Notes on American Exceptionalism
Rich Lowry and Ramesh Ponnuru are intelligent writers whose work is normally a credit to National Review, but they’ve gone far astray in their recent essay “An Exceptional Debate: The Obama administration’s assault on American identity.” In arguing that President Obama “has all but denied the idea that America is an exceptional nation,” they offer the following evidence:
Asked whether he believed in American exceptionalism during a European trip last spring, Obama said, “I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.” (Is it just a coincidence that he reached for examples of former hegemons?)
In this respect the president reflects the mainstream sentiment of American liberals. We do not question the sincerity of his, or their, desire to better the lot of his countrymen. But modern liberal intellectuals have had a notoriously difficult time coming up with a decent account of patriotism even when they have felt it.
But it is misleading to offer that Obama quote as evidence that he rejects American exceptionalism when his unabridged answer is the following (emphasis added):
I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism. I’m enormously proud of my country and its role and history in the world. If you think about the site of this summit and what it means, I don’t think America should be embarrassed to see evidence of the sacrifices of our troops, the enormous amount of resources that were put into Europe postwar, and our leadership in crafting an Alliance that ultimately led to the unification of Europe. We should take great pride in that.
And if you think of our current situation, the United States remains the largest economy in the world. We have unmatched military capability. And I think that we have a core set of values that are enshrined in our Constitution, in our body of law, in our democratic practices, in our belief in free speech and equality, that, though imperfect, are exceptional.
Now, the fact that I am very proud of my country and I think that we’ve got a whole lot to offer the world does not lessen my interest in recognizing the value and wonderful qualities of other countries, or recognizing that we’re not always going to be right, or that other people may have good ideas, or that in order for us to work collectively, all parties have to compromise and that includes us.
And so I see no contradiction between believing that America has a continued extraordinary role in leading the world towards peace and prosperity and recognizing that that leadership is incumbent, depends on, our ability to create partnerships because we create partnerships because we can’t solve these problems alone.
In other words, President Obama doesn’t “all but deny” that America is an exceptional nation in that question and answer session — he does just the opposite, affirming that our core values, governing framework, and democrat practices are all exceptional, so much so that we have an “extraordinary role in leading the world”! Essayists reach for the strongest examples they can find when crafting an argument. In making the argument that the current president rejects American exceptionalism, Messieurs Lowry and Ponnuru offer as examples a quote that contradicts their thesis, the fact that President Obama declines to defend the Bay of Pigs, a failed invasion of a foreign country that strengthened its tyrannical leader, and the assertion that “on those occasions when Obama places himself in the context of American history, he identifies himself with the post-Wilsonian tradition — with, that is, the gradual replacement of the Founders’ design. He seeks to accelerate it.”
On this last point, President Obama’s rhetoric so frequently contradicts their characterization that it is impossible to list every example. One need only look at the speech he gave at his inauguration to see the authors’ point was disproved on Obama’s first day in office. The text includes these passages:
+ America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because We the People have remained faithful to the ideals of our forbearers, and true to our founding documents. So it has been. So it must be with this generation of Americans.
+ The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.
+ Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience’s sake.
+ In the year of America’s birth, in the coldest of months, a small band of patriots huddled by dying campfires on the shores of an icy river. The capital was abandoned. The enemy was advancing. The snow was stained with blood. At a moment when the outcome of our revolution was most in doubt, the father of our nation ordered these words be read to the people: “Let it be told to the future world…that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive … that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet it.
In other words, that single speech contains multiple invocations of the Founding fathers, their designs, and bold statements about how the Obama Administration must preside over their continuance — “so it must be.”
Moreover, ever since Barack Obama’s introduction to a national audience at the 2004 DNC, when he invoked The Declaration of Independence and E Pluribus Unum, he has very deliberately and repeatedly placed himself in the context of American history by arguing that his story is possible only in a nation with the Founding beliefs of America. Where did this idea come from that he identifies only with a post-Wilsonian tradition when he is constantly alluding to the promise of the Declaration, and how the realization of its truths transformed his personal history in the most profound way? It is utterly false, and proving as much is as easy as reading any number of his speeches.
Near the conclusion of their piece, Messieurs Lowry and Ponnuru write:
The popular revolt against Obama’s policies is a sign that Americans are not prepared to go gentle into that good night. Other factors are of course in play — most important, the weak economy — but the public is saying “No” to a rush to social democracy.
Although the conservatives, libertarians, and independents who oppose Obama’s health-care initiative may not put it in quite these terms, they sense that his project will not just increase insurance premiums but undermine what they cherish about America. Those Americans who want to keep our detention facility at Guantanamo Bay think it necessary to protect our security — but they also worry, more profoundly, that our leaders are too apologetic to serve our interests. Americans may want change, even fundamental change, but most of them would rather change our institutions than our national character.
On health care I’d much prefer free market reforms of the sort discussed here. Should the misguided Democratic bill pass into law, however, I shall not mourn the loss of what I cherish about America, seeing as how what I cherish isn’t an amalgam of Medicare, impossibly complicated state regulatory frameworks, a prescription drug benefit, and tax incentives for employer provided health plans. As for the prison at Guantanamo Bay, did I miss the moment when its operation, which commenced earlier this decade, became part of our enduring national character?
All things considered, the essay in question is unpersuasive.
Let’s apply Occam’s Razor here. Which is more likely:
Lowry and Ponnuru are conducting a serious investigation into Obama’s relationship with American exceptionalism.
OR
Lowry and Ponnuru are seizing an opportunity to suggest, once again, that Obama Hates America.
Your detailed refutation is all well and good, Conor. However, by engaging in direct argument with the NR’s insinuation and slander, you give them exactly what they want: you make “Obama Hates America” into a legitimate viewpoint—it becomes just one more side of the debate. Of course this shit can’t stand up under reasoned analysis. Anyone who has been paying attention, even those who disagree with everything he has been doing, know Obama doesn’t hate america. But Lowry and Ponnuru didn’t intend their argument as a substantive contribution to the debate, they intended to fan the flames of an emotional narrative. And the proper response to that kind of bad faith isn’t refutation, it’s contempt.
— salacious · Feb 28, 11:36 AM · #
I find the debate about whether we, or our politicians, believe in “American Exceptionalism” really comical. It would be better to express it, as Obama does at one point, that he believes that we are an “exceptional” country in that it expresses that the nation is noteworthy or remarkable. The reason is because the term “American Exceptionalism” is an academic keyword used exclusively as a criticism of American nationalism, our belief in a “manifest destiny,” our sense of superiority, and our willful forgetting of all the violence and suffering that attended the founding and expansion of our nation. It carries the exact opposite meaning that is commonly intended in these discussions. And yet, I think even the demand that our politicians state that we are an “exceptional” nation is very much rooted in the same unlettered arrogance that promotes the “USA, USA, USA!!!” chants used to cheer on everything from Shock and Awe to Monster Trucking. Ultimately, this demand that everyone believe in our exceptionalism is just a watered-down form of more extreme forms of nationalism and jingoism. It is precisely this spirit that allows us to schizophrenically assert that the US is not bound to the same rules as other nations. We use “harsh interrogation” they use “torture.” We use “preemptive defense” they “attack.” All this, I think, make Lowry and Ponnuru seem doubly stupid.
— Larry Tate · Feb 28, 01:56 PM · #
Salacious has it right. While it’s good to not automatically assume bad motives or bad faith on the part of those one disagrees with, failure to do so at the right times can make one come off as a naif or a chump. This is one of those times. Lowry and Ponnuru are just engaging in an “Obama Hates America” argument, which is consistent with National Review’s role in recent years as a slightly more highbrow version of Fox News. You’re wasting your time coming up with a detailed response to them, and are just legitimizing their arguments by doing so.
— Mark in Houston · Feb 28, 04:12 PM · #
Fundamenatally, these holier than thou patriots want all the benefits of pride without the cost of shame. If you’re proud of what America stands for and has accomplished, well, what right do you have to that pride? It’s not as if you or me or the editors at NRO actually did any of these things. But we are all nonetheless a little prideful and grateful to live in such a great country. If you accept that pride as legitimate, you must also accept that feeling shameful about parts of our history — slavery, conquering native americans, stupid wars — is legitimate as well.
Al Franken said it best. Conservatives of the American exceptionalism variety love their country like a child loves his parents. “Mommy and daddy would never do anything bad!” Liberals love their country like a husband or wife loves his spouse: aware of the flaws and working to compensate for them.
— Derek Scruggs · Feb 28, 07:33 PM · #
Conor: With “Rich Lowry and Ramesh Ponnuru are intelligent writers whose work is normally a credit to National Review…” you have exceeded your allowed number of sh*t-eating apologetic and obsequious throat-clearing literary maneuvers.
That is all.
— Brad DeLong · Feb 28, 10:54 PM · #
Agree with Larry Tate. Well said.
I’d also point out that any country that puts people like the Clintons in high office instead of in prison is a country that has much to be modest about when it comes to lecturing other countries about democracy and human rights.
— The Reticulator · Mar 1, 05:35 AM · #
From the article:
“especially our religiousness and our willingness to defend ourselves by force — to form the core of American exceptionalism.”
Since when is it exceptional for a country to be religious and to defend itself?
“ As historian Walter Russell Mead notes, over the last several centuries of the West, three great maritime powers have stood for a time at the pinnacle of the international order: the Dutch, then the English, and finally us.”
What historian would say Holland “stood for a time at the pinnacle of the international order” but not mention Spain?
“There never was a time when we were an idyllically isolationist country.”
If we were not isolationist why did we have a tiny military most of the time before 1941?
“he identifies himself with the post-Wilsonian tradition — with, that is, the gradual replacement of the Founders’ design. He seeks to accelerate it.”
I find it stunning that they criticize Wilson for changing from the founders vision in the same essay in which they promote Wilson’s vision of a missionary foreign policy. I am sure they they also would like Wilson’s view that the president should set policy not congress.
“In Europe, we see a civilization that is not willing to defend itself:”
I see countries that do not waste money on a huge military to fight a Warsaw Pact alliance that no longer exists.
I think this article shows that the mainstream right is most passionate about having a self-righteous militaristic federal government to change the world to their image. They have learned nothing form Iraq. They criticize attempts to use the federal government to help ordinary Americans but want the same government to remake the world.
— Mercer · Mar 1, 05:59 AM · #
“In Europe, we see a civilization that is not willing to defend itself.”
Oh, I don’t know why Europeans might want to avoid war… maybe it’s because they suffered the brunt of two global conflicts in the first 50 years of the 20th century, which resulted in the deaths of tens of millions of people and the destruction of most of their major cities — and then spent the next 50 years in a cold war with potential thermonuclear holocaust just a button-push away.
You know, we in the United States tend to forget how awful war is. Maybe that’s because it hasn’t come here since 1812, barring the far-flung Pearl Harbor and Aleutian Islands attacks. If North Carolina had been bombed into oblivion like Poland was, I’m guessing we’d be more reticent, too.
— Travis Mason-Bushman · Mar 1, 08:27 AM · #
Um, I should say, it hasn’t come here from a foreign shore since 1812. The Civil War, of course, pretty much trashed our country.
— Travis Mason-Bushman · Mar 1, 01:32 PM · #
“If we were not isolationist why did we have a tiny military most of the time before 1941?”
It’s like you’ve never heard of the Monroe Doctrine, the Spanish-American War, the Mexican-American War, the Philippine Insurrection, the Westward Expansion, the conquest of Hawaii, how we made contact with Japan…
I mean, really. We were AGGRESSIVELY not isolationist. “Isolationist” in American political parlance has always stood for “Leave us the fuck alone, but we can’t promise to do the same to you if we want something you have.”
— Erik Vanderhoff · Mar 1, 05:32 PM · #
“It’s like you’ve never heard of the Monroe Doctrine, the Spanish-American War, the Mexican-American War, the Philippine Insurrection, the Westward Expansion, the conquest of Hawaii,”
There is a big difference between seizing territory adjacent to the US which will be occupied by citizens and absorbed into the US like the Mexican war and having military bases all over the world on lands that will not be occupied by citizens and integrated into the US. Cuba was our first attempt at the latter and you can see how well that turned out.
The NR article’s rhetoric about the US as a missionary country with a duty to transform the Middle East would have sounded absurd to Washington, Jackson or Coolidge. Wilson, the big government progressive, might approve.
— Mercer · Mar 1, 07:48 PM · #
This post is hilarious. I love how this Conor dude can barely get to the criticism of those NR morons, because he’s so busy praising them. Yeah, right — they’re “intelligent writers.” Uh huh. I also love that he calls those two idiots “Messieurs,” as if he’s writing about Foucault and Derrida or something.
BTW, I might be wrong, but isn’t Conor the same cat who’s always referring to the people he criticizes in posts as “Mr.”? Like, he’ll be oh-so-gently-and-respectfully criticizing some should-be-ignored nuttiness from a psycho-sexual basket case like Victor Davis Hanson or Jay Nordlinger (or someone), and he’ll refer to him as “Mr. Hanson” or “Mr. Nordlinger.” It’s hella funny.
— wetsteint · Mar 2, 11:18 AM · #