The end of American Exceptionalism

American exceptionalism

"[The] idea that the United States of America is a unique and even morally superior country for historical, ideological, or religious reasons"

Ever since the beginning, the United States has always been considered exceptional. Special, one might say. And although this idea that America is some unique god-blessed country has always persisted even if it has ebbed and waned, its never truly disappeared. From manifest destiny, the idea that the United States "deserved" to spread democratic and capitalistic values across north America because it was a god given right led directly to the genocide and relocation of the native populations. This exact ideology has persisted until today with people on both sides of the aisle seemingly considering immigrants as inferior or untrustworthy and that even places well outside of the US who aren't democratic states deserve to be liberated from their backwards ways.

The idea of an "American Dream" was a another callback to this very idea of American exceptionalism, that any person could arrive in the United States and become more rich, more powerful, move up the corporate ladder and end up significantly better off than in any other country which is honestly an extremely dubious claim with how capitalism is even if there are some people who have been able to demonstrate such a thing throughout the years.

My Point:

there always comes a tipping point in the world order where things seem to be going perfectly fine, everything still going as is, maybe there are some small issues that begin popping up but at some point countries get split apart, empires fall, and things just start going wrong. Think the fall of Rome during which barbarians sacked the city in the year 410 AD. These moments don't arrive from just a single thing, but a bunch of complex decisions and missteps that led to this singular moment. And for the US, I think that moment is coming up fairly quickly with missteps and problems beginning to show starting in the early 2000s during the Bush administration. 

The war on terror was a horrifying disgusting destruction of life and a complete waste of resources. Public perception of the government evaporated and a new age of cynicism and nihilism really came into fruition, mainly because of the loss of life in those countries, the failures of the Bush administration in telling the public of what really happened there and even more so because of the US soldiers who died fighting a pointless war in the middle east that ultimately had very few successes and many MANY disasters. 

Of course you can follow this line of thought into the current year, where things are much different. The internet now has given people unlimited access to information to the point that its almost impossible to ignore what your government does without actively blocking it out, and that has allowed people especially in America to begin thinking critically about what has actually happened and its pretty obvious that America is not really all that special. It's unique sure, its different, but there's nothing all that exceptional about America. And if that's the case, then what gives the US the RIGHT to genocide a native population? Or declare a religion or culture as inferior? Or decide that a government deserves to be overthrown? Or a political ideology or ethnic population deserves to be repressed? Where does that leave us if people no longer feel the patriotism and nationalism that comes with believing that your government would do you no wrong and would always protect the US citizen?

Trump

So. This guy named Donald Trump this orange orange man. Where did he come from? Well he comes from a rich family in new york (yeah he's lowkey a nepo baby LOL) and his main experience is with real estate. He's gone through MULTIPLE bankruptcies, hid tax documents, was charged and found guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records, and has never been involved in politics at ALL until really 2012 which was when he switched to the Republican party. How did this guy even become the president? I feel like a part of that has to do with the slow death of American Exceptionalism.

As Americans realized that the US wasn't as amazing as they expected, they became more... insecure. Like a boyfriend who can't handle even a bit of harm because of his fragile ego. This seemed especially easy to see in the rural parts of White America where many of these lower income people living in the midwest and south began feeling as though immigrants were somehow "stealing" their jobs. This along with political polarization, failure of the government to improve living conditions, quality of life dropping, and mistrust in government led to a very particular orange man entering the office on promises of being different, kicking out the immigrants and making america great again.

All of these things are indicators of bad times. All of these things will build up over time and if nothing seriously changes, we could very well be facing a drastic drop in American soft power that has already been starting to show cracks leading to a way weaker country and a fall off that will be studied for generations.

There is of course no telling what will happen in the future. Maybe nothing ever happens and the US just recovers from trump but i think its a good idea to try and be aware of what is happening in politics and understanding how that will affect your life.