America's militarized brand of malignant exceptionalism is founded on the idea that the United States transcends history.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
American exceptionalism is grounded in the founding of the United States upon an idea, rather than upon the ambitions of men.
The uniqueness of the United States in human history is the United States is the first global power in human history which emerged far away from Africa or Asia, which is the main land of human history.
From leading the world into the age of democracy to spearheading the technological revolution, America has always been at the forefront of greatness.
Affirming belief that America is an exceptional nation has become a test of patriotism in American politics.
Beyond institutional amnesia, a rejection of causal analysis is the existential rock on which American Exceptionalism sits. The United States unique sense of itself depends on an ambiguous relationship to the past. History is affirmed, since it is America's unprecedented historical success that justifies the exceptionalism.
The United States is a proud, determined, hard-working, talented, patriotic nation and people, and it is not over-extended in the manner of empires of the past that took over the lands of others and eventually collapsed under the weight of the over-ambitious hegemon.
We criticize, copy, patronize, idolize and insult but we never doubt that the U.S. has a unique position in the history of human hopes.
People say America is exceptional. I agree, but it's not the complexion of our skin or the twists in our DNA that make us unique. America is exceptional because we were founded upon the notion that everyone should be free to pursue life, liberty, and happiness.
What does the doctrine of American exceptionalism empower the United States to do? Nothing more than to act better than traditional empires - committed to looting and conquest - have done. So that's American exceptionalism: an exceptionalism based on noble ideas, ideas that it holds itself to even when it falls short of them.
America is exceptional in combining standard great-power realism with extravagant idealism about the country's redemptive role in creating international order.