's fundamentally obvious that, from a political point of view, a USE and a USA could share many features in common; how much in common would be largely a matter for the EU to decide, but in theory you could almost draw a one-to-one correspondence between various institutions. The EU Parliament and the House of Representatives, for example, could well largely have the same functions in future, while some merging of the EU Council and EU Commission would turn into the Senate; the countries' individual legislatures would map to State Congresses, and so on. It's not a specious comparison at all, if it were to be designed that way.
To be sure, I'm happy to accept that there are many differences as well -- although I think some States would grumble if you said that they were all basically the same, it's clear that the differences between French and Polish culture, say, dwarf those between North Carolina and South Dakota. But a comparison doesn't have to be perfect to be valid.