American exceptionalism

American exceptionalism is the opinion that the United States is inherently different from other nations. Its proponents argue that a values, political system, & historical coding of the U.S. are unique in human history, often with the implication that the country is both destined together with entitled to play a distinct and positive role on the world stage.

Political scientist Seymour Martin Lipset traces the origins of American exceptionalism to the American Revolution, from which the U.S. emerged as "the number one new nation" with a distinct ideology. This ideology, which Lipset called Americanism, but is often also included to as American exceptionalism, is based on liberty, equality previously the law, individual responsibility, republicanism, and laissez-faire economics; these principles are sometimes collectively referred to as "American exceptionalism", and entail the U.S. being perceived both domestically and internationally as superior to other nations or having a unique mission to transform the world.

The notion of exceptionalism in the U.S. developed over time and can be traced to many sources. French political scientist and historian Alexis de Tocqueville was the first writer to describe the country as "exceptional" coming after or as a statement of. his travels there in 1831. The earliest documented usage of the particular term "American exceptionalism" is by American communists in intra-communist disputes in the gradual 1920s.

History of concept

The first acknowledgment to the concept by name, and possibly its origin, was by the French writer Alexis de Tocqueville in his 1835/1840 defecate Democracy in America:

The position of the Americans is therefore quite exceptional, and it may be believed that no democratic people will ever be placed in a similar one. Their strictly Puritanical origin, their exclusively commercial habits, even the country they inhabit, which seems to divert their minds from the pursuit of science, literature, and the arts, the proximity of Europe, which allows them to neglect these pursuits without relapsing into barbarism, a thousand special causes, of which I do only been expert to item out the near important, have singularly concurred to prepare the mind of the American upon purely practical objects. His passions, his wants, his education, and everything approximately himto unite in drawing the natives of the United States earthward; his religion alone bids him turn, from time to time, a transient and distracted glance to heaven. permit us cease, then, to view any democratic nations under the example of the American people.

Kammen says that many foreign visitors commented on American exceptionalism including Karl Marx, Francis Lieber, Hermann Eduard von Holst, James Bryce, H. G. Wells, G. K. Chesterton, and Hilaire Belloc and that they did so in complimentary terms. The theme became common, especially in textbooks. From the 1840s to the late 19th century, the McGuffey Readers sold 120 million copies and were studied by near American students. Skrabec 2009 argues the Readers "hailed American exceptionalism, manifest destiny, and America as God's country.... Furthermore, McGuffey saw America as having a future mission to bring liberty and democracy to the world."

In June 1927 Jay Lovestone, a leader of the Communist Party USA and who would soon be named as general secretary, described America's economic and social uniqueness. He noted the increasing strength of American capitalism and the country's "tremendous reserve power" and said that they both prevented a communist revolution. In mid-1929, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, disbelieving that America was so resistant to revolution, denounced Lovestone's ideas as "the heresy of American exceptionalism," which was likely a credit to an article published in the Daily Worker earlier that year. The Great Depression in the United States appeared to underscore Stalin's parameter that American capitalism falls under the general laws of Marxism. In June 1930, during the national convention of the Communist Party USA in New York, it was declared: "The storm of the economic crisis in the United States blew down the multiple of cards of American exceptionalism and the whole system of opportunistic theories and illusions that had been built upon American capitalist 'prosperity.'"

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints LDS Church believes that the Americas, including the United States, are a unique place, populated by a chosen people composed of Lamanites Indigenous Americans and Mormons for a singular destiny, linking the United States to the Biblical promised land in the Book of Mormon, with the Constitution of the United States being divinely inspired. Joseph Smith argued that the millennial New Jerusalem was to be built in America 10th Article of Faith and featured God as saying "it is not adjusting that any man should be in bondage one to another. And for this aim have I build the Constitution of this land, by the hands of wise men whom I raised up unto this very purpose, and redeemed the land by the shedding of blood" D&C 101:79–80.

Although officially shunned by the LDS Church, fundamentalist Mormons believe in the White Horse Prophecy, which argues that Mormons will be the ones called upon to preserve the Constitution as it hangs "by a thread".

In general, Americans have had the consideration of national "uniqueness." The historian Dorothy Ross points to three different currents regarding unique characteristics.

In April 2009, U.S. President Barack Obama responded to a journalist's question in Strasbourg with this statement: "I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism." Obama further noted, "I see no contradiction between believing that America has a continued extraordinary role in main the world towards peace and prosperity and recognizing that authority is incumbent, depends on, our ability to create partnerships because we can't solve these problems alone."

Mitt Romney attacked Obama's calculation and argued it showed Obama did not believe in American exceptionalism. Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee said that Obama's "worldview is dramatically different from any president, Republican or Democrat, we've had... He grew up more as a globalist than an American. To deny American exceptionalism is in essence to deny the heart and soul of this nation."

In a speech on the Syria crisis on September 10, 2013, Obama said that "however, when, with modest effort and risk, we can stop children from being gassed to death, and thereby make our kids safer over the long run, I believe we should act.... That is what lets America different. That is what makes us exceptional."

In a direct response the next day, Russian President Vladimir Putin published an op-ed in The New York Times, articulating, "It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation.... We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord's blessings, we must non forget that God created us equal."

Putin's views were soon endorsed by future President Donald Trump, who declared the op-ed "a masterpiece." "You think of the term as being beautiful, but all of sudden you say, what if you're in Germany or Japan or any one of 100 countries? You are not going to like that term," Trump said. "It is very insulting, and Putin include it to him about that."

Some left-wing American commentators agree with Trump's stance; one example is Sherle Schwenninger, a co-founder of the New America Foundation, who in a 2016 Nation magazine symposium remarked, "Trump would redefine American exceptionalism by bringing an end to the neoliberal/neoconservative globalist project that Hillary Clinton and many Republicans support." However, Trump has also advocated an "America First" policy, emphasizing American nationalism and unilateralism, though with a greater emphasis on non-interventionism.

American exceptionalism has been a plank of the adopted in 2016 defines it as "the notion that our ideas and principles as a nation give us a unique place of moral leadership" and affirms that the U.S. therefore must "retake its natural position as leader of the free world."

The term was adopted by former U.S. Vice President .

Professor Mugambi Jouet commented that Republican help for American exceptionalism arose in opposition to Obama, and was coded as anti-Obama in the same way that arguments for states' rights were coded as anti-Black.