In his book, No Apology: The Case for American Greatness, Mitt Romney proclaims his fealty to American Exceptionalism, an idea quickly becoming an article of faith among the right. For Romney, this idea is not about American values but about maintaining a large, lethal, and expansive American military and foreign policy. Sarah Palin also displayed her faith in American Exceptionalism in recent days, pointing to it as the basic rationale for her political beliefs. She even gives it a chapter in her new book, America By Heart. From the chapter entitled "America the Exceptional," she says of her opponents:
They don't believe we have a special message for the world or a special mission to preserve our greatness for the betterment of not just ourselves but all of humanity. Astonishingly, President Obama even said that he believes in American exceptionalism in the same way "the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism." Which is to say, he doesn't believe in American exceptionalism at all. He seems to think it is just a kind of irrational prejudice in favor of our way of life. To me, that is appalling.
What is "American Exceptionalism" and why is it so important to those on the right that American presidents believe in it? A perusal of various writings on the subject leads in various directions, but essentially it comes down to a belief that we Americans are better than everyone else. Perhaps the best description is from this Wiki on the matter:
A key theme is the claim that the United States and its people differ from other nations, at least on a historical basis, as an association of people who came from numerous places throughout the world but who hold a common bond in standing for certain self-evident truths, like freedom, inalienable natural and human rights, democracy, republicanism, the rule of law, civil liberty, civic virtue, the common good, fair play, private property, and Constitutional government.
Any American willing to take an honest look at America of 2010 would have hard time reconciling American Exceptionalism with reality. For while we should certainly take pride in our centuries-old experiment in representative democracy, one cannot deny that we have managed to make those virtues not so exceptional. We have largely succeeded in exporting them around the world. In 1900, not even the United States would have been considered a democracy by today's standards. There was not a single sovereign democracy in the entire world. But by 2000, there were more than 100. That meant over 63 percent of the world's population lived in a society where belief in American civic values was common. How can one be exceptional in a world where such beliefs are so widely held? Every major nation that has contributed to the vast majority of America's population is now a democracy except China. Britain. Ireland. Italy. Germany. France. Holland. Nigeria. Ghana. Mexico. Japan. Poland. The nations of Scandinavia. One could go on and on. Clearly, America is not special in this regard because far too many countries have the same things we do. In fact, there is a good argument that some of the older European nations have become even more free than we are due to our ever-expanding national security/police state apparatus. One need only look at our prison statistics as evidence.
If we aren't special because we are one of many democracies, is there anything about the results of our civic values that makes us more special or better than everyone else? A handy little tool to investigate this matter is nationmaster.com which maintains a huge database of country statistics. If we are special and better, it should be that case that statistical evidence should back up this view. But, sadly, on a number of fronts we are clearly not exceptional. We are #8 in per capita GDP. We are #17 in lowest political corruption. We're not even #1 in "freedom of decision making." That honor goes to Finland. Nationmaster.com lists a litany of national statistics that are much worse for us, some better. Insisting, however, that we are somehow running the table on being special or unique isn't backed up by the facts. Notably, if we strictly measure our greatness in terms of military lethality, we are certainly the most powerful and capable nation in the world.
What "American Exceptionalism" means for Sarah Palin is, essentially, robust flag waving. It does not involve taking steps to see to it that American become #1 in this or that particular statistic. Those facts are not used in factoring America's greatness by her reckoning. Does it matter much that America go around the world telling everyone else to be like us, since we've largely won that argument? We won it even though the current results are not exactly compelling. No president, Palin or otherwise, can make a compelling case for American education, financial regulation, or the quality of the free press. In fact, Palin would probably be the last person to advocate for the exceptional state of America's press. What matters, appropriately for Palin, is spirited cheerleading. Essentially, she wants Barack Obama, or any other president, to spend a lot of time saying, "We're awesome!" And he or she had better believe it, too! Palin's problem is that she doesn't want America to actually be #1. Rather, her problem is that she thinks it is sufficient to merely believe it and cheer it.
We just had a cheerleader as president and it didn't work out so well.
When you get down to it, what we really need to be talking about isn't America's greatness, but America's spirit. People feel down about the country and uncertain about the future. A substantial majority of the country feels we are on the wrong track. We could use a national pep talk. If not that, perhaps a friendly, reassuring fireside chat. There is something to be said for a president who inspires confidence and optimism in the midst of tough times. But to make America number one again, to be able to wave the flag with pride and facts, we don't need cheerleading. We need action.