"there is something about English speaking countries especially that are much worse for us than most of the rest of the world"

There have been hypotheses about thought contagions or memetic plagues, and I think this might be an example of one. My experience is that countries with close linguistic or cultural ties to Britain have been most affected by it, and the countries with the least linguistic ties seem best protected.

For example, from western Europe I repeatedly find that Finns are far more rational about this issue (and several other cultural issues) than other western European ethnic groups, and I suspect it is simply because the language is so different that it acts as something of a barrier to the thought contagion. Similarly I have found that South Africa, with its large number of languages including Afrikaans for a large part of the white population, is far less affected than the other nations in the Anglosphere.

It is one reason why I think it would be a bad idea for humanity to have a single language - because if we do, then when humanity goes mad we will all go mad together.