tag:theconversation.com,2011:/uk/topics/american-exceptionalism-2366/articlesAmerican exceptionalism – The Conversation2023-04-04T12:19:38Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2031002023-04-04T12:19:38Z2023-04-04T12:19:38ZHow the indictment of Donald Trump is a ‘strange and different’ event for America, according to political scientists<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518856/original/file-20230401-26-vgxsr6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=9%2C0%2C6002%2C4001&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">It was big news when a grand jury voted to indict former President Donald Trump.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/newspaper-front-pages-with-former-us-president-donald-trump-news-photo/1250118227?adppopup=true">Ed Jones/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/trump-indictment-wont-keep-him-from-presidential-race-but-will-make-his-reelection-bid-much-harder-197677">indictment of a former president</a> of the United States, Donald Trump, is history happening in real time. The Conversation asked political scientists <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=FlYT3TEAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">James D. Long</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=W54pBFgAAAAJ">Victor Menaldo</a>, both at the University of Washington, to help readers understand the meaning of this moment in the U.S. The two scholars have written about the lessons other democracies can teach the U.S. about <a href="https://theconversation.com/prosecuting-a-president-is-divisive-and-sometimes-destabilizing-heres-why-many-countries-do-it-anyway-188565">prosecuting a president</a> and provide the context for Trump’s arraignment in a Manhattan courthouse.</em> </p>
<h2>What was the first thing you thought when you heard that the grand jury voted to indict Trump?</h2>
<p><strong>James Long</strong>: The first thought I had was about the grand jury, and how much work it is to be on a grand jury. It becomes a part-time job. And how wonderful that we live in a country where that’s how these things are decided. Twenty-three people performed this service that is so critical to the functioning of our country and our democracy. They do it not just for Donald Trump’s case, but for many types of cases. There was something very touching about it.</p>
<p>The strength of our legal system is the thing that makes me proud. What makes me sad is that we’re in this situation. If you think about all the battles that have been fought to make our democracy better, stronger and more inclusive over more than 200 years – we’re now at a place where someone has threatened that to pursue their own interests. That’s just a sad thing to have to experience as a country. I’m glad that we’re going through it following the rule of law, as opposed to fighting it out as a political matter in the streets or fighting a war or something else disastrous, as other countries have done.</p>
<p><strong>Victor Menaldo</strong>: I thought of cases that are similar, analogs in other parts of the world. Prime Minister <a href="https://theconversation.com/prosecuting-ex-presidents-for-corruption-is-trending-worldwide-but-its-not-always-great-for-democracy-156931">Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel</a> came to mind. <a href="https://apnews.com/article/caribbean-evo-morales-bolivia-50747531a0c6a757cd5f423ccf8e84d5">Evo Morales in Bolivia</a> came to mind. A <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/20190321-brazil-fall-three-former-presidents">bunch of Brazilian former presidents</a> <a href="https://www.axios.com/2022/10/31/lula-looks-to-restore-brazils-tarnished-global-stature">came to mind</a> – the past four, in fact – who went through different stages of prosecution or impeachment, or some were arrested, some spent time in jail.</p>
<p>I also thought about the politics and how Trump might continue down the path he’s been on – getting folks inflamed and throwing fireballs and muddying the waters. How far will he go, and what purposes will that serve – maybe intimidating judges, witnesses and juries and the like – in terms of bolstering his campaign?</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518862/original/file-20230401-28-kvtf32.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man in a dark suit and white shirt holds an upturned fist." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518862/original/file-20230401-28-kvtf32.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518862/original/file-20230401-28-kvtf32.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518862/original/file-20230401-28-kvtf32.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518862/original/file-20230401-28-kvtf32.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518862/original/file-20230401-28-kvtf32.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518862/original/file-20230401-28-kvtf32.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518862/original/file-20230401-28-kvtf32.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Former President Donald Trump after speaking during a rally at the Waco Regional Airport on March 25, 2023, in Waco, Texas.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/former-u-s-president-donald-trump-prepares-to-depart-after-news-photo/1476375191?adppopup=true">Brandon Bell/Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>What can this indictment do to America?</h2>
<p><strong>James Long</strong>: My generation lived through <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/legacy/Clinton-Lewinsky-story.pdf">President Bill Clinton’s impeachment</a>. As I’ve grown older, I’ve seen other things that other presidents have gotten away with. So I probably thought the indictment would not have been that surprising. </p>
<p>Yet the indictment is shocking to me now. It’s also just shocking in the sense that Trump has spent his entire life in litigation and either getting away with stuff or not, but never being potentially held at a personal level legally liable in a criminal matter – although he does still have the presumption of innocence. It was very shocking to me to think that this has finally happened – like, this really is strange and different.</p>
<p><strong>Victor Menaldo</strong>: I tend to see the U.S. as less exceptional these days, at least politically, because of Trump. The various <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/trump-investigations-civil-criminal.html">investigations of Trump</a>, and now the indictment, are less surprising than they might have been at one time. Americans had anticipated that a shoe would drop eventually, and this indictment was the shoe, or one of the first shoes. It was bound to happen, because Trump has been pushing the envelope for so long.</p>
<p>I <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/authoritarianism-and-the-elite-origins-of-democracy/29C0246C5474CBC5184B2967AD4206ED">co-authored a book in 2018</a> with <a href="https://political-science.uchicago.edu/directory/michael-albertus">Michael Albertus</a>. Our fundamental premise was that the fear of prosecution drives a lot of politics, across countries and across time. It’s basic to whether you’ll have a democracy or whether the democracy will weaken. </p>
<p>So if you’re afraid of prosecution, you might, if you’re a dictator, prevent democracy at all costs. If you were very nasty, you’d make sure that democracy doesn’t happen or that it happens on your terms, because if it happens on someone else’s terms, you’re going to end up in a prison. You’re going to try to craft a system where the judiciary is beholden to you so you don’t get in any trouble.</p>
<p>My other thought is, thank goodness that this happened once Trump was out of power. You don’t control the machinery of government when you’re out of power. You don’t control the Justice Department. Your power is weak politically, even though Trump is the putative <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/03/30/trump-indictment-republicans-rally/">leader of the Republican Party</a> and <a href="https://morningconsult.com/2024-gop-primary-election-tracker/">front-runner in the GOP</a> for the 2024 nomination. But he lacks the cachet he once had and he lacks the powers he would otherwise use to cause much damage. That gives me optimism that this prosecution might not be as existential to our system as it would have been, let’s say, when he was still in power.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518861/original/file-20230401-28-bpbu79.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man in a a white T-shirt setting up a metal barricade in front of a building." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518861/original/file-20230401-28-bpbu79.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518861/original/file-20230401-28-bpbu79.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518861/original/file-20230401-28-bpbu79.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518861/original/file-20230401-28-bpbu79.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518861/original/file-20230401-28-bpbu79.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518861/original/file-20230401-28-bpbu79.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518861/original/file-20230401-28-bpbu79.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">New York Police Department workers set up barricades outside the offices of the Manhattan district attorney on April 1, 2023, in New York City.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/workers-with-the-nypd-set-up-barricades-outside-the-offices-news-photo/1250351591?adppopup=true">Kena Betancur/Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Are the arrest and booking symbolically important in the grand story of Trump and America?</h2>
<p><strong>James Long</strong>: Certainly. I think that is going to be the image that is next to his obituary – a former president’s mug shot.</p>
<p>I believe that Trump’s political stock has declined every day since he’s left office. I think he thinks this prosecution will help him, and it might short term. I think he’s going to try to use that image, much like Jesus on the cross, to say, essentially, “Here I am being martyred at the hands of a Democratic DA in a Democratic state among a grand jury probably made up of citizens who are all Democrats out to get me, and a judge out to get me!”</p>
<p>That mug shot might be an image he’s going to exploit, but ultimately, I believe it’s going to be embarrassing to him. I don’t think moderate Republicans will vote for somebody who is being prosecuted. I think they’re going to shop around. The <a href="https://www.ncsl.org/elections-and-campaigns/2024-state-primary-election-dates">first primary is a little less than a year</a> away. There’s a long time for the Republicans to politically realign themselves behind another candidate.</p>
<p><strong>Victor Menaldo</strong>: Trump’s best move, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/06/the-mind-of-donald-trump/480771/">according to his theory of the world</a>, is to be a martyr and to weaponize the symbolism of a former president being indicted and claim it’s totally politicized.</p>
<p>I would say that anyone who cares about the rule of law in general, Democrats and the folks in these judicial proceedings, in particular, they have to be very careful not to reinforce that weaponization narrative there. I believe the prosecutors will probably do unconventional things and treat Trump differently from your typical defendant. They’ll reduce the odds that there is going to be some mug shot that goes viral, they won’t cuff him, won’t do the perp walk. They’ll treat him with respect and dignity. </p>
<p>How they handle his arraignment is going to be a fascinating game to observe – how to lower the profile of that moment. Their best strategy would be to play it down and try to uphold the dignity of the office or former office. Trump’s best move is to say this prosecution is weaponization of the legal system, milk the idea he’s being persecuted for all it’s worth and some of that will probably stick with his core supporters.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/203100/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>For the first time, a former US president has been indicted, and two scholars describe what it means for democracy – and for them.James D. Long, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of WashingtonVictor Menaldo, Professor of Political Science, Co-founder of the Political Economy Forum, University of WashingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1904862022-09-15T12:18:39Z2022-09-15T12:18:39ZUS is becoming a ‘developing country’ on global rankings that measure democracy, inequality<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/484375/original/file-20220913-4673-1pyfbw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C43%2C4785%2C2687&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">People wait in line for a free morning meal in Los Angeles in April 2020. High and rising inequality is one reason the U.S. ranks badly on some international measures of development.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/homeless-people-wait-in-line-for-a-morning-meal-at-the-fred-news-photo/1210677779?adppopup=true">Frederic J. Brown/ AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The United States may regard itself as a “<a href="https://www.americanforeignrelations.com/E-N/Exceptionalism-The-leader-of-the-free-world.html">leader of the free world</a>,” but an index of development released in July 2022 places the country much farther down the list. </p>
<p>In its global rankings, the United Nations Office of Sustainable Development dropped the U.S. to <a href="https://dashboards.sdgindex.org/rankings">41st worldwide</a>, down from its previous ranking of 32nd. Under this methodology – an expansive model of 17 categories, or “goals,” many of them focused on the environment and equity – the U.S. ranks between Cuba and Bulgaria. Both are widely regarded as developing countries.</p>
<p>The U.S. is also now considered a “flawed democracy,” according to <a href="https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2022/02/09/a-new-low-for-global-democracy">The Economist’s democracy index</a>.</p>
<p>As a political historian who studies U.S. <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/kathleen-frydl-0406b21a5/">institutional development</a>, I recognize these dismal ratings as the inevitable result of two problems. Racism has cheated many Americans out of the health care, education, economic security and environment they deserve. At the same time, as threats to democracy become more serious, a devotion to “American exceptionalism” keeps the country from candid appraisals and course corrections.</p>
<h2>‘The other America’</h2>
<p>The Office of Sustainable Development’s rankings differ from more traditional development measures in that they are more focused on the experiences of ordinary people, including their ability to enjoy clean air and water, than the creation of wealth. </p>
<p>So while the gigantic size of the American economy counts in its scoring, so too does unequal access to the wealth it produces. When judged by accepted measures like the <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.GINI?locations=US">Gini coefficient</a>, income inequality in the U.S. has risen markedly over the past 30 years. By the <a href="https://data.oecd.org/inequality/income-inequality.htm">Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s measurement</a>, the U.S. has the biggest wealth gap among G-7 nations.</p>
<p>These results reflect structural disparities in the United States, which are most pronounced for African Americans. Such differences have persisted well beyond the demise of chattel slavery and the repeal of Jim Crow laws.</p>
<p>Scholar W.E.B. Du Bois first exposed this kind of structural inequality in his 1899 analysis of Black life in the urban north, “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt3fhpfb">The Philadelphia Negro</a>.” Though he noted distinctions of affluence and status within Black society, Du Bois found the lives of African Americans to be a world apart from white residents: a “city within a city.” Du Bois traced the high rates of poverty, crime and illiteracy prevalent in Philadelphia’s Black community to discrimination, divestment and residential segregation – not to Black people’s degree of ambition or talent.</p>
<p>More than a half-century later, with characteristic eloquence, Martin Luther King Jr. <a href="https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/the-other-america-speech-transcript-martin-luther-king-jr">similarly decried</a> the persistence of the “other America,” one where “the buoyancy of hope” was transformed into “the fatigue of despair.” </p>
<p>To illustrate his point, King referred to many of the same factors studied by Du Bois: the condition of housing and household wealth, education, social mobility and literacy rates, health outcomes and employment. On all of these metrics, <a href="https://theconversation.com/black-americans-mostly-left-behind-by-progress-since-dr-kings-death-89956">Black Americans fared worse</a> than whites. But as King noted, “Many people of various backgrounds live in this other America.”</p>
<p>The benchmarks of development invoked by these men also featured prominently in the 1962 book “<a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Other-America/Michael-Harrington/9780684826783">The Other America</a>,” by political scientist <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-socialism-stopped-being-a-dirty-word-for-some-voters-and-started-winning-elections-across-america-156572">Michael Harrington, founder</a> of a group that eventually became the Democratic Socialists of America. Harrington’s work so unsettled President John F. Kennedy that it reportedly <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-a-new-yorker-article-launched-the-first-shot-in-the-war-against-poverty-17469990/">galvanized him</a> into formulating a “war on poverty.” </p>
<p>Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon Johnson, waged this metaphorical war. But poverty <a href="https://www.cbpp.org/poverty-and-place">bound to discrete places</a>. Rural areas and segregated neighborhoods stayed poor well beyond mid-20th-century federal efforts.</p>
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<img alt="Tents line a leafy park; some people can be seen chatting outside one tent" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/484374/original/file-20220913-4701-2mulzv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=6%2C19%2C4275%2C2824&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/484374/original/file-20220913-4701-2mulzv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484374/original/file-20220913-4701-2mulzv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484374/original/file-20220913-4701-2mulzv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484374/original/file-20220913-4701-2mulzv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484374/original/file-20220913-4701-2mulzv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484374/original/file-20220913-4701-2mulzv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Camp Laykay Nou, a homeless encampment in Philadelphia. High and rising inequality is one reason the US rates badly on some international development rankings.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/camp-laykay-nou-celebrated-a-stay-in-the-city-of-news-photo/1227676000?adppopup=true">Cory Clark/NurPhoto via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>In large part that is because federal efforts during that critical time accommodated rather than confronted the forces of racism, <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/history/american-history-after-1945/gi-bill?format=HB&isbn=9780521514248">according to my research</a>. </p>
<p>Across a number of policy domains, the sustained efforts of segregationist Democrats in Congress resulted in an incomplete and patchwork system of social policy. Democrats from the South cooperated with Republicans to doom to failure efforts to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/universal-health-care-racism.html">achieve universal</a> <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/06/the-fight-for-health-care-is-really-all-about-civil-rights/531855/">health care</a> or <a href="https://www.salon.com/2018/06/07/big-business-and-white-supremacy-the-racist-roots-of-americas-right-to-work-laws/">unionized workforces</a>. Rejecting proposals for strong federal intervention, they left a checkered legacy of <a href="https://www.sc.edu/uofsc/posts/2022/04/conversation-jim-crow.php#.YyHMrOzMK8p">local funding for education</a> and <a href="https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/10.1377/hlthaff.2021.01466">public health</a>. </p>
<p>Today, many years later, the effects of a welfare state tailored to racism is evident — though perhaps less visibly so — in the inadequate <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanam/article/PIIS2667-193X(22)00081-3/fulltext">health policies</a> driving a <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/nchs_press_releases/2022/20220831.htm">shocking decline</a> in average American life expectancy.</p>
<h2>Declining democracy</h2>
<p>There are other ways to measure a country’s level of development, and on some of them the U.S. fares better. </p>
<p>The U.S. currently ranks 21st on <a href="https://hdr.undp.org/">the United Nations Development Program’s index</a>, which measures fewer factors than the sustainable development index. Good results in average income per person – $64,765 – and an average 13.7 years of schooling situate the United States squarely in the developed world.</p>
<p>Its ranking suffers, however, on appraisals that place greater weight on political systems. </p>
<p>The Economist’s <a href="https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2022/02/09/a-new-low-for-global-democracy">democracy index</a> now groups the U.S. among “flawed democracies,” with an overall score that ranks between Estonia and Chile. It falls short of being a top-rated “full democracy” in large part because of a fractured political culture. This growing divide is most apparent in the divergent paths between “red” and “blue” states.</p>
<p>Although the analysts from The Economist applaud the peaceful transfer of power in the face of an <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-sore-loser-effect-rejecting-election-results-can-destabilize-democracy-and-drive-terrorism-171571">insurrection intended to disrupt</a> it, <a href="https://www.eiu.com/n/campaigns/democracy-index-2021/?utm_source=economist&utm_medium=daily_chart&utm_campaign=democracy-index-2021">their report laments</a> that, according to a January 2022 poll, “only 55% of Americans believe that Mr. Biden legitimately won the 2020 election, despite no evidence of widespread voter fraud.”</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/05/us/politics/america-first-secretary-of-state-candidates.html">Election denialism carries with it the threat</a> that election officials in Republican-controlled jurisdictions will reject or alter vote tallies that do not favor the Republican Party in upcoming elections, further jeopardizing the score of the U.S. on the democracy index. </p>
<p>Red and blue America also differ on access to modern reproductive care for women. This hurts the U.S. gender equality rating, <a href="https://www.guttmacher.org/gpr/2015/10/onward-2030-sexual-and-reproductive-health-and-rights-context-sustainable-development">one aspect</a> of the United Nations’ sustainable development index.</p>
<p>Since the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/06/24/1102305878/supreme-court-abortion-roe-v-wade-decision-overturn">Supreme Court overturned</a> Roe v. Wade, Republican-controlled states have enacted or proposed grossly <a href="https://today.westlaw.com/Document/I1ebf6cf01a6a11ed9f24ec7b211d8087/View/FullText.html%22%22">restrictive</a> <a href="https://www.guttmacher.org/state-policy">abortion laws</a>, to the point of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/10/us/abortion-bans-medical-care-women.html">endangering a woman’s health</a>. </p>
<p>I believe that, when paired with structural inequalities and fractured social policy, the dwindling Republican commitment to democracy lends weight to the classification of the U.S. as a developing country.</p>
<h2>American exceptionalism</h2>
<p>To address the poor showing of the United States on a variety of global surveys, one must also contend with the idea of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2015/06/03/obama-and-american-exceptionalism/">American exceptionalism</a>, a belief in American superiority over the rest of the world. </p>
<p>Both political parties have long promoted this belief, at home and abroad, but “exceptionalism” receives a more formal treatment from Republicans. It was the first line of the Republican Party’s national platform of <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwiukdmw2pT6AhU6FVkFHRpPDLUQFnoECAsQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fprod-cdn-static.gop.com%2Fmedia%2Fdocuments%2FDRAFT_12_FINAL%255B1%255D-ben_1468872234.pdf&usg=AOvVaw0ZlBtj2Rrovr9mA9DZJCOy">2016</a> and <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/The_Republican_Party_Platform,_2020">2020</a> (“we believe in American exceptionalism”). And it served as the organizing principle behind Donald Trump’s vow to restore “<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/31/trump-patriotic-education-406521">patriotic education</a>” to America’s schools. </p>
<p>In Florida, after <a href="https://www.orlandoweekly.com/news/florida-board-of-education-approves-new-curriculum-touting-american-exceptionalism-29639851">lobbying by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis</a>, the state board of education in July 2022 approved standards rooted in American exceptionalism while barring instruction in <a href="https://www.edweek.org/leadership/what-is-critical-race-theory-and-why-is-it-under-attack/2021/05">critical race theory</a>, an academic framework teaching the kind of structural racism Du Bois exposed long ago.</p>
<p>With a tendency to proclaim excellence rather than pursue it, the peddling of American exceptionalism encourages Americans to maintain a robust sense of national achievement – despite mounting evidence to the contrary.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/190486/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kathleen Frydl does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The United States came in 41st worldwide on the UN’s 2022 sustainable development index, down nine spots from last year. A political historian explains the country’s dismal scores.Kathleen Frydl, Sachs Lecturer, Johns Hopkins UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1799792022-04-04T12:31:06Z2022-04-04T12:31:06ZLessons in realpolitik from Nixon and Kissinger: Ideals go only so far in ending conflict in places like Ukraine<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455555/original/file-20220331-19-22c29.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=25%2C25%2C3319%2C2201&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Supporters of Ukraine, like these demonstrators in Boston on Feb. 27, 2022, are likely to be disappointed by any peace deal. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/protesters-hold-signs-during-a-peaceful-stand-for-ukraine-news-photo/1238820038?adppopup=true">Vincent Ricci/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The U.S. has limited options in confronting Russia over its invasion of Ukraine. </p>
<p>The Biden administration’s strategy is moderated by what’s known as “realpolitik.” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/19/us/politics/us-ukraine-russia-escalation.html">The U.S. is not willing to risk a larger war with Russia</a> by any level of involvement that might bring Washington and its allies into direct military conflict with Moscow, risking an escalation into nuclear war. </p>
<p>In a recent column for The Washington Post, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/03/13/biden-us-ukraine-lessons-cold-war/">journalist Matt Bai lamented</a> that President Joe Biden “will be forced to take a realpolitik view that most of us will find hard to stomach.”</p>
<p>“No matter how unjust Ukraine’s fate, he must continue to reject any measure that threatens to put U.S. troops in direct conflict with the Russians,” Bai wrote.</p>
<p>This means that, even as <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/un-general-assembly-set-censure-russia-over-ukraine-invasion-2022-03-02/">much of the world decries the savagery of the Russian invasion</a> and the intense suffering of Ukrainians, President Volodymyr <a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-wants-a-no-fly-zone-what-does-this-mean-and-would-one-make-any-sense-in-this-war-179282">Zelenskyy’s call for efforts like a NATO-enforced no-fly zone</a> will go unanswered by both Washington and NATO allies. </p>
<p>And, as a <a href="https://dornsife.usc.edu/cf/faculty-and-staff/faculty.cfm?pid=1006509">scholar and practitioner of U.S. foreign policy</a>, I believe any agreement produced by <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/03/29/world/ukraine-russia-war">peace talks between Ukraine and Russia</a> will reflect the U.S. realpolitik approach and likely disappoint Ukraine’s supporters.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455558/original/file-20220331-24-2ku1im.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two smiling older men toast each other as they stand in the front of a banquet table and are watched by a crowd of people." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455558/original/file-20220331-24-2ku1im.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455558/original/file-20220331-24-2ku1im.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455558/original/file-20220331-24-2ku1im.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455558/original/file-20220331-24-2ku1im.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455558/original/file-20220331-24-2ku1im.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455558/original/file-20220331-24-2ku1im.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455558/original/file-20220331-24-2ku1im.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President Richard Nixon, left, and Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai toast each other at the end of Nixon’s first day of his visit to the People’s Republic of China on Feb. 21, 1972.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/NixonInChina/f3231bc8c0294725b49c435dc7ca68cd/photo?Query=Nixon%20China&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=342&currentItemNo=33">AP Photo/Bob Daugherty</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The costs of realpolitik</h2>
<p>What exactly does realpolitik mean? </p>
<p><a href="https://nationalinterest.org/feature/realpolitik-its-many-distortions-14678?utm_source=pocket_mylist">Realpolitik</a> refers to the philosophy of states’ pursuing foreign policies that further their national interest, even at the expense of human rights, or compromising intrinsic liberal values in pursuit of their interests abroad. </p>
<p>In the U.S., you can’t discuss realpolitik without referring to the <a href="https://millercenter.org/president/nixon/foreign-affairs">foreign policy of U.S. President Richard Nixon</a>, guided by his national security adviser and later secretary of state, <a href="https://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/kissingers-realpolitik-and-american-exceptionalism">Henry Kissinger</a>. The two men, in the most audacious example of their practice of realpolitik, set in motion events that led to <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/02/23/1082250128/nixons-trip-to-china-laid-the-groundwork-for-normalizing-u-s-china-relations">normalized relations with China</a>. President Nixon put aside his virulent anti-communist leanings in favor of an approach he hoped would ultimately strengthen the U.S. </p>
<p>Yet Kissinger <a href="https://www.henryakissinger.com/interviews/henry-kissinger-interview-with-der-spiegel/">dismisses the notion</a> that he is or was a proponent of realpolitik. </p>
<p>“Let me say a word about realpolitik, just for clarification. I regularly get accused of conducting realpolitik. I don’t think I have ever used that term. It is a way by which critics want to label me,” <a href="https://www.henryakissinger.com/interviews/henry-kissinger-interview-with-der-spiegel/">Kissinger told German news magazine Der Spiegel in 2009</a>.</p>
<p>Yet later in the interview, Kissinger sounds like the realpolitik practitioner he is <a href="https://warontherocks.com/2015/12/the-kissinger-effect-on-realpolitik/">frequently characterized as</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“The idealists are presumed to be the noble people, and the power-oriented people are the ones that cause all the world’s trouble. But I believe more suffering has been caused by prophets than by statesmen. For me, a sensible definition of realpolitik is to say there are objective circumstances without which foreign policy cannot be conducted. To try to deal with the fate of nations without looking at the circumstances with which they have to deal is escapism. The art of good foreign policy is to understand and to take into consideration the values of a society, to realize them at the outer limit of the possible.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In essence, Kissinger is not arguing for a foreign policy devoid of morality. Instead, he believes in recognizing the limits of furthering the national interest if policy is circumscribed by idealism. </p>
<p>To contain communism meant engaging in <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/27552537">foreign policies that contradicted “traditional” American values</a> of respect for human rights and self-determination. To Nixon and Kissinger, winning the Vietnam War, or at least ending it in a way the American public would find acceptable, meant taking unsavory actions, including <a href="https://gsp.yale.edu/sites/default/files/walrus_cambodiabombing_oct06.pdf">carpet-bombing Cambodia</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455574/original/file-20220331-21-zqkijv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two men in suits talking to each other in a large, elegant room with high ceilings, standing next to a window." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455574/original/file-20220331-21-zqkijv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455574/original/file-20220331-21-zqkijv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=780&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455574/original/file-20220331-21-zqkijv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=780&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455574/original/file-20220331-21-zqkijv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=780&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455574/original/file-20220331-21-zqkijv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=981&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455574/original/file-20220331-21-zqkijv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=981&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455574/original/file-20220331-21-zqkijv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=981&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President Richard Nixon, left, with U.S. National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger in 1972.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/american-president-richard-nixon-with-united-states-news-photo/74932537?adppopup=true">Frederic Lewis/Hulton Archive/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Containing communism also translated into support for the dictator and human rights violator <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=82588&page=1">Augusto Pinochet in Chile</a> during Kissinger’s tenure. Post-Kissinger, <a href="https://www.salon.com/2015/02/10/7_fascist_regimes_america_enthusiastically_supported_partner/">realpolitik meant support for right-wing anti-communist dictators in Central America</a> during <a href="https://millercenter.org/president/reagan/foreign-affairs">the Reagan administration</a>.</p>
<h2>Realpolitik without guns</h2>
<p>Realpolitik isn’t only about the justification and conduct of wars. Nixon and Kissinger also sought to exploit the emerging rift between the Soviet Union and China. They made the decision <a href="https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76v17/d3">to try to improve relations</a> with China, which had been almost nonexistent since the <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/chinese-rev">Chinese Communists defeated the U.S.-backed nationalists in 1949</a>. Their efforts culminated in <a href="https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/nixons-1972-visit-china-50">Nixon’s historic visit to China in 1972</a>. </p>
<p>The staunch anti-communist in Richard Nixon <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/02/20/nixon-china-mao-visit-1972/">believed improved relations with China</a> served the national interest, further driving a wedge between Beijing and Moscow and setting the course for a safer world, in perhaps a generation. </p>
<p>To set this in motion meant backtracking from <a href="https://watergate.info/1960/08/21/nixon-the-meaning-of-communism-to-americans.html">his – and many Americans’ – anti-communist leanings</a>. Ideology took a back seat to pursuit of the national interest.</p>
<p>The U.S. <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/02/04/remarks-by-president-biden-on-americas-place-in-the-world/">views itself</a> as a proponent of universal human rights, democracy and the rule of law, self-determination and sovereignty of nations. But not at the expense of its own global position. At times, domestic politics can influence adventurism abroad and how strongly American values are incorporated into foreign policy. There are times when Americans are angry and want to see an adversary punished even if it means <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/171653/americans-continue-oppose-closing-guantanamo-bay.aspx">violating the nation’s ideals</a>.</p>
<p>Public sentiment after the 9/11 attacks, for example, gave President George W. Bush wide latitude in foreign policy. But as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan stretched on, the <a href="https://www.cfr.org/blog/us-war-afghanistan-twenty-years-public-opinion-then-and-now">American public’s appetite</a> for the wars and overseas policing diminished greatly, forcing Presidents <a href="https://www.latimes.com/projects/la-na-pol-obama-at-war/">Obama</a>, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/08/18/1028607717/strange-bedfellows-indeed-the-trump-biden-consensus-on-afghanistan">Trump</a> and <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/04/14/remarks-by-president-biden-on-the-way-forward-in-afghanistan/">Biden</a> to bring the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to an end without a clear victory, <a href="https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/political-instability-iraq">leaving behind</a> <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-bidens-washington/not-our-tragedy-the-taliban-are-coming-back-and-america-is-still-leaving">unstable nations</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455581/original/file-20220331-15-yrmxd4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two men shake hands as they meet." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455581/original/file-20220331-15-yrmxd4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455581/original/file-20220331-15-yrmxd4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455581/original/file-20220331-15-yrmxd4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455581/original/file-20220331-15-yrmxd4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455581/original/file-20220331-15-yrmxd4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=573&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455581/original/file-20220331-15-yrmxd4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=573&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455581/original/file-20220331-15-yrmxd4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=573&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Chilean dictator President Augusto Pinochet, left, greets Secretary of State Henry Kissinger at the president’s office on June 8, 1976.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/chilean-president-augusto-pinochet-greets-secretary-of-news-photo/515114332?adppopup=true">Bettmann/Getty</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>How the Ukraine war ends</h2>
<p>What will <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/23/opinion/ukraine-war-end-putin.html">the end</a> of the Ukraine war look like?</p>
<p>Realpolitik in American foreign policy means restraint in Ukraine. A direct confrontation with Russia is not in the U.S. interest, and <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2022/01/a-tale-of-two-crises-why-us-strategy-in-ukraine-has-few-implications-for-taiwan/">Ukraine’s strategic value is limited</a>. An <a href="https://theconversation.com/international-law-says-putins-war-against-ukraine-is-illegal-does-that-matter-177438">illegitimate war</a> in which hundreds if not thousands of <a href="https://theconversation.com/civilians-are-being-killed-in-ukraine-so-why-is-investigating-war-crimes-so-difficult-178155">Ukrainian civilians have already been killed</a> won’t move the U.S. away from this position, because the risks of escalation are too high. And nuclear escalation would be likely, because <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01402390.2020.1818070">the U.S. is far superior to Russia in terms of nonnuclear forces</a>. </p>
<p>Without the U.S. and NATO engaging militarily in the war, Ukraine will likely be forced to <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/03/30/ukraine-is-ready-for-painful-concessions/">make concessions</a> and accept at least some terms that Russia wants in any peace agreement. That may include a Ukraine with different territorial borders and a security relationship with Russia that it does not entirely like.</p>
<p>This may be hard for some – both inside and outside Ukraine – to stomach. But however much realpolitik is attributed to a Kissinger-dominated era of history, it <a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9780807847732/thank-god-theyre-on-our-side/">has been</a> and <a href="https://www.npr.org/2011/06/14/137171315/for-u-s-dealing-with-dictators-is-not-unusual">still is present</a> in contemporary U.S. foreign policy. </p>
<p>From tacit <a href="https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/">support of the murderous dictator Saddam Hussein</a> in the Iran-Iraq War – in which <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/08/26/exclusive-cia-files-prove-america-helped-saddam-as-he-gassed-iran/">the U.S. knew</a> of Saddam’s use of chemical weapons – to <a href="https://www.npr.org/2010/12/07/131884473/Afghanistan-After-The-Soviet-Withdrawal">letting Afghanistan fall into a political vacuum</a> after the Soviet pullout in 1989 – leading to the rise of the Taliban – to Washington’s close relationship with <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-repressive-saudi-arabia-remains-a-us-ally-156281">brutal human rights abuser Saudi Arabia</a>, the U.S. frequently chooses to put its own interest ahead of its professed values. </p>
<p>[<em>There’s plenty of opinion out there. We supply facts and analysis, based in research.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?nl=politics&source=inline-politics-no-opinion">Get The Conversation’s Politics Weekly</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/179979/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jeffrey Fields receives funding from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the MacArthur Foundation. </span></em></p>The US frequently chooses to put its own interest ahead of its professed values. That approach to foreign policy is called ‘realpolitik’ and it may lead to an unsatisfying peace deal in Ukraine.Jeffrey Fields, Associate Professor of the Practice of International Relations, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and SciencesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1557782021-02-22T17:38:19Z2021-02-22T17:38:19ZThe idolization of free speech in the United States<p>The issues raised during Donald Trump’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/fact-check-us-could-donald-trump-be-convicted-in-his-second-impeachment-trial-153919">second impeachment trial</a> are a logical continuation of a presidency that pushed the limits of the American legal system. One of the arguments used by the former president’s lawyers was that freedom of speech as guaranteed by the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/first_amendment">First Amendment</a> to the US Constitution covers not only his January 6 remarks but also his unsupported allegations that the 2020 presidential election was “rigged”.</p>
<p>For many <a href="https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/first-amendment-lawyers-trump-impeachment-defense/7fc3e63ae077f83d/full.pdf">constitutional law scholars</a>, this is a “legally frivolous” argument because, in an impeachment trial, the president is not accused of a crime but of having violated his oath – in this case, by inciting an insurrection. However, it is a classic line of defense that Trump’s attorneys could take up in a civil or criminal trial.</p>
<p>Beyond this case, freedom of expression is a crucial question when seeking to understand events such as the white-nationalist demonstrations in Charlottesville in 2017, the protests by Black Lives Matter and “antifa” activists in 2019 and 2020, and even the pro-Trump mob’s January 6 attack on the US Capitol. It is also related to the out-sized prominence of personalities such as the late conservative right-wing host <a href="https://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2012/03/limbaugh-show-mmfa-debate-free-speech-118202">Rush Limbaugh</a> and even the <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/02/10/larry-flynt-dies-porn-publisher-468504">porn king Larry Flynt</a>, both of whom saw themselves as champions of free speech.</p>
<h2>American free speech: a unique but contested concept</h2>
<p>For many Americans, freedom – especially freedom of speech – is the most cherished founding principle of the nation’s identity, and they see it is a tenet of American exceptionalism. It is true that the United States is different from other democracies in that it holds what is sometimes called an <a href="https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1660&context=jcl">“absolutist”</a> view of freedom of speech. In American law, even hate speech is protected, and the Supreme Court has repeatedly confirmed that there is no exception for hate speech in the First Amendment (<a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1940-1955/343us250"><em>Beauharnais v. Illinois</em></a>, 1952; <a href="https://harvardlawreview.org/2017/11/matal-v-tam/"><em>Matal v. Tam</em></a>, 2017). </p>
<p>Former national legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) <a href="https://law.stanford.edu/publications/reflections-on-charlottesville/">Steven Shapiro</a> calls the United States unique in this regard. He points to the country’s reservations on <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/CCPR.aspx">Article 20</a> of the 1966 <em>International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights</em>, which requires signatories to prohibit hate speech, even though the US signed and ratified this international human-rights treaty in 1992.</p>
<p>Despite quasi-religious reverence for the First Amendment, the issue of freedom of speech is sometimes controversial even in the United States, as we see a rise in populism, increased political polarization, and an increase in provocative and extremist speech on social networks. In the words of <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/16-1466_2b3j.pdf">Supreme Court Justice Kagan</a>, freedom of speech has been politically weaponized. This has been done particularly by the <a href="https://www.chronicle.com/article/how-the-right-weaponized-free-speech/">conservative right</a> and the <a href="https://www.macleans.ca/opinion/how-the-alt-right-weaponized-free-speech/">alt right</a>. Paradoxically, with the rise of white nationalism, it is now the <a href="https://jmrphy.net/blog/2018/02/16/who-is-afraid-of-free-speech/">more moderate liberals</a> and the <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/11/20/40-of-millennials-ok-with-limiting-speech-offensive-to-minorities/">millennials</a> who tend to support a measure of restrictions of free speech.</p>
<h2>A chaotic history</h2>
<p>The right to freedom of expression is almost as old as the United States itself. It is enshrined in the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/first_amendment">First Amendment</a> ratified in 1791: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Congress shall make no law […] abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>From a strict literal perspective, free-speech protection thus initially concerned only laws passed by Congress. Over time, however, the Supreme Court extended this protection to other forms of governmental power, from the federal to local and across all three branches: legislative, executive and judicial. It should be noted in passing that the First amendment doesn’t address or prevent censorship imposed by private individuals and private businesses who can apply their freedom of commerce <a href="https://theconversation.com/first-amendment-lawsuit-says-president-trump-cant-block-twitter-followers-he-doesnt-like-79074">as they see fit</a>.</p>
<p>Contrary to what is often assumed, the current interpretation of the First Amendment is relatively recent. For a long time, there were many restrictions to free speech. This was in part due to different societal norms, particularly in terms of sexual morality (see the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comstock_laws">Comstock Acts</a> for instance). But there were also greater restrictions of political speech in what was considered interests of the State, like the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Espionage_Act_of_1917">Espionage Act</a> of 1917. Thus, during the two world wars and at the beginning of the Cold War, the Supreme Court upheld judgments against dissidents who opposed conscription or advocated revolutionary socialism or communism (as in <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1900-1940/249us47"><em>Schenck v. United States</em></a>, 1919, or <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1940-1955/341us494"><em>Dennis v. United States</em></a>, 1951).</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Portrait of US Supreme Court chief justice Earl Warren." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/385551/original/file-20210222-19-u0tfxg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/385551/original/file-20210222-19-u0tfxg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=779&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385551/original/file-20210222-19-u0tfxg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=779&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385551/original/file-20210222-19-u0tfxg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=779&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385551/original/file-20210222-19-u0tfxg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=979&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385551/original/file-20210222-19-u0tfxg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=979&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/385551/original/file-20210222-19-u0tfxg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=979&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Portrait of US Supreme Court chief justice Earl Warren.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Everything changed with the <a href="https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/70375636.pdf">Warren Court</a> (1953-1969) due to a growing support for speech related to civil rights and the war in Vietnam. Paradoxically, the <a href="https://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1814&context=wlulr">liberal interpretation of the First Amendment</a> also provided protection for hate speech spurred by the Ku Klux Klan, as stated in <a href="https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/189/brandenburg-v-ohio"><em>Brandenburg v. Ohio</em></a>, a 1969 decision that remains the standard for allowing extreme speech. Since then, freedom of speech in all its forms has generally been protected, including hate speech, unless there are specific exceptions.</p>
<h2>The limits of free speech today</h2>
<p>One of the lessons of the history of free speech in the United States is that standards are not set in stone. They do change as society changes and may yet change again. </p>
<p>Free speech is not absolute – US law does recognize a number of important restrictions to free speech. These include obscenity, fraud, child pornography, harassment, incitement to illegal conduct and imminent lawless action, true threats, and commercial speech such as advertising, copyright or patent rights.</p>
<p>Political speech, on the other hand, is one of the most protected categories. The Supreme Court even went so far as to conclude that campaign spending limits represent a violation of freedom of expression because it would restrict the financial means to express an opinion (as first ruled in <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1975/75-436"><em>Buckley v. Valeo</em></a>, 1976, and then more recently and controversially in <a href="https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._Federal_Election_Commission"><em>Citizens United</em></a>, 2010).</p>
<p>As for the role that Donald Trump played in the months leading up to January 6 and on the day itself, the question still to be answered is the relationship between his false claims and harsh rhetoric and the attack on the US Capitol that immediately followed. Was his speech protected by the First Amendment? According to <em>Brandenburg v. Ohio</em>, freedom of speech allows “advocacy of the use of force” or “lawless acts” unless it is “directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action” and is “likely to incite or produce such action”.</p>
<p>Because these words can be up to interpretation, context is everything. The assessment of the context in which the insurrection took place will allow for what is called the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/brandenburg_test">“Brandenburg test”</a> to determine whether Trump’s words were aimed at encouraging his supporters to commit a crime and advocating an offense that is both imminent and likely to occur.</p>
<h2>A marketplace of ideas?</h2>
<p>The Brandenburg ruling is important. It is what made it legal for neo-Nazis to march with swastika crosses in Charlottesville in 2017 or for Rush Limbaugh to use <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/17/business/media/rush-limbaugh-dead.html">misogynistic, homophobic, racist and conspiracy-laden language</a> during his long career. This decision is based on the principle that the competition of ideas in a free and transparent public discourse will allow people to freely decide what they want to believe. </p>
<p>This philosophy is exemplified in the metaphor of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketplace_of_ideas">“marketplace of ideas”</a> used in a <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/345/41">1953 Supreme Court decision</a>, which has since become a <a href="https://ideas.dickinsonlaw.psu.edu/dlr/vol123/iss2/6/">common analogy in American law</a>. But what this metaphor also implies is that, as with any market, that of ideas is shaped by imbalances of power, particularly with respect to racial and financial inequality. Is the voice of Donald Trump really equivalent to that of the average citizen? And how do the biased algorithms of social networks allow a fair and free market of ideas? </p>
<p>Many Americans do not trust their government to regulate this marketplace of ideas. Yet the counter-examples offered by the <a href="https://fra.europa.eu/en/eu-charter/article/11-freedom-expression-and-information">European Union</a> or <a href="https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/csj-sjc/rfc-dlc/ccrf-ccdl/check/art2b.html">Canada</a> show that certain restrictions on freedom of expression are not necessarily incompatible with democratic principles.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/155778/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jérôme Viala-Gaudefroy ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>The First Amendment to the US Constitution protects Americans’ freedom of speech, so much so that even the most hateful speech has the right to be quoted.Jérôme Viala-Gaudefroy, Assistant lecturer, CY Cergy Paris UniversitéLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1511172021-01-17T08:51:01Z2021-01-17T08:51:01ZTrump is out, but US evangelicalism remains alive and well in Africa<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/372246/original/file-20201201-13-56tvbx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An evangelical outreach in Uganda led by the prominent and wealthy pastor Robert Kayanja.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">WALTER ASTRADA/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On the day before the 2020 US presidential election, Reverend Kenneth Meshoe, the leader of the <a href="https://www.acdp.org.za">African Christian Democratic Party</a> in South Africa, <a href="https://twitter.com/RevMeshoe/status/1323260838468345856">tweeted</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Please pray… for President Donald Trump to be re-elected…. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>It seems bizarre that a black African Christian would support an overt <a href="https://www.vox.com/2016/7/25/12270880/donald-trump-racist-racism-history">racist</a> who disdains people who come from “<a href="https://theintercept.com/2018/06/28/trump-tps-shithole-countries-lawsuit/">shithole countries</a>”.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1323260838468345856"}"></div></p>
<p>Meshoe exemplifies a type of political and theological reasoning among African evangelical Christians. He was <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/fm/opinion/2020-11-09-rob-rose-how-kenneth-meshoe-was-duped-by-the-trump-myth/">praying</a> for Trump’s victory because he echoes the views of many African evangelicals in relation to human sexuality, reproductive rights (anti-abortion), nationalism and capitalism. For example, Bishop Mark Kariuki of the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/EAKenya/">Evangelical Alliance of Kenya</a> claimed that a Trump victory would be a vote in favour of “good morals”. </p>
<p>According to Harvard researcher Damaris Parsitau, such views <a href="https://www.theelephant.info/long-reads/2020/11/20/african-evangelicals-and-president-trump/">are shared</a> by evangelical leaders in Nigeria, Ghana, Liberia and Uganda. </p>
<p>How could this be?</p>
<p>The support of African evangelicals points to a bizarre cocktail of politics, economics and religion on the continent, which could have long-lasting negative consequences.</p>
<h2>The dangers of Trumpism</h2>
<p>Trump may be leaving, but the thinking that brought him to power, “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/11/23/trump-will-go-trumpism-will-remain/">Trumpism</a>”, is alive and well among the world’s fastest-growing Christian community – African evangelicals. “Trumpism” loosely denotes views on identity politics, nationalisms of various kinds and a series of reason-defying beliefs. Fuelled by secretive global organisations such as <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/qanon-trump-timeline-conspiracy-theorists-1076279/">QAnon</a>, there is also a strong dose of science denialism about <a href="https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/11/trump-put-climate-denier-charge-key-us-report">climate change</a> and <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/10/trump-covid-denial/616946/">COVID-19</a>.</p>
<p>Sadly, it is the world’s poorest citizens, among them Africans, who suffer most from the effects of <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-50726701">climate change</a>, US trade policies that <a href="https://kingcenter.stanford.edu/system/files/The%20Impact%20of%20Trade%20on%20Inequality%20in%20Developing%20Countries.pdf">increase global inequalities</a>, racism and sexism. </p>
<p>Christians from historical traditions around the world have been <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0040571X19843746">deeply critical</a> of the ways in which evangelical Christians have supported Trump. Yet Trumpism has established deep roots among <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0040571X19843746">African evangelical Christianities</a>.</p>
<p>This is <a href="https://www.counterpointknowledge.org/understanding-the-influence-of-contemporary-evangelical-christianities/">very concerning</a>. We have seen black evangelicals <a href="https://www.sabcnews.com/sabcnews/political-parties-divided-over-blacklivesmatter/">undermining</a> racial justice campaigns like <a href="https://www.adl.org/education/educator-resources/lesson-plans/black-lives-matter-from-hashtag-to-movement">#BlackLivesMatter</a>. They have <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2012-06-29-sas-very-own-made-in-israel-war-of-words/">pressured</a> their governments to support the state of Israel, despite its atrocious human rights record in Palestine. And many fall in step with <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0040571X19843746">American evangelical theology</a> on the denial of <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/vg/lgbti-faq.html#:%7E:text=Lesbian%2C%20Gay%2C%20Bisexual%2C%20Transgender%20and%20Intersex%20(LGBTI)%20FAQ">LGBTI</a> rights and the curtailing of women’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/americas-right-is-lobbying-against-south-africas-sex-education-syllabus-126356">reproductive rights</a>. </p>
<p>Many African evangelicals uncritically adopt <a href="https://theconversation.com/donald-trump-white-victimhood-and-the-south-african-far-right-73400">rightwing nationalist</a> views and buy into dangerous <a href="https://ewn.co.za/2020/10/09/from-the-us-to-sa-qanon-sows-panic-with-child-trafficking-misinformation">conspiracy theories</a>.</p>
<h2>The spread of American evangelicalism</h2>
<p>How did African evangelicals adopt this brand of politically infused American Christianity so uncritically? As theologian Tony Balcomb <a href="http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0256-95072016000200002">explains</a>, American evangelicalism:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>resonates both with the spirituality of Africa and the materialism and individualism of modernity.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Experiential religion – characterised by healing, miracles and visions – <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=uO29DwAAQBAJ&pg=PR17&dq=mndende+freedom+of+religion+forster+gerle&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiwqomVr6XtAhUVuHEKHYUpDqsQ6AEwAHoECAMQAg#v=onepage&q=mndende&f=false">is part of</a> the African religious experience. It predates the arrival of Christian missionaries.</p>
<p><a href="https://africa.thegospelcoalition.org/article/history-christianity-africa/">“Third wave”</a> evangelical Christianity arrived in Africa from the US in the early 1900s. At the time it was more appealing than the dry and reasoned “second wave” faith brought earlier by Catholic and Reformed missionaries.</p>
<p>In addition, the arrival of US evangelicalism coincided with the historical emergence of materialism and individualism, which characterise modernity. This led many African Christians to adopt the <a href="https://wiser.wits.ac.za/system/files/seminar/Bafford2019.pdf">economically abusive practices</a> of <a href="https://www.vox.com/identities/2017/9/1/15951874/prosperity-gospel-explained-why-joel-osteen-believes-prayer-can-make-you-rich-trump">prosperity doctrine</a> preachers.</p>
<p>They claim that wealth is the will of God and frequently <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-south-africans-are-prone-to-falling-for-charlatans-in-the-church-112879">scam and impoverish</a> some of the poorest African communities. They were <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/opinions/outlook/worst-ideas/prosperity-gospel.html">taught this</a> by <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-election-2020/kenneth-copeland-biden-trump-election-b1719273.html">American Christians</a>.</p>
<p>Lastly, African evangelical ministries are <a href="https://www.theelephant.info/long-reads/2020/11/20/african-evangelicals-and-president-trump/">funded</a> from the US. In addition, many were trained in the US or by US organisations. Meshoe, for example, <a href="https://elections.thesouthafrican.com/political-leaders/political-leader-kenneth-meshoe-african-christian-democratic-party-acdp/">studied</a> at an evangelical school in Tennessee. Moreover, funding for Africa is often threatened if the moral and political standards of high ranking American evangelical <a href="https://www.netflix.com/za/title/80063867">politicians and lobbyists</a> are not adhered to.</p>
<h2>The American Dream is a global nightmare</h2>
<p>American evangelicalism has always been <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24460416">allied</a> to the notion of “The American Dream” and the myth of the founding of America. This political theology claims that God established the US as an “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/21598282.2020.1779527">exceptional</a>” nation that overcame tyranny with God’s help through the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/American-Revolution">American Revolution</a>.</p>
<p>Since then, it has been spreading its <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24460416?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">ideology</a> globally – often using evangelicalism to do so. “God bless America” is a well-known phrase. In the minds of many Americans, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24460416">God is on their side</a> and wants America to succeed over all other nations. </p>
<p>Trump’s “America first” <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2017/01/20/donald-trumps-inaugural-speech-may-be-his-most-religious-yet/">inaugural speech</a> exemplified this exceptionalism. Paul White’s <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2017/01/20/donald-trumps-inaugural-speech-may-be-his-most-religious-yet/">prayer</a> at the inauguration summed up this religiously infused political exceptionalism:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Let these United States of America be that beacon of hope to all people and nations under your dominion, a true hope for humankind …</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Trump’s God is an <a href="https://religionandpolitics.org/2020/09/29/white-evangelicals-and-the-new-american-exceptionalism-of-donald-trump/">American God</a>, seeking to spread American values, politics and economic ideals across the world. But the God of historical Christianity does not prefer Americans over other nations.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.theelephant.info/long-reads/2020/11/20/african-evangelicals-and-president-trump/">Religion, politics and money</a> are deeply intertwined among Trump-supporting African evangelicals – and dangerously so. American evangelicalism is part of the “software” that allows the “hardware” of American exceptionalism to spread throughout the world.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/pentecostals-and-the-spiritual-war-against-coronavirus-in-africa-137424">Pentecostals and the spiritual war against coronavirus in Africa</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<p>Many African evangelical leaders receive funding from US bodies. Many fall in line with the Trump government’s views on abortion, homosexuality, science and Christian Zionism. Like their American evangelical counterparts, they are also learning to <a href="https://www.theelephant.info/long-reads/2020/11/20/african-evangelicals-and-president-trump/">put pressure</a> on their governments. But the values of white, middle class US evangelicals are at odds with the freedoms sought by Africans.</p>
<p>To free Africa from Trumpism, African scholars and thinkers must critically examine the influence of American evangelicalism on the growing number of African evangelicals.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/151117/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dion Forster receives funding from the South African National Research Foundation. </span></em></p>African evangelism is born from – and often funded by – American evangelism, and with it comes a damaging cocktail of rightwing ideologies, especially during the Donald Trump years.Dion Forster, Professor of Public Theology in the Department of Beliefs and Practices, Faculty of Theology, at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (Free University of Amsterdam), Vrije Universiteit AmsterdamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1526682021-01-07T19:55:37Z2021-01-07T19:55:37ZThe U.S. Capitol raid exposes the myth and pathology of American exceptionalism<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377600/original/file-20210107-21-9khouo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5105%2C2995&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">DC National Guard stand outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, after Trump supporters stormed the building in an attempt to overturn the U.S. presidential election.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/John Minchillo)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Looking at Donald Trump’s dangerous behaviour since he lost the presidential election, it’s hard not to recall an observation John Kelly made in 2018.</p>
<p>“He’s an idiot,” <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/404932-kelly-called-trump-unhinged-and-idiot-woodward-book">the former White House chief of staff said</a>. “He’s gone off the rails. We’re in Crazytown.”</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/pro-trump-rioters-storm-u-s-capitol-as-his-election-tantrum-leads-to-violence-149142">Pro-Trump rioters storm U.S. Capitol as his election tantrum leads to violence</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>“Crazytown” is not a one-man phenomenon, however: consider Trump’s 74 million votes, Republican conspiracy theories, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/01/06/ted-cruzs-electoral-vote-speech-will-live-infamy/">Ted Cruz-led Senate shenanigans</a> and the assault on the U.S. Capitol by those who’d come to Washington to disrupt the congressional endorsement of the election results.</p>
<p>The departing president should be seen as the avatar of American attitudes and behavioural predispositions, both widespread and deeply rooted.</p>
<p>In a famous 1933 lecture, “<a href="https://sites.tufts.edu/levineenglish181/2017/09/25/freud-femininity-dissection-of-the-psychical-personality/#:%7E:text=%E2%80%9CDissection%20of%20the%20Psychical%20Personality%E2%80%9D%20defines%20the%20id%2C%20ego,symptoms%20disappear%20or%20are%20lessened.">The Dissection of the Psychical Personality</a>,” Sigmund Freud said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Pathology, by making things larger and coarser, can draw our attention to normal conditions which would otherwise have escaped us. … If we throw a crystal to the floor, it breaks; but not into haphazard pieces. It comes apart along its lines of cleavage into fragments whose boundaries, though they were invisible, were predetermined by the crystal’s structure.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Freud was clearly talking about individuals in this lecture, but it can be applied to political and social affairs in 1933: countries broken by the Great Depression and the rise of Adolf Hitler. As a historian, I am also intrigued by what Freud’s observations tell us about Trump’s homeland.</p>
<h2>Diagnostic tool</h2>
<p>Greek and Latin roots of the word “pathology” signal the study of passions and diseases — and the substantial popularity of Trump’s extreme policies and behaviours offers a valuable diagnostic tool for identifying American pathologies.</p>
<p>To borrow from Freud, think of the United States as a “crystal.” A glittering crystal to many minds — <a href="https://www.econlib.org/archives/2017/12/the_city_on_a_h.html">a “shining city on a hill,” as former president Ronald Reagan often described it, drawing on early Puritan imagery</a> — widely celebrated through three centuries as being exceptional for its commitment to liberty, equality, opportunity, the rule of law, economic and cultural innovation.</p>
<p>But the self-celebration of American exceptionalism has been hard to stomach during the past four years as Trump and phalanxes of enablers (including congressional Republicans) and admirers (<a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/09/11/nih-director-francis-collins-puzzled-maskless-trump-rallies/3471417001/">including mask-shunning Make America Great Again adherents</a>) have chipped away at core values and past glories.</p>
<p>Before Joe Biden’s election, it was all too easy to imagine that the foundations of the famed city on a hill were crumbling — that the crystal was falling and shattering.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A senator looks at toppled furniture in a marble hallway." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377602/original/file-20210107-15-1cd3xxy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377602/original/file-20210107-15-1cd3xxy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377602/original/file-20210107-15-1cd3xxy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377602/original/file-20210107-15-1cd3xxy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377602/original/file-20210107-15-1cd3xxy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377602/original/file-20210107-15-1cd3xxy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377602/original/file-20210107-15-1cd3xxy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sen. Tim Scott stops to look at damage in the early morning hours of Jan. 7, 2021, after rioters stormed the Capitol.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Without minimizing Trump-era damage, however, Freud’s reference to “lines of cleavage” that were “pre-determined by the crystal’s structure” deserves attention.</p>
<p>Make no mistake: American attributes and achievements are real — opportunity and tolerance for many, for example, offering pathways to education and economic success as well as escapes from wars and persecution. </p>
<p>But “many” has never been “all” — and at every point in American history, the number of people unable to share in the country’s blessings has been tragically large. </p>
<h2>The true majority</h2>
<p>In the earliest days of the republic, in fact, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/19/magazine/white-terrorism-is-as-old-as-america.html">those who were constrained or had pain and death inflicted upon them were the true majority</a>.</p>
<p>National mythology tends to pay scant attention to the founding decades in which women — fully half of the population — had no rights. Millions of slaves were terrorized and abused beyond imagination. Tens of thousands of Indigenous people were robbed of land, culture, autonomy — and life.</p>
<p>Just like today, ideals were lauded in the 19th century — sincerely in many cases — by political leaders, reformers and intellectuals: Thomas Jefferson, John Quincy Adams, Ralph Waldo Emerson, William Lloyd Garrison, Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Ideals had some impact too: witness the end of slavery. But the impact was limited as persistent prejudices and predispositions further deepened the cleavages that went on marring the shining crystal.</p>
<p>Some flaws are particularly glaring and damaging, and persist today.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.history.com/topics/early-20th-century-us/jim-crow-laws">“Jim Crow” laws</a>, rural lynchings <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/chicago-race-riot-of-1919">and urban riots</a> made it clear that systemic racism hardly ended with the Civil War. Indigenous Americans (“squalid savages,” according to former president <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/06/22/theodore-roosevelt-statue-museum">Theodore Roosevelt</a>, whose face is carved onto Mount Rushmore) have also been continuously subjected to brutal land grabs and cultural devastation. </p>
<p>Former president Richard Nixon’s “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4129605?origin=crossref&seq=1">southern strategy</a>” brought racism politics into the late 20th century, with reinforcement by Reagan and others. Reagan, in fact, once grumbled — to Nixon — about anti-American rhetoric at the United Nations: “<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/07/ronald-reagans-racist-conversation-richard-nixon/595102/">To see those, those monkeys from those African nations – damn them, they’re still uncomfortable wearing shoes</a>.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An African leader stands next to Ronald Reagan and their wives." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377603/original/file-20210107-17-1i9q98g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377603/original/file-20210107-17-1i9q98g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377603/original/file-20210107-17-1i9q98g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377603/original/file-20210107-17-1i9q98g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377603/original/file-20210107-17-1i9q98g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377603/original/file-20210107-17-1i9q98g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377603/original/file-20210107-17-1i9q98g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In this October 1988 photo, Mali President Moussa Traore and his wife join Ronald and Nancy Reagan at a state dinner at the White House.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Scott Applewhite)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/the-long-history-of-racism-against-asian-americans-in-the-u-s">Chinese exclusion actions beginning in 1882</a> and “yellow peril” postulations became part of a broader xenophobic impulse in 20th century America. </p>
<p>This included tightened overall immigration restrictions in the 1920s, resistance to welcoming Jewish emigres in the 1930s, and Japanese internment camps and <a href="https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-zoot-suit-riots-anniversary-20180604-story.html">Zoot Suit riots against Latinos in the 1940s</a>. Anti-Muslim and anti-refugee agitations in the 21st century — <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-51953315">as well as the “China flu” labelling so embraced by Trump</a> — have been tapping into deep wellsprings.</p>
<h2>Treatment of women</h2>
<p>The treatment of women remains another crack in the crystal of American ideals. </p>
<p>Not until 1920 were women across the country able to vote; it wasn’t until the 1930s <a href="https://www.fdrlibrary.org/perkins">that a woman was appointed to a cabinet post (Frances Perkins as secretary of labor</a>). Not yet have women achieved even an approximate proportionate presence in Congress or corporate headquarters; <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/women-congress-record-number-2021/">women still currently hold less than 30 per cent of seats in Congress</a>. </p>
<p>Such deeply rooted prejudices and passions have always dimmed the glowing aura of American values and achievements. They also continue to risk the crystal breakage that Freud’s description of pathology suggests.</p>
<p>Antique chisels and hammers remain at hand — and Trump allies and wannabes are still energetically wielding them. This is not a problem unique to the United States, of course, but its historic character warrants more attention than the departing president’s talent for monopolizing the spotlight, throwing tantrums and inciting violence often allows.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/152668/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ronald W. Pruessen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Donald Trump’s tenure as president reveals how pathologies are part of what Americans see as their “exceptionalism.”Ronald W. Pruessen, Professor of History, University of TorontoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1395312020-06-19T12:09:34Z2020-06-19T12:09:34ZA field guide to Trump’s dangerous rhetoric<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342303/original/file-20200616-23213-awjm7o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=63%2C69%2C3680%2C2809&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President-elect Trump at a post-election rally in Mobile, Alabama, Dec. 17, 2016. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-elect-donald-trump-speaks-during-a-thank-you-news-photo/630160048?adppopup=true">Mark Wallheiser/Getty</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>All leaders are demagogues. You may not realize this, because we’ve come to associate the word “demagogue” with only dangerous populist leaders. But in Greek, the word just means “leader of the people” (dēmos “the people” + agōgos “leading”).</p>
<p>Some demagogues are good, and some are dangerous. The fundamental difference between leaders who are good demagogues and leaders who are <a href="https://oaktrust.library.tamu.edu/handle/1969.1/175471">dangerous demagogues</a> is found in the answer to this simple question: Are they accountable for their words and actions? </p>
<p>Obviously, an unaccountable leader is dangerous in any political community.</p>
<p>Donald Trump is a demagogue – he’s a heroic demagogue to his followers, and he’s a dangerous demagogue to everyone else. </p>
<p>I’ve been analyzing Trump’s rhetoric since <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-rhetorical-brilliance-of-trump-the-demagogue-51984">2015</a> and, despite how it may appear to some critics, Trump is a rhetorical genius. I describe why in my new book, <a href="https://www.tamupress.com/book/9781623499068/demagogue-for-president/">“Demagogue For President: The Rhetorical Genius of Donald Trump</a>.” </p>
<p>He’s a genius at using rhetoric like a dangerous demagogue does, to prevent the country from holding him accountable. </p>
<p>Trump campaigned as an unaccountable leader. He promised that he would fight for his followers and wouldn’t be accountable to established leaders in his <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2015/08/06/trump_i_will_not_pledge_to_endorse_republican_nominee.html">party</a>, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/10/24/the-ugly-history-of-luegenpresse-a-nazi-slur-shouted-at-a-trump-rally/">the media</a>, <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/9/26/13016146/donald-trump-liar-media">fact-checkers</a>, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2015/08/07/gop-debate-donald-trump-women-kelly-cooper-sot-ac.cnn">political correctness</a> or common standards of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2016/10/07/donald-trumps-remarkably-gross-comments-about-women/">decency</a>.</p>
<p>Trump has used six rhetorical strategies repeatedly since 2015. Three ingratiate Trump with his followers, and three alienate Trump and his followers from everyone else. The effect is to unify his followers against everyone else and to make Trump the fulcrum for all political discussion and debate. </p>
<p>All of the strategies are used to set the nation’s agenda, distract the nation’s attention and frame how we understand reality.</p>
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<h2>Trump’s ingratiating strategies</h2>
<p><strong>Ad populum</strong>: appealing to the wisdom of the crowd, using popularity as the measure of value. </p>
<p>Dangerous demagogues have no power if they have no followers, so they use ad populum to solidify their base and wield their supporters as a cudgel against opponents.</p>
<p>Trump routinely praises his people as the smartest, best, most patriotic, hardest-working Americans. They are great and good, and everyone else is not. For example, when he <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/01/23/trump_i_could_stand_in_the_middle_of_fifth_avenue_and_shoot_somebody_and_i_wouldnt_lose_any_voters.html">claimed</a> that he could “stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters,” that was an ad populum appeal about the loyalty of Trump’s base.</p>
<p>Trump’s ad populum appeal was designed to silence his <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/498710-never-trump-republicans-fringe-or-force-to-be-reckoned-with">Never Trump</a> critics while distracting attention away from their central criticism of him: that he was a populist, not a real conservative. </p>
<p>Popularity (crowds, opinion polls, ratings, votes) is the only sign of value to Trump. Conservativism itself has no value unless it is popular. </p>
<p><strong>Paralipsis</strong>: I’m not saying; I’m just saying. </p>
<p>Dangerous demagogues use paralipsis because it gives them plausible deniability to assert that they didn’t actually say some controversial thing or that they were merely joking or being sarcastic. </p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/theres-an-insidious-strategy-behind-donald-trumps-retweets-55615">Trump uses this strategy</a> to spread rumor and innuendo and to give a “backstage” or “real” view of what he supposedly really thinks. It is rewarding for Trump because it allows him to say two things at once, without being held accountable. </p>
<p>For example, Trump repeatedly amplified racist white nationalist content on his Twitter feed while denying that he agreed with them. </p>
<p>“I don’t know about retweeting,” Trump told <a href="https://archive.org/details/CNNW_20160221_140200_State_of_the_Union_With_Jake_Tapper/start/360/end/420">Jake Tapper</a>. “You retweet somebody and they turn out to be white supremacists. I know nothing about these groups that are supporting me.” </p>
<p>He also claimed that there was a difference between tweeting something and retweeting something, refusing to take responsibility for his retweets. His retweets functioned as a paralipsis: It allowed him to say and not say and provided him with the out of plausible deniability.</p>
<p><strong>American exceptionalism</strong>: This refers to America’s unique role in the world, <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-acceptance-speech-trump-embraces-role-as-hero-of-the-forgotten-62761">simplified by Trump as</a> “America winning.” </p>
<p>Dangerous demagogues use American exceptionalism to take advantage of their followers’ patriotism and feelings of national pride for the demagogue’s gain.</p>
<p>Trump presents himself as the apotheosis of American exceptionalism and claims that he is the heroic figure who can make America great again by defeating corruption and conspiracy. Trump will win for Trump’s people – he’s their hero.</p>
<p>For example, Trump claimed that he was uniquely qualified to “<a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/2016/10/18/donald-trump-rally-colorado-springs-ethics-lobbying-limitations/92377656/">drain the swamp</a>” of corruption. His campaign presented a hero narrative of sacrifice and struggle. He had been “the ultimate insider,” he claimed, but once he decided to run for president and make America great again, he had been purified. As “the ultimate outsider” Trump would “drain the swamp” and end corruption. He said that it would be easy for him to do.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342979/original/file-20200619-43214-j8qjjx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342979/original/file-20200619-43214-j8qjjx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342979/original/file-20200619-43214-j8qjjx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342979/original/file-20200619-43214-j8qjjx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342979/original/file-20200619-43214-j8qjjx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342979/original/file-20200619-43214-j8qjjx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=623&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342979/original/file-20200619-43214-j8qjjx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=623&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342979/original/file-20200619-43214-j8qjjx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=623&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump greets supporters after his rally on August 21, 2015 in Mobile, Alabama.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/republican-presidential-candidate-donald-trump-greets-news-photo/484797712?adppopup=true">Mark Wallheiser/Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Trump’s alienating strategies</h2>
<p><strong>Ad hominem</strong>: attacking the person instead of their argument. </p>
<p>Dangerous demagogues use ad hominem appeals to mock and delegitimize legitimate opposition.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/01/28/upshot/donald-trump-twitter-insults.html">Trump routinely attacks people with name-calling</a>, appeals to hypocrisy and insults to distract the nation away from criticisms made about him. He uses these strategies to avoid accountability by undermining the legitimacy of his opposition. </p>
<p>For example, he <a href="https://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2015/11/26/donald-trump-mocks-reporter-with-disability-berman-sot-ac.cnn">mocked</a> a reporter with a physical disability. Trump did this to distract attention from his misrepresentation of events on 9/11 by arguing that the reporter’s memory was as impaired as his body. This allowed Trump to claim that his version of history was the only truth, without actually proving that his version of history was accurate.</p>
<p><strong>Ad baculum</strong>: threats of force or intimidation. </p>
<p>Dangerous demagogues use ad baculum to change the subject of debate and use force to silence legitimate opposition.</p>
<p>Trump silences his opposition by <a href="https://theconversation.com/100-days-of-presidential-threats-76376">threatening</a> them with mean tweets, violent mobs and condoning, or refusing to condemn, violence conducted in his name.</p>
<p>For example, he used threats and appeals to fear when he repeatedly told his supporters that Hillary Clinton was determined to take away their guns, leaving them defenseless against rapists and murders. When he <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDRSITwAXQQ">accepted</a> the National Rifle Association’s endorsement, he threatened, “If she gets to appoint her judges she will, as part of it, abolish the Second Amendment.” If that happened, Trump threatened, then gun owners would lose “any chance they have of survival.”</p>
<p><strong>Reification</strong>: treating people as objects. </p>
<p>Dangerous demagogues use reification to position opposition as less than human, thereby denying their standing to criticize or object. Reification is traditionally a part of war rhetoric or genocide.</p>
<p>Trump <a href="https://theconversation.com/donald-trump-and-the-dangerous-rhetoric-of-portraying-people-as-objects-66810">undermines</a> his opposition by treating them as objects – things, animals – rather than as people. Objects shouldn’t have the same rights as people, so it makes Trump’s enemies easy to dismiss and attack. </p>
<p>For example, he treated Muslim refugees as dangerous enemy objects masquerading as people – as a “Trojan horse” that would <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/09/30/donald-trump-syrian-refugees-might-be-a-terrorist-army-in-disguise/?arc404=true">unleash</a> “a 200,000-man army, maybe. Or 50,000 or 80,000 or 100,000.” The refugees weren’t people in need of help; they were an army pretending to be people, dangerous because they were determined to attack America. </p>
<p>Denying the humanity of the refugees made it easier to deny them refuge, which is precisely what Trump proposed doing with his <a href="https://www.npr.org/2015/12/07/458836388/trump-calls-for-total-and-complete-shutdown-of-muslims-entering-u-s">Muslim ban</a>.</p>
<h2>Words as weapons</h2>
<p>Did Trump “have the best words,” as he once <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/national/trump-i-have-the-best-words/2017/04/05/53a9ae4a-19fd-11e7-8598-9a99da559f9e_video.html">claimed</a>? </p>
<p>Hardly. His words are weapons, well calculated to attack our public sphere by increasing <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/175790/americans-trust-executive-legislative-branches-down.aspx">distrust</a>, <a href="https://www.people-press.org/interactives/political-polarization-1994-2017/">polarization</a> and <a href="https://www.people-press.org/2015/11/23/2-general-opinions-about-the-federal-government/">frustration</a> – making it more difficult to solve political problems.</p>
<p>Trump was so successful in using dangerous demagogic rhetoric that no one could hold him accountable for his words and actions during the 2016 campaign or since. He uses rhetoric to <a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/63860/mueller-report-illustrates-trumps-authoritarian-rhetorical-tactics/">gain compliance</a> rather than for persuasion – he deploys language as force, or as a “counterpunch,” as he likes to explain.</p>
<p>Trump’s rhetorical strategies correspond to how authoritarians have historically eroded democracy, which is why his rhetoric is so dangerous.</p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/139531/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jennifer Mercieca does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Donald Trump uses language like a dangerous demagogue. The author of a book on Trump’s rhetorical skill gives a guide to the six most important rhetorical strategies Trump uses.Jennifer Mercieca, Associate Professor of Communication, Texas A&M UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/983622018-06-26T10:40:12Z2018-06-26T10:40:12ZA new world is dawning, and the US will no longer lead it<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224434/original/file-20180622-26555-1lnka31.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">German Chancellor Angela Merkel, center, speaks with U.S. President Donald Trump, at the contentious G7 Leaders Summit in Canada in June. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP/Jesco Denzel/German Federal Government</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://theconversation.com/un-nuevo-mundo-nace-y-eeuu-ya-no-es-su-lider-99117"><em>Leer en español</em></a>.</p>
<p>From pulling <a href="https://www.vox.com/world/2018/5/8/17328520/iran-nuclear-deal-trump-withdraw">out of treaties</a> to <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/trump-criticizing-key-allies-u-s-security">denigrating allies</a> to starting <a href="http://time.com/5319575/donald-trump-us-trade-tariffs-eu-india-turkey-china/">trade wars</a>, the impulsive actions of President Donald Trump are upending the international order that has been in place since the end of World War II.</p>
<p>But even before Trump’s belligerent foreign policy positions, America had been gradually losing its dominant role in world affairs.</p>
<p>A power shift among the nations of the world began at the end of the Cold War and has been accelerating this century.</p>
<p>It is not as simple as saying “America is in decline,” since America remains a powerful country. But American global power has been eroding for some time, <a href="https://fpa.org/news/index.cfm?act=show_announcement&announcement_id=418">as I argue</a> in the Foreign Policy Association’s “Great Decisions 2018” volume. The power of other countries has grown, giving them both the ability and the desire to effect global affairs independently of U.S. desires.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224489/original/file-20180622-26570-1s5wnz7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224489/original/file-20180622-26570-1s5wnz7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=759&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224489/original/file-20180622-26570-1s5wnz7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=759&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224489/original/file-20180622-26570-1s5wnz7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=759&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224489/original/file-20180622-26570-1s5wnz7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=953&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224489/original/file-20180622-26570-1s5wnz7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=953&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224489/original/file-20180622-26570-1s5wnz7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=953&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: ‘We are the indispensable nation.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP/Joe Marquette</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I am a <a href="https://www.american.edu/sis/faculty/gadams.cfm">foreign policy scholar and practitioner</a> who has studied U.S. foreign policy through many administrations. I believe this global trend spells the end of the “<a href="http://theweek.com/articles/654508/what-exactly-american-exceptionalism">exceptional nation</a>” Americans imagined they were since the nation was founded and the end of the American era of global domination that began 70 years ago. We are no longer the “indispensable” nation <a href="https://1997-2001.state.gov/statements/1998/980219a.html">celebrated</a> by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright at the end of the last century.</p>
<h2>Pax Americana no more</h2>
<p>Since the end of WWII, the U.S. has been the central player in the international system, leading in the creation of new international organizations like the <a href="https://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/ho/pubs/fs/55407.htm">United Nations</a>, <a href="https://www.historytoday.com/richard-cavendish/founding-nato">NATO</a>, the <a href="http://www.imf.org/external/about/histcoop.htm">International Monetary Fund</a> and the <a href="http://external.worldbankimflib.org/Bwf/60panel3.htm">World Bank</a>.</p>
<p>American diplomacy has been essential to multinational agreements on trade, climate, regional security and arms control. Americans could and did claim to be at the center of a “<a href="https://de.usembassy.gov/the-importance-of-a-rules-based-international-order/">rules-based international order</a>.”</p>
<p>Those days are gone.</p>
<p>Not only do <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/china-and-russia-vs-america-great-power-revisionism-is-back/">China and Russia</a> contest America’s global role, a growing number of other countries are asserting an independent and increasingly influential role in regional economic and security developments.</p>
<p>Neither American political party has come to grips with this sea change. Until they do, U.S. global actions are likely to be less effective, even counterproductive.</p>
<h2>Who’s on top?</h2>
<p>The power shifts are increasingly visible. In the Middle East, the U.S. hoped for decades to <a href="http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1586685,00.html">isolate Iran</a> as a pariah and weaken the regime until it fell.</p>
<p>Today, that goal is unimaginable, though national security adviser John Bolton continues to <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/04/iran-nuclear-deal-bolton-trump-regime-change/558785/">imagine</a> it.</p>
<p>Iran is and will remain an increasingly <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-rise-and-rise-of-iran-how-tehran-has-become-pivotal-to-the-future-of-the-middle-east-83160">assertive and influential power</a> in the region, defending and promoting its interests and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/04/2018-saudi-arabia-iran-rivalry-key-middle-east-year-ahead">competing with the Saudi regime</a>.</p>
<p>The Russians are in the <a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2018/03/16/the-middle-east-needs-a-steady-boyfriend/">Middle East region for good</a>, building on their long-standing relationship with the family of Syria’s dictator.</p>
<p>Turkey, a rising regional power, <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/turkish-fm-us-secretary-state-meet-amid-souring-bilateral-relations/4419834.html">acts increasingly independent</a> of the preferences of the U.S., its NATO ally, playing its own hand in the regional power game.</p>
<p>The U.S. helped unleash these trends with the <a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2009/10/14/who-wins-in-iraq/">strategically fatal invasion of Iraq</a> in 2003 – fatal, because it permanently removed a regional leader who balanced the power of Iran. The failure to create a stable Iraq stimulated regional religious and political conflicts and <a href="http://agenceglobal.com/2017/10/11/no-mystery-about-this-arab-disarray/%5d">rendered ineffective</a> subsequent U.S. efforts to influence current trends in the region, as the continually ineffective policies in Syria show.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224490/original/file-20180622-26561-1rqukgs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224490/original/file-20180622-26561-1rqukgs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224490/original/file-20180622-26561-1rqukgs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224490/original/file-20180622-26561-1rqukgs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224490/original/file-20180622-26561-1rqukgs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224490/original/file-20180622-26561-1rqukgs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224490/original/file-20180622-26561-1rqukgs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">U.S. Army helicopter crew chief in Afghanistan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Capt. Brian Harris, U.S. Army via AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In Asia, decades of U.S. <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2018/02/what-could-the-united-states-have-done-if-anything-to-prevent-chinas-rise/">condemnation and efforts to contain</a> the rise of Chinese power have failed. An assertive China has risen.</p>
<p>China now plays almost as powerful a role <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2018-01-23/asian-consumers-becoming-most-powerful-economic-force-in-world">in the global economy</a> as the U.S. It has defended an <a href="http://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1840920/growing-appeal-chinas-model-authoritarian-capitalism-and-how">authoritarian model</a> for economic growth, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-southchinasea-china-arms/exclusive-china-installs-weapons-systems-on-artificial-islands-u-s-think-tank-idUSKBN1431OK">armed artificial islands</a> in the South China Sea, and built <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/china-overseas-military-base/4099717.html">a military base</a> in Djibouti. China has created <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/05/business/international/china-creates-an-asian-bank-as-the-us-stands-aloof.html">new multilateral organizations</a> for security discussions and one for infrastructure loans, which the U.S. declined to join. It has developed a global lending program – the Belt and Road Initiative – and has stepped into a stronger global role <a href="https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/03/china-takes-leadership-climate-change-trump-clean-power-plan-paris-agreement/">on climate change</a>. And China is spreading its <a href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/chinas-soft-power-initiative">political and economic influence</a> into Africa and Latin America.</p>
<p>The U.S. cannot slow Chinese economic growth nor contain its power. China is changing the rules, whether the U.S. likes it or not.</p>
<p>Elsewhere in Asia, Japan moves toward <a href="http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/document.php?id=cqresrre1966010500">a renewed nationalism</a> and has removed restrictions on its <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2017/08/whats-in-japans-record-2018-defense-budget-request/">defense spending</a> and the deployment of its military in the face of growing Chinese power.</p>
<p>North Korea behaves more and more like <a href="https://www.cfr.org/report/challenge-north-korea">a regional power</a>, winning a <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-44435035">direct meeting</a> with the U.S. president while making only a general commitment to denuclearize. The prospect of a unified Korea would bring into being another major regional power center in the Northern Pacific.</p>
<p>Other countries, like the <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2018/04/dutertes-china-convergence-continues/">Philippines</a> and <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/australia-urged-to-build-closer-ties-to-china-as-us-power-fades/4137075.html">Australia</a>, hedge their bets by improving bilateral relations with China. And India is a <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/10/eight-key-facts-about-indias-economy-in-2017/">growing economic</a> and <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/18/asia/india-military-base-seychelles-intl/index.html">military</a> presence in the Indian Ocean and Southeast Asia.</p>
<p>Nor will the U.S. contain the rise of Russia, whose <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/03/06/the-long-terrifying-history-of-russian-dissidents-being-poisoned-abroad/?utm_term=.cd35bd5a8c1c">government poisons</a> its citizens overseas and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/03/23/here-are-ten-critics-of-vladimir-putin-who-died-violently-or-in-suspicious-ways/?utm_term=.3fba92bd08e1">kills dissenters</a> at home. At the same time, Russia is <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/russias-military-deadly-bear-or-paper-tiger-857106">rebuilding its military</a> and intruding in <a href="http://www.latimes.com/world/europe/la-fg-russia-election-meddling-20170330-story.html">others’ elections</a>. The Russian regime is <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/trump-fumbles-putin-quietly-prepares-invade-his-neighbors-578565">threatening</a> its near neighbors and actively engaging <a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2018/03/16/the-middle-east-needs-a-steady-boyfriend/">in the Middle East</a>.</p>
<p>President Vladimir Putin <a href="https://www.the-american-interest.com/2018/03/26/americas-global-role-question/">asserts</a> Russia’s interests and role in the world, like any other great power. Russia is consciously and actively rebalancing the power of the United States, with some success.</p>
<p>Military power, the American global trump card, is not as useful a tool as it once was.</p>
<p>While the U.S. continues to have the world’s only <a href="https://www.globalfirepower.com/country-military-strength-detail.asp?country_id=united-states-of-america">global military capability</a>, able to deploy anywhere, it is no longer evident that this capability effectively sustains U.S. leadership. Clear military victories are few – the <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/persian-gulf-war">Gulf War in 1991</a> being an exception. The endless U.S. <a href="https://www.cfr.org/event/afghanistan-endless-war">deployment in Afghanistan</a> carries the whiff of Vietnam in its inability to resolve that country’s civil war.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the militaries of other countries, acting independently of the U.S., are proving effective, as both <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/turkey-russia-iran-summit-on-syria/4330572.html">Turkish and Iranian operations</a> in Syria suggest.</p>
<h2>Abroad at home</h2>
<p>The transition to this new era is proving difficult for American policy-makers.</p>
<p>The Trump “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/a-year-of-trumps-america-first-agenda-has-radically-changed-the-us-role-in-the-world/2018/01/20/c1258aa6-f7cf-11e7-9af7-a50bc3300042_story.html?utm_term=.37a2fe45b3fc">America First</a>” foreign policy is based on the view that the U.S. needs to defend its interests by acting alone, eschewing or withdrawing from multilateral arrangements for trade, economics, diplomacy or security.</p>
<p>Trump praises “strong” nationalistic leadership <a href="https://www.vox.com/world/2018/2/27/17058182/xi-jinping-term-limits-trump">in authoritarian countries</a>, while democratic leadership in allied countries is <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-attacks-canada-to-show-north-korea-hes-strong-aide-says/2018/06/10/afc16c0c-6cba-11e8-bd50-b80389a4e569_story.html?utm_term=.29e142f686e3">criticized</a> as weak.</p>
<p>In response, allies <a href="https://www.euractiv.com/section/defence-policy/news/germanys-maas-unveils-vision-for-post-atlantic-europe/">distance themselves</a> from the United States. Others are emboldened to act in an equally <a href="http://thehill.com/opinion/international/381788-dictators-shirking-their-nations-democratic-facades-more-brazenly">nationalistic and assertive way</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224491/original/file-20180622-26555-ofzahc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224491/original/file-20180622-26555-ofzahc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224491/original/file-20180622-26555-ofzahc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224491/original/file-20180622-26555-ofzahc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224491/original/file-20180622-26555-ofzahc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224491/original/file-20180622-26555-ofzahc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224491/original/file-20180622-26555-ofzahc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The leaders of Russia and Turkey are strengthening ties.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP/Mikhail Klimentyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some conservatives, like <a href="https://www.mccain.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2017/6/floor-statement-by-sasc-chairman-john-mccain-in-support-of-russia-sanctions-amendment">Sen. John McCain, call</a> for confrontation with Russia and strengthening traditional American alliances, particularly NATO.</p>
<p>Others, like <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2018/03/24/john-bolton-wants-regime-change-in-iran-and-so-does-the-cult-that-paid-him/?utm_term=.ccb6ae6df4ff">John Bolton, call for</a> regime change in assertive powers like Iran.</p>
<p>Liberals and many Democrats <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/john-mccain-president-trump-g7-communique-chuck-schumer-nancy-pelosi-respond-today-2018-06-09/">criticize</a> Trump for alienating traditional allies like Canada, France and Germany while befriending dictators. Policy-makers once critical of confrontational policies now <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/schumer-sides-with-romney-russia-probably-our-most-formidable-enemy">condemn Trump</a> for failing to confront Russia and China.</p>
<p>A different president in Washington, D.C., will not restore the “rules-based” international order. The underlying changes in global power relations have already undermined that order.</p>
<p>A neo-conservative foreign policy, featuring unilateral American military intervention, as <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/147640/scarier-neoconserative-john-bolton-radical-nationalist">favored by John Bolton</a>, will only accelerate the global shift. <a href="https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/hvmilner/files/cmt_libint_essay_updated_01.pdf">Liberal internationalists</a> like Hillary Clinton would fail as well, because the rest of the world rejects the assumption that the U.S. is “indispensable” and “exceptional.” Barack Obama appeared to recognize the changing reality, but continued to argue that <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/04/the-obama-doctrine/471525/">only the U.S.</a> could lead the international system.</p>
<p>America will need to learn new rules and play differently in the new balance-of-power world, where others have assets and policies the U.S. does not and cannot control.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/98362/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gordon Adams does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>President Trump is criticized for wreaking havoc on the international order, where the US was the established leader. But Trump is simply hastening a change that has been a long time coming.Gordon Adams, Professor Emeritus, American University School of International ServiceLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/931122018-03-16T10:26:35Z2018-03-16T10:26:35ZAmericans should welcome the age of unexceptionalism<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/210166/original/file-20180313-30969-1hyey9x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">July 4th in a Dallas suburb. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP/Michael Prengler</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Exceptionalism – the idea that the United States has a mission and character that separates it from other nations – is ingrained in everyday talk about American politics.</p>
<p>It shapes high-level discussions about foreign policy – for example, in a recent argument by a foreign affairs scholar that the United States plays a “<a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2018-02-13/clash-exceptionalisms">unique role as the world’s anchor of liberal ideas</a>.”</p>
<p>It shapes conversation about domestic policy too. It leads us to think that <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=iDkJDgAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&dq=%22exceptional%20america%22&pg=PA7#v=onepage&q&f=false">America’s internal divisions and problems are distinctive</a> – and by implication, that the experience of other countries cannot tell us much about how to handle them.</p>
<p>But is the United States really exceptional? </p>
<h2>Every country is special</h2>
<p>It is, at a basic level, of course. Every country believes that its circumstances are distinctive. Russians talk about their <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=ygiVCwAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&dq=russia%20and%20the%20new%20world%20disorder&pg=PA17#v=onepage&q&f=false">“specialness.”</a> The Chinese insist on their <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=D1W2DAAAQBAJ&lpg=PA77&dq=zhang%20%22the%20civilizational%20state%22&pg=PA77#v=onepage&q&f=false">“uniqueness.”</a> Indians have long noted the <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=BmE7AQAAMAAJ&lpg=PA1&ots=FSV_vgBmMa&dq=aga%20khan%20%22unique%20complexity%22%20india&pg=PA1#v=onepage&q=aga%20khan%20%22unique%20complexity%22%20india&f=false">unusual complexity</a> of their politics.</p>
<p>Beyond this, though, the idea of American exceptionalism does not hold up. <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=SSfU2ToAAAAJ&hl=en">My research</a> suggests that it is also obstructing the country’s ability to think clearly about the challenges ahead.</p>
<p>Exceptionalism has two aspects. One is the notion that the United States, since its founding, has had a distinct ambition – a “<a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2018-02-13/clash-exceptionalisms">messianic mission</a>” to promote liberty and democracy. </p>
<p>By itself, having a national mission is not unusual. <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/titles/10967.html">The European empires of the 19th century were also driven by grand ambitions</a>. The French talked about their mission to civilize the world. The British promoted “British ideals” such as liberty and the rule of law. They even promised eventual self-government for colonies – when London judged that the colonies were ready for it.</p>
<p>The American practice was not entirely different. The country’s leaders declared their mission to <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=WQNLAAAAYAAJ&lpg=PA25&ots=q6HgJlGYib&dq=%22civilize%20this%20continent%22&pg=PA25#v=onepage&q&f=false">civilize the continent</a>. They acquired territory, often by force, and then decided whether people were ready to govern themselves. The empowerment of African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, native peoples and immigrants was delayed because they were considered by the white Anglo-Saxon majority to be “<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=numFAAAAMAAJ&dq=bryce%20%22is%20still%20largely%20peopled%22&pg=PA217#v=onepage&q=bryce%20%22is%20still%20largely%20peopled%22&f=false">ill-fitted for self-rule</a>.”</p>
<p>And the United States was also a colonizing power. For example, it occupied the Philippines in the first half of the 20th century, sought to introduce “<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=uy5FAQAAMAAJ&dq=%22american%20civilization%20philippines&pg=PA53#v=onepage&q&f=false">American civilization</a>” and again deferred self-rule because Filipinos were <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=BrURAAAAYAAJ&dq=filipinos%20%22are%20not%20ready%20for%22&pg=PA950#v=onepage&q&f=false">judged not to be ready for it</a>.</p>
<p>In the 20th century, politicians in the United States and Europe were pushed toward a more enlightened view of freedom. Faced with protests and rebellions, Western countries gave up most of their colonies and enfranchised more of their people. And they adopted codes like the <a href="http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/">Universal Declaration of Human Rights</a> and the <a href="https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/what-european-convention-human-rights">European Convention on Human Rights</a>.</p>
<h2>Freedom and democracy, a shared goal</h2>
<p>Again, though, the United States was not exceptional in its pursuit of freedom and democracy. There was a shared commitment to human rights, even though countries often fell short of the ideal in practice.</p>
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<span class="caption">The U.S. was born from a revolution, which contributes to the myth of exceptionalism.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Archives</span></span>
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<p>The second aspect of exceptionalism has to do with the character of American society and politics. The claim is that governing in the United States is <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=W37zSNcybaEC&lpg=PA8&dq=%22great%20anomaly%20among%20western%20states%22&pg=PA6#v=onepage&q&f=false">different than in Europe</a> because the U.S. population is so diverse, people are so wedded to their rights, and central government has been historically weak. After all, the United States was born in revolution. And it empowered the people before modern conditions required strong government.</p>
<p>This claim does not get the scrutiny it deserves. Sometimes it relies on a stereotype of centralized government in Europe. It overlooks Europe’s long history of uprisings, civil wars, coups and partitions. Deep ambivalence about authority is certainly not peculiar to the United States.</p>
<p>Moreover, western Europe accounts for a small minority of the world’s 195 states. Almost half of those states are fewer than 80 years old. <a href="http://fundforpeace.org/fsi/">Most are categorized as fragile</a>. Leaders in fragile states struggle to establish central authority and manage deep internal divisions, while respecting domestic and international law on human rights.</p>
<p>In short, they wrestle with all of the challenges that are said to make the United States exceptional.</p>
<h2>Need to recognize commonalities</h2>
<p>This wrongheaded emphasis on exceptionalism is unfortunate for two reasons. </p>
<p>The first is that it complicates the task of building a global coalition to defend freedom and democracy. Recent history shows the urgent need for such a coalition. Around the world, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/democracy-in-retreat/2016/03/13/dd2e5eba-e798-11e5-a6f3-21ccdbc5f74e_story.html?utm_term=.91941ddd09cc">democracy is perceived to be in retreat</a>. China, a one-party state, will soon have <a href="http://fortune.com/2017/02/09/study-china-will-overtake-the-u-s-as-worlds-largest-economy-before-2030/">the world’s biggest economy</a>. In the fight to advance human rights, the United States needs all the friends it can get. Rhetoric about U.S. exceptionalism does not help to build alliances.</p>
<p>It also undermines the country’s capacity to deal with one of the most challenging aspects of democratic governance. This is the problem of managing sharp internal divisions without resorting to methods that crush liberties and respect for minorities. </p>
<p>As any history book will show, the United States has much experience with this problem. But so do many other countries. Some, like India, the world’s most populous liberal democracy, deal with it on a much larger scale. There is an opportunity to learn across borders. Rhetoric about exceptionalism makes it less likely that this will happen.</p>
<p>In this century, the pursuit of traditional American ideals requires new ways of thinking. The ambition to advance freedom and democracy is now broadly shared. So is experience in translating these ideals into practice. To defend those ideals, all of the world’s democracies must pull together in a common cause.</p>
<p>The first step is adopting a new point of view. Call it unexceptionalism: an attitude that acknowledges the commonalities, as well as the differences, in the American experience.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/93112/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alasdair S. Roberts does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Belief in American exceptionalism isn’t just at odds with history and facts. It undermines the country’s capacity to address looming challenges.Alasdair S. Roberts, Director, School of Public Policy, UMass AmherstLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/852402017-10-17T23:54:06Z2017-10-17T23:54:06ZWhy Russia thinks it’s exceptional<p>Destiny calls upon Russia once more to face the West – or so Russians might believe.</p>
<p>America is not alone in projecting itself as an exceptional power and indispensable force for good in the world. Russia makes the same claim. That sentiment is built upon centuries of defeating invaders, as I explore in “<a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674972483">Russia: The Story of War</a>.” And it plays a key role in how Russia sees itself in its increasingly tense relationship with NATO and the West.</p>
<h2>The birth of Russian exceptionalism</h2>
<p>For Russia, its triumph over Nazi Germany in the Second World War is a pillar of national identity. Yet outsiders don’t often realize that Russians’ belief in their special role in saving civilization from history’s villains actually predates the war.</p>
<p>In 1812, Napoleon, a tyrant bent on world domination, invaded Russia only to see his army destroyed. It was a tremendous victory and propelled Russia to lead a coalition of allies to liberate Europe from his grip. That campaign ended in 1814 with their occupation of Paris. While Napoleon’s final defeat came at Waterloo in 1815, Russians insisted that they had inflicted the mortal wound.</p>
<p>After the Napoleonic Wars, a volcano of patriotism erupted across Russian society. At its center was the widely shared belief that Russia had saved Europe. Moreover, no other country on its own had repelled an invasion by Napoleon or crushed his army, which had once seemed invincible. Commonly disparaged by Western Europeans as savages or barbarians, Russians could now turn their reputation on its head. As Denis Davidov, a flamboyant leader of partisans, <a href="http://militera.lib.ru/memo/russian/davydov_dv/index.html">declared</a>: “At last, with head lifted proudly, one can say: ‘I am a Russian.’”</p>
<p>Such pride caused many writers and intellectuals in the 19th century to look deeper into history for more evidence of this exceptionalism.</p>
<h2>Roll call of invaders</h2>
<p>That search led back to the 13th century, when the Mongols invaded Europe. <a href="http://rvb.ru/pushkin/01text/07criticism/02misc/1053.htm">Known as</a> “God’s scourge,” their forces advanced no farther than Eastern Europe, allowing Russians centuries later to claim that they had shed their blood to protect the rest of Europe from this dire threat.</p>
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<p>Intellectuals advanced subsequent invasions to bolster the argument of exceptionalism. In the 16th century, the Crimean Tatars rode north, leaving Moscow in ashes. In the 17th, the Poles did the same while also deposing the tsar and murdering the head of the Russian Church. In the 18th, the Swedes invaded only to be defeated by Peter the Great.</p>
<p>With Napoleon’s invasion in the 19th, belief in Russia’s indispensable role was secure, and it enjoyed solid currency across the political spectrum. From <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Fyodor-Dostoyevsky">Fyodor Dostoevsky</a>, an arch-conservative, to Lenin’s idol, the radical revolutionary <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/N-G-Chernyshevsky">Nicholai Chernyshevsky</a> – all awarded their nation pedigree status for serving as a shield to defend civilization. </p>
<p>The military, to no surprise, took this idea as an article of faith. At century’s end the head of Russia’s equivalent of West Point, General Nikolai Sukhotin, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=3M65DgAAQBAJ&lpg=PT62&ots=ypsMGj_Col&dq=%22war%20in%20the%20history%20of%20the%20russian%20world%22%20Nikolai%20Sukhotin&pg=PT62#v=onepage&q=%22war%20in%20the%20history%20of%20the%20russian%20world%22%20Nikolai%20Sukhotin&f=false">embraced it</a> as “the key to understanding the special nature of Russia’s experience of war” – something to which, he also added, no other Western nation could lay claim.</p>
<p>Hitler’s attack in the next century – the greatest threat Russia has faced – has cemented its myth of exceptionalism. Just as no country has done what Russia has done to protect others from aggressors, so runs the belief, no other country has itself also been such a frequent target of aggression. </p>
<h2>What war means today</h2>
<p>More than anything else, Russia’s experience of war has profoundly shaped its worldview and self-image. That legacy also feeds a national narrative, one nurtured over centuries, not just of epic proportion but of epic persuasion that can serve multiple purposes. </p>
<p>First, and perhaps foremost, it can be invoked whenever Russia is <a href="http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/46385">painted as an aggressor</a>. It ensures a presumption of innocence and just cause, no matter the action taken. It even allows for a defensive gloss to burnish Russia’s campaigns of conquest that, by the end of the 19th century, made it the largest contiguous empire, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Soviet-Union">encompassing one-sixth</a> of the world’s landmass.</p>
<p>Defensive expansionism, for example, can be invoked to explain Russia’s annexation of Crimea – both times. The <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4205010?seq=3#page_scan_tab_contents">first instance</a> was at the end of the 18th century in order to eliminate the threat posed by the Crimean Tatars who for centuries had raided Russia in pursuit of its most lucrative resource: Russians themselves bound for the slave markets of the Middle East. The second time, of course, was in 2014 when <a href="http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/20603">Russia argued</a> it was protecting Russians on the peninsula from an ostensibly hostile Ukrainian government.</p>
<p>Second, it helps underwrite Russia’s suspicion of others that is often decried as overly paranoid or pathological. Here, too, one can go back to the Mongols. When they invaded, how did Russia’s western neighbors respond? By attacking Russia as well.</p>
<p>Also driving this suspicion of the West, besides the sheer number of invasions, is that the invaders have often been coalitions of nations, as if engaged in a collective conspiracy against Russia. Napoleon’s army included, among others, Poles, Italians and Germans, whereas Hungarians, Romanians and others joined Hitler’s ranks. In this reasoning, this is why NATO – especially after its expansion right up to Russia’s border – can be seen through the lens of deja vu, as if Europe once more is ganging up on Russia. Not for nothing do state-sponsored advertisements <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDN5we1VDDs">replay a joke</a> favored by Tsar Alexander III in the late 19th century – but no longer in jest. He would ask, “How many allies does Russia have?” Two, was the punch line: its Army and its Navy. </p>
<p>Third, calling on this legacy plays into the Kremlin’s drive to centralize power. And in the hyper-patriotic climate it has caused, political opposition can be tagged as treason, and foreign entities on Russian soil <a href="http://rapsinews.com/trend/ngo/">easily rebranded</a> as foreign agents.</p>
<p>In fact, the legitimacy of the office of president is inseparable from the aura of war. It is no coincidence that inauguration day is May 7, thus pairing it with May 9, VE Day, and the massive celebrations marking the end of World War II. To add effect, the presidential honor guard wears uniforms recalling the Napoleonic age. What else but the backdrop of Russia’s two greatest triumphs to cement the authority of the state with the sacrifices of the people?</p>
<p>Here we see the true function of this civic religion: showcasing a sense of exceptionalism that unites Russians behind an all-powerful center and unifies their turbulent and bloody thousand-year history along a single continuum as the perpetual victim of foreign aggression. This mythic narrative is high-octane fuel for the engine of Russian nationalism, and today is pumped through all venues of culture and society. And precisely because of its deep roots extending back centuries, it enjoys <a href="https://www.levada.ru/2015/04/29/velikaya-otechestvennaya-vojna/print/">widespread domestic support</a>.</p>
<p>Nothing but war teaches Russians better that, while at the center of world-shaking events, they are on the side of the good and always come out on top. Nothing raises the ideological scaffolding higher than seeking to make Russia great again following the breakup of the Soviet Union.</p>
<p>“We are history’s makers,” the popular historian <a href="http://militera.lib.ru/research/medinsky_vr01/index.html">Vladimir Medinsky declared</a> shortly before becoming minister of culture. And in this telling, Russians certainly are.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85240/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gregory Carleton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In the 19th century, Russian intellectuals launched a search for historical evidence of their moral and military superiority. What they found drives what today some call “Russian aggression.”Gregory Carleton, Professor of Russian Studies, Tufts UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/845502017-09-22T22:43:34Z2017-09-22T22:43:34ZShould America be the world’s cop? What the experts say<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187222/original/file-20170922-28496-16znswd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">When is might right?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Glynnis Jones / Shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Editor’s note: As part of our collaboration with “<a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/third-rail/home/">Third Rail with OZY</a>,” we asked scholars from a variety of disciplines to answer the question: “Should America be the world’s cop?”</em></p>
<h2>A rationale for intervention</h2>
<p><strong>Abram Van Engen, Washington University in St. Louis</strong></p>
<p>Many American presidents have claimed that the United States has a distinct responsibility to fight for freedom across the world. </p>
<p>In 2005, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/jan/20/uselections2004.usa">President George W. Bush declared</a>, “It is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.” </p>
<p>In 2014, after affirming his belief in American exceptionalism, <a href="http://time.com/4341783/obamas-commencement-transcript-speech-west-point-2014/">President Barack Obama claimed</a> that America stands “for the more lasting peace that can only come through opportunity and freedom for people everywhere.” For him, “American leadership” entails “our willingness to act on behalf of human dignity.” </p>
<p>Rising out of the Cold War era and continuing through the Obama presidency, there came to be some consensus on the rhetoric for interventions abroad.</p>
<p>These days, the rhetoric has changed. </p>
<p>President Donald Trump has replaced American exceptionalism with “America First.” Now, the United States is not distinct from other countries. We are a nation like any other, <a href="http://time.com/4640707/donald-trump-inauguration-speech-transcript/">says Trump</a>, and “it is the right of all nations to put their own interests first.” In <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/28/us/politics/transcript-trump-foreign-policy.html?mcubz=0&_r=0">his 2016 foreign policy address</a>, Trump called it “a dangerous idea” to believe “that we could make Western democracies out of countries that had no experience or interests in becoming a Western democracy.” </p>
<p>Last week, for the first time, Trump attempted to blend America First with American exceptionalism. In <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/09/19/remarks-president-trump-72nd-session-united-nations-general-assembly">his speech to the United Nations</a>, he claimed, “In America, we do not seek to impose our way of life on anyone, but rather to let it shine as an example for everyone to watch.” America should model its way, but not intervene in the ways of others.</p>
<p>Yet the rest of the speech went on to call for interventions. It did so on the basis of sovereignty. All nations, <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/09/19/remarks-president-trump-72nd-session-united-nations-general-assembly">Trump declared</a>, must uphold “these two core sovereign duties: to respect the interests of their own people and the rights of every other sovereign nation.”</p>
<p>Then he launched into North Korea, Venezuela and Iran, asserting these countries did not respect their own people or the sovereignty of others. In those cases, he claimed, America would intervene.</p>
<p>Though contradictions abound in the speech, Trump’s position became abundantly clear: The world will be better off, he believes, if every nation becomes more self-interested.</p>
<p>This is a vision of the world defined not by the rhetoric of freedom, opportunity, immigration, asylum or any traditional language of American exceptionalism. Instead, Trump’s vision is defined by sovereignty and self-interest. He is more than willing to use the might of the military, but under very different terms.</p>
<h2>Know when to fight</h2>
<p><strong>Dennis Jett, Pennsylvania State University</strong></p>
<p>America cannot be the world’s cop, but it must not walk away from its broader responsibilities, as the administration in power in Washington is attempting to do. No country, not even the world’s only superpower, can be the policeman of the entire planet. The challenge for the United States is to decide where to engage and how. </p>
<p>You don’t have to have been a career diplomat, as I was, to understand that President Trump, in his <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/09/19/remarks-president-trump-72nd-session-united-nations-general-assembly">debut speech this week at the U.N. General Assembly</a>, demonstrated he does not know how to make those decisions. He certainly respects sovereignty, since he mentioned it 21 times in explaining his “<a href="https://theconversation.com/trumps-america-first-echoes-from-1940s-59579">America First</a>” foreign policy. He did reserve the right to take action against his axis of evil – Venezuela, Iran, Syria and North Korea – but otherwise made clear the United States was not much interested in the rest of the world. Autocrats outside the four countries he called out were no doubt applauding the green light he gave them to continue repressing and stealing from their people. </p>
<p>Being a good cop includes encouraging respect for the law and not just shooting suspects. And nation building by supporting democracy can be far more effective than using force – assuming the citizens of that nation are willing to build it rather than just fight over the spoils. </p>
<p>Trump – who has <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/30/world/europe/trump-press-united-nations.html?mcubz=1">assaulted the media</a>, convened a <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-voter-fraud-crusades-undermine-voting-rights-71966">highly controversial voter fraud commission</a> and <a href="http://www.factcheck.org/2017/01/trumps-bogus-voter-fraud-claims-revisited/">dishonestly asserted</a> he lost the popular vote because three million illegal immigrants cast ballots – has demonstrated he has little respect for democracy at home. So, it is not surprising that he shows no concern for it abroad. That is short-sighted; American leadership matters. He can build all the walls he wants, but they won’t keep out the problems presented by globalization.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/84550/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Abram Van Engen has received funding for his work from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dennis Jett does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Most Americans don’t want the United States to be the world’s policeman. Do the experts agree?Dennis Jett, Professor of International Affairs, Penn StateAbram Van Engen, Associate Professor of English, Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. LouisLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/787362017-06-02T02:24:00Z2017-06-02T02:24:00ZThe end of America’s global leadership?<p>American presidents in recent decades have spent a great deal of time proclaiming U.S. leadership of the global system. The decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement undermines much of what they have said. For any student of global politics, it represents a watershed moment when it comes to debating America’s role in the world. </p>
<h2>Becoming a global leader</h2>
<p>In practice, global leadership can take two forms.</p>
<p>The first version confers leadership because a country is the most powerful. It has the strongest military, the biggest economy, the most innovative technology. But beyond that, a global leader has to be willing to cast aside its own short-term interests in favor of a longer-term outlook. This isn’t altruism. It is seeing beyond the horizon, what psychologists define as<a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/stronger-the-broken-places/201212/enlightened-self-interest"> “enlightened self-interest.”</a></p>
<p>Sometimes a dominant power must endure costs to achieve a collective benefit. American behavior since 1945 has often fitted that description, from supporting NATO to setting up international institutions like the World Bank or funding others like the United Nations. It is why Americans describe themselves, in the words of former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, as <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/govt/admin/stories/albright120696.htm">“the world’s indispensable nation.” </a></p>
<p>The second version confers leadership as a result of a country’s glowing reputation. Ronald Reagan, for example, invoked the biblical notion that the United States was a model, a “shining light upon a hill.” </p>
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<p>America is not an ordinary country. It is special. And presidents since Reagan have routinely made that claim, as if it is a statement of fact. Sometimes <a href="http://www.pewglobal.org/2016/06/29/as-obama-years-draw-to-close-president-and-u-s-seen-favorably-in-europe-and-asia/">global public opinion disagrees</a>. But <a href="http://www.people-press.org/2015/11/23/9-views-of-the-nation-how-its-changing-and-confidence-in-the-future/">many Americans</a> still see the country as “one stand[ing] above all others.” </p>
<h2>Losing global leadership</h2>
<p>It takes a long time and much effort to build a position as a global leader. But it can be lost in two ways. </p>
<p>The first is dramatic: through the heavy costs of war and with it the collapse of a leader’s economy. A country doesn’t even have to lose a war. Military victory in World War II cost Britain so much that it accelerated <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7725157.stm">its decline as the preeminent power.</a></p>
<p>The second is a more incremental – and insidious. It involves a steady shift to a focus on short-term interests, and bullying – rather than cooperating with – other countries. This can take many forms. In economic terms, it may entail the leader imposing protectionist trade barriers against other countries. In security, the leader may require other countries to pay more for their collective defense. With that kind of behavior comes a loss of reputation. Sometimes leadership disappears with a whimper more than a bang. Individual decisions may seem so inconsequential that it is hard to spot their importance at the time. </p>
<p>Britain’s global leadership, for example, was built on free trade. But its first protectionist measures were introduced in the opening years of the 20th century. It took only another four decades for America to overtake it as the world’s economic leader. Interestingly, Ronald Reagan first employed protectionist trade barriers against Japan four decades ago.</p>
<h2>Renouncing the Paris accord</h2>
<p>Sometimes you can spot the moment that leadership was lost as clear as day. Withdrawal from the Paris climate accord looks like one of those moments. </p>
<p>Certainly, the Trump administration’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/when-trump-met-nato-blunt-talk-and-meaningful-silences-78444">bickering over NATO’s budget</a> has looked unseemly at times. But, despite Angela Merkel’s <a href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/merkel-and-trump-a-trans-atlantic-turning-point-a-1149757.html">plaintive comment</a> that it may be time for Europe to learn to be more self-reliant, that relationship is arguably reparable, contingent on some improvements in the defense expenditures of America’s NATO partners. It could simply be interpreted as tough American posturing. </p>
<p>The same is true of numerous trade deals. Indeed, senior Trump administration officials H.R. McMaster and Gary Cohn suggested in a <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/america-first-doesnt-mean-america-alone-1496187426">Wall Street Journal op-ed</a> only this week that “America First” did not mean “America alone” when it comes to both trade and national security.</p>
<p>But pulling out of the world’s most far-reaching global climate compact, signed by nearly 200 countries in the last two years, is a completely different animal. Renouncing the agreement makes the United States members of very a select group – with Nicaragua and Syria. And, unlike the U.S., neither of them is particularly important when it comes to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/05/31/why-nicaragua-and-syria-didnt-join-the-paris-climate-accord/?utm_term=.da9e294a94d2">greenhouse gas emissions. </a></p>
<p>Donald Trump may come to discover, like with so many other things, that extricating the U.S. from the Paris Agreement and negotiating a new one is more complicated than he imagined. But despite the fact that it could take years to resolve, it is impossible for the U.S. to retain the claim of leadership when it played an instrumental role in setting up the agreement - and then immediately defected from it. </p>
<p>Clearly, the Obama administration sold the climate deal to the American people <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/11/05/why-a-paris-climate-agreement-could-actually-be-very-good-for-the-u-s/?utm_term=.c8156d5d6c75">as being in America’s self-interest</a>. And numerous public interest groups <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/experts/han-chen/why-paris-agreement-good-united-states">eagerly reinforced</a> that view. But it also served a much broader collective interest – to all of humanity.</p>
<p>That has been widely understood. In the last few days, even some of America’s foremost corporations lobbied in favor of continued American adherence to the agreement. <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/exxon-mobil-trump-administration-paris-climate-accord_us_58dc412ae4b05eae031d0199">This included Exxon Mobil</a>, the <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurengensler/2016/05/26/global-2000-worlds-largest-oil-and-gas-companies/#28c6e00c28b6">world’s largest</a> oil company. </p>
<p>So why withdraw? Well, adhering to the agreement, argued some pro-business think tanks, <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/press-release/new-report-examines-costs-us-industrial-sector-obama-s-paris-pledge">entailed domestic costs</a>, particularly to workers employed in America’s fossil fuel industry. They are among <a href="http://www.npr.org/2017/01/01/507693919/coal-country-picked-trump-now-they-want-him-to-keep-his-promises">Trump’s core supporters.</a> The president’s rhetoric about the unfair nature of the deal aside, it is concerns about his core political constituency that has apparently proved paramount, at a cost to America’s global reputation.</p>
<h2>The costs and benefits of withdrawal</h2>
<p>There are likely few benefits to the United States. American coal is not in demand and the growth of the renewable power suggests that the demand for <a href="http://www.carbontracker.org/report/expect-the-unexpected-disruptive-power-low-carbon-technology-solar-electric-vehicles-grantham-imperial/">fossil fuels will gradually decline anyway</a> </p>
<p>Certainly, the Trump administration can claim the reassertion of American sovereignty. And the decision may further consolidate Trump’s political support among his true die-hard supporters. As Trump said in his announcement, withdrawal is further evidence of his keeping his campaign promises. His promise of renegotiation, in contrast, isn’t feasible, and looks disingenuous. </p>
<p>But despite Trump’s claim to the contrary, the diplomatic and economic costs will likely be <a href="https://www.atr.org/obamas-paris-agreement-all-cost-and-no-benefit-us">significant</a>. And the greatest cost will likely be to America’s global leadership. It is hard to retain the pretense that a country leads when America First entails ignoring the <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-40106281">pleas of its closest allies</a> and the <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-40118690">United Nations’ leadership</a>. </p>
<p>Just as with the Trump administration’s<a href="http://money.cnn.com/2017/01/23/news/economy/tpp-trump-china/"> withdrawal from global and regional trade</a> agreements, China has expressed a willingness to step in and fill the void, and become<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/the-energy-202/2017/06/01/the-energy-202-trump-made-up-his-mind-on-paris-now-the-rest-of-the-world-will-do-the-same-on-him/592f0347e9b69b2fb981dc07/?utm_term=.85276253b54e&wpisrc=nl_most-draw8&wpmm=1"> “a leader on climate change.” </a></p>
<p>Historians decades from now will no doubt debate the issue of if and when America abdicated from its role as “the indispensable nation.” But, looking back, many may well claim that June 1, 2017 was the day that America’s global leadership ended.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/78736/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Simon Reich does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>American presidents have spent a great deal of time proclaiming US leadership of the global system. The decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement undermines much of what they have said.Simon Reich, Professor in The Division of Global Affairs and The Department of Political Science, Rutgers University - NewarkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/738992017-03-29T01:44:38Z2017-03-29T01:44:38ZThe rise of anti-immigrant attitudes, violence and nationalism in Costa Rica<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163011/original/image-20170328-3819-u1inbo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Workers wash freshly harvested bananas on a banana plantation near Parrita, Costa Rica.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Kent Gilbert</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Costa Rica is often thought of as the “Switzerland of the Americas.” </p>
<p>With a stable democracy and no standing army, the small Central American country of 4.8 million is often referred to as the <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13569320701682542">“exception”</a> to the conflict, violence and poverty faced in other Latin American countries. In particular, Costa Ricans pride themselves on their strong health care and education systems.</p>
<p>But Costa Ricans have increasingly faced social and economic challenges that threaten their exceptional status. In response, many Costa Ricans have projected their anxieties onto immigrants. </p>
<p>In 2005, a Costa Rican congressman named Ricardo Toledo gave <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/imre.12073/full">a passionate speech</a> criticizing immigrants who “come to kill our women; many of them come to rob our banks; to rob our sons and daughters in the streets.” </p>
<p>He called on Costa Rica to close its borders to Nicaraguan immigrants.</p>
<p>In response to this kind of anti-immigrant attitude, the National Assembly passed a <a href="http://www.pgrweb.go.cr/scij/Busqueda/Normativa/Normas/nrm_texto_completo.aspx?param1=NRTC&nValor1=1&nValor2=56050&nValor3=79756&param2=1&strTipM=TC&lResultado=3&strSim=simp">law</a> that restricted residency, increased enforcement and limited immigrants’ opportunities for integration.</p>
<p>That same year, a 25-year-old Nicaraguan immigrant named Natividad Canda was mauled to death by two <a href="http://wvw.aldia.cr/ad_ee/2005/noviembre/11/sucesos0.html">Rottweilers</a>. According to some reports, several onlookers who witnessed the attack <a href="http://www.ticotimes.net/2006/01/27/probe-says-police-could-have-stopped-fatal-dog-attack">did nothing to help him</a>. Many Costa Ricans praised the dogs and condemned the victim as an alleged criminal and “illegal” immigrant.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163012/original/image-20170328-3782-9ociz0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163012/original/image-20170328-3782-9ociz0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163012/original/image-20170328-3782-9ociz0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163012/original/image-20170328-3782-9ociz0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163012/original/image-20170328-3782-9ociz0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163012/original/image-20170328-3782-9ociz0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163012/original/image-20170328-3782-9ociz0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Approximately 1,000 mostly Nicaraguan families were being evicted from land they have been squatting on, 2005.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Kent Gilbert</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While Costa Rica has since stepped back from the worst of its explicitly xenophobic legislation, the discriminatory spirit that led to that law being passed still continues today. </p>
<p>In my <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/plar.12136/abstract">research</a> with Nicaraguan immigrants in San Jose, Costa Rica, I find that Nicaraguans continue to face widespread discrimination and major barriers to legal status and access to social services. <a href="http://www.unesco.org/new/en/social-and-human-sciences/themes/international-migration/glossary/xenophobia/">Attitudes and behaviors</a> that reject, vilify and exclude immigrants often solidify national identity when that identity is in <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01419870.1997.9993946">crisis</a>.</p>
<h2>Decades of ‘us versus them’</h2>
<p>In Costa Rica, Nicaraguans make up <a href="http://www.inec.go.cr/censos/censos-2011">75 percent</a> of immigrants and represent around 7 percent of the total population. They often work in agriculture, construction and service sectors. </p>
<p>Nicaraguan migration to Costa Rica is not new, but attitudes toward Nicaraguans have become more prejudiced since the mid-20th century. Where Nicaraguans are seen as inherently violent, Costa Ricans see themselves as peace-loving. Where Nicaraguans are seen as poor, illiterate and uncultured, Costa Ricans see themselves as middle-class and educated. Where Nicaraguans are mestizo and dark-skinned, Costa Ricans are “white.” </p>
<p>The sense of difference and superiority felt by many Costa Ricans has been reinforced by stereotypes of Nicaraguans developed over decades of migration.</p>
<iframe src="https://www.google.com/maps/embed?pb=!1m18!1m12!1m3!1d7929305.717903751!2d-88.67147164556586!3d13.974592506838244!2m3!1f0!2f0!3f0!3m2!1i1024!2i768!4f13.1!3m3!1m2!1s0x8f92e56221acc925%3A0x6254f72535819a2b!2sCosta+Rica!5e0!3m2!1sen!2sus!4v1490722424255" width="100%" height="450" frameborder="0" style="border:0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<p>Nicaraguan migration to Costa Rica goes all the way back to colonial and 19th-century regional economic <a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=EPyPSrFkO0YC&oi=fnd&pg=PR5&dq=patricia+alvarenga+costa+rica&ots=R48ot-zORU&sig=SLd7bZ8AXvJ718gRXUfiE_6ljvU#v=onepage&q=patricia%20alvarenga%20costa%20rica&f=false">developments</a>. Nicaraguan workers were instrumental to the rise of the Costa Rican coffee industry, the construction of its railroad and the establishment of the multinational banana industry. Later, during the Sandinista Revolution and Contra war in the 1980s, Nicaraguans <a href="https://www.brown.edu/Research/Understanding_the_Iran_Contra_Affair/timeline-nicaragua.php">fled</a> to Costa Rica for both political and economic reasons.</p>
<p>After the Fall of the Sandinistas in 1990, economic migration to Costa Rica increased dramatically. In 1998, <a href="https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/reports/mitch/mitch.html">Hurricane Mitch</a> devastated Nicaragua, leaving millions homeless and destroying infrastructure and the harvest.</p>
<p>As Nicaraguan migration increased in the ‘90’s, Costa Rica’s exceptional welfare system was weakened by cuts in public funding. <a href="http://www.nacion.com/nacional/educacion/">Crowded classrooms</a> and long waits for <a href="http://www.nacion.com/nacional/salud-publica/Caja-lleva-resolver-listas-espera_0_1508649137.html">health services</a> were compounded by <a href="http://www.latinobarometro.org/latNewsShow.jsp">perceptions</a> of rising crime and economic downturns. As Costa Ricans began to feel their privileges as citizens decline, they <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1548-1387.2009.01074.x/abstract">projected</a> their anxieties onto <a href="http://www.ohioswallow.com/book/Threatening+Others">Nicaraguan immigrants</a>.</p>
<p>Nicaraguan migration began to represent a demographic, cultural and racial threat to Costa Rican exceptionalism.</p>
<h2>Barriers in everyday life</h2>
<p>Although Costa Rica has stepped back from the most xenophobic of its immigration policies, legal restrictions and widespread attitudes of rejection continue. Nicaraguans still face discrimination and barriers to services and legal status.</p>
<p>For example, my colleague <a href="https://repub.eur.nl/pub/94392/">Koen Voorend</a> and I have found that Nicaraguan immigrants report being sent extra paperwork or conflicting directions to access <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/plar.12136/abstract">health care</a> or enroll children in school. Young people report hiding their Nicaraguan origins from classmates because of fear of being teased or bullied.</p>
<p>In health clinics, Nicaraguans say they are often treated as ignorant or stupid by <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13648470.2015.1004503">doctors and nurses</a>. Clinic staff ask for extra documentation or refuse them care.</p>
<p>They also face discrimination, if not outright violence, on the streets. Nicaraguan immigrants often avoid speaking in public to avoid revealing their accent. They worry about being harassed on the bus. They stick close to home or work to avoid attracting the attention of immigration authorities. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, civil society organizations, academics and activists are working to create change. For example, “What Unites Us” is a <a href="https://loquenosune.org/category/campana-en-accion/costa-rica/">campaign</a> against xenophobia in Latin America and the Caribbean led by <a href="http://theret.org">RET International</a>, an organization that works to protect vulnerable young people through education. </p>
<p>The campaign is enlisting young people to discuss what brings immigrants and citizens together. In emphasizing what unites foreigners and nationals, the campaign breaks down the dividing line between deserving and undeserving, citizens and immigrants.</p>
<p>However, seeing what unites citizens and immigrants will not eliminate xenophobia. Citizens still feel that their way of life is under threat. When prized institutions fail to address people’s real social and economic problems, blaming immigrants serves as a useful distraction – one that may gain traction in the U.S. too.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/73899/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Caitlin Fouratt received funding from the Wenner-Gren Foundation and the Institute of International Education.</span></em></p>While Costa Ricans pride their country for being an oasis of stability in Latin America, the nation has struggled with restrictive laws and social attitudes toward immigrants from Nicaragua.Caitlin Fouratt, Professor of International Studies, California State University, Long BeachLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/747212017-03-17T00:07:00Z2017-03-17T00:07:00ZReagan called America a ‘city on a hill’ because taxpayers funded the humanities<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/161251/original/image-20170316-10929-il2c8h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President Ronald Reagan on stage with his wife Nancy, 1984.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Reed Saxon</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>When Ronald Reagan called the United States a “<a href="http://reagan2020.us/speeches/City_Upon_A_Hill.asp">city on a hill</a>,” in 1974, it encapsulated an expansive, optimistic vision of America.</p>
<p>The phrase comes from a <a href="https://archive.org/stream/AModelOfChristianCharity/AModelOfChristianCharity_djvu.txt">Puritan sermon</a> by John Winthrop called “A Model of Christian Charity.” But no one knew Winthrop’s sermon existed until 1838, when it was discovered in the New-York Historical Society and <a href="https://archive.org/details/collectionsmass03unkngoog">printed</a> by the Massachusetts Historical Society. The New-York Historical Society had nearly closed in 1825, but New York Gov. Dewitt Clinton urged the state to save it. </p>
<p>The value of the New-York Historical Society became a matter of public debate, and eventually all but three state legislators agreed to pay its debt and keep its collections intact. With US$10,000 – no small sum in those days – citizens ended up preserving and discovering the sermon that Reagan would later make central to his career. State funding for the New-York Historical Society was one instance among many in early America of funding for the humanities that preceded the National Endowment for the Humanities. </p>
<p>Today, however, President Donald Trump’s new budget proposal threatens to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/15/arts/nea-neh-endowments-trump.html">eliminate</a> the NEH along with other cultural institutions. Recent <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/09/opinion/killing-a-program-that-brings-history-to-life.html">op-eds</a> have reminded us about the vital work that the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/22/opinion/why-art-matters-to-america.html">National Endowment for the Arts</a> and the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-says-he-wants-to-fix-our-divisions-but-may-gut-an-institution-that-does-that-already/2017/02/22/b8b3e9c4-f92b-11e6-be05-1a3817ac21a5_story.html">NEH</a> do in America, including the preservation and distribution of important historical documents. But it’s also important to realize that the NEH continues what was started long ago. As I have discovered in my research on <a href="https://english.artsci.wustl.edu/files/english/people/cv/van_engen_cv_2.pdf">American exceptionalism</a>, taxpayer support for the humanities goes back to the beginning of the country.</p>
<h2>Saving history</h2>
<p>The first-ever federal grant for historical research was recommended by <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=_HdUAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA628&lpg=PA628&dq=%E2%80%9Cthat+Mr.+Hazard%E2%80%99s+undertaking+is+laudable,+and+deserves+the+public+patronage+and+encouragement,+as+being+productive+of+public+utility.%E2%80%9D&source=bl&ots=ZbC_RyF8E2&sig=6VLKnn2B5ri6COUC1KGilcgNZZo&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjduvuDq9vSAhVE2GMKHRayD7sQ6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&q=%E2%80%9Cthat%20Mr.%20Hazard%E2%80%99s%20undertaking%20is%20laudable%2C%20and%20deserves%20the%20public%20patronage%20and%20encouragement%2C%20as%20being%20productive%20of%20public%20utility.%E2%80%9D&f=false">the Continental Congress in 1778</a>. The United States had declared its independence two years before, but it was still fighting a war to make it stand. In the midst of the American Revolution, with plenty on their minds, Sam Adams, William Duer and Richard Henry Lee – leading figures from both the North and the South in the Continental Congress – approved a US$1,000 grant to a man named Ebenezer Hazard to collect, edit, introduce and publish manuscripts, letters and state papers of American history. All Americans needed to know American history, they reasoned. So they recommended that he be granted taxpayer money.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/161192/original/image-20170316-10898-y6vq0q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/161192/original/image-20170316-10898-y6vq0q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/161192/original/image-20170316-10898-y6vq0q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/161192/original/image-20170316-10898-y6vq0q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/161192/original/image-20170316-10898-y6vq0q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/161192/original/image-20170316-10898-y6vq0q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/161192/original/image-20170316-10898-y6vq0q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/161192/original/image-20170316-10898-y6vq0q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">George Washington standing on a platform surrounded by members of the Continental Congress.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2002698163/">Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Founding Fathers lined up to support Hazard. <a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-01-02-0102">Thomas Jefferson</a> praised his project as “an undertaking of great utility to the continent in general.” When Hazard finally finished his project, he sent a proposal around for his collection in 1791, asking who would be willing to buy it. The subscription was signed by the most notable figures of the day, beginning with President George Washington and including the vice president, Cabinet members, senators, representatives and others.</p>
<p>In recommending the grant, the Continental Congress <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=_HdUAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA628&lpg=PA628&dq=%E2%80%9Cthat+Mr.+Hazard%E2%80%99s+undertaking+is+laudable,+and+deserves+the+public+patronage+and+encouragement,+as+being+productive+of+public+utility.%E2%80%9D&source=bl&ots=ZbC_RyF8E2&sig=6VLKnn2B5ri6COUC1KGilcgNZZo&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjduvuDq9vSAhVE2GMKHRayD7sQ6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&q=%E2%80%9Cthat%20Mr.%20Hazard%E2%80%99s%20undertaking%20is%20laudable%2C%20and%20deserves%20the%20public%20patronage%20and%20encouragement%2C%20as%20being%20productive%20of%20public%20utility.%E2%80%9D&f=false">determined</a> that Hazard’s “undertaking is laudable, and deserves the public patronage and encouragement, as being productive of public utility.” That was a common view in those days. A good knowledge of history – both American and otherwise – gave people perspective and enabled them to use their liberty well and to advance the good of the republic. The Founding Fathers and the early republic considered history a “practical” subject essential for citizenship. </p>
<h2>A ‘public utility’</h2>
<p>It doesn’t take much looking in the writings of John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and many others to find them praising the good of history.</p>
<p>Jefferson, for example, <a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-02-02-0132-0004-0079">believed</a> that knowledge of history would enable citizens to resist the encroachments of tyranny. In illuminating “the minds of the people at large,” especially with “a knowledge of those facts, which history exhibiteth,” Americans would “be enabled to know ambition under all its shapes, and prompt to exert their natural powers to defeat its purposes.” Historical studies were the best way to understand how societies rose and fell, providing real-life moral and political lessons. For Jefferson and many others, a study of history was necessary for the defense of liberty.</p>
<p>That thinking explains why the Massachusetts Historical Society, founded in 1791, was proclaimed a “public utility” by the state. Its founder, a minister named Jeremy Belknap, <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101076467578;view=1up;seq=11">wrote</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“I am so far an enthusiast in the cause of America as to wish she may shine Mistress of the Sciences, as well as the Asylum of Liberty.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The sciences, for him, included the humanities. He dreamed of building a network of educational societies and institutions, and <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101076467578;view=1up;seq=11">envisioned</a> “a Congress of Philosophers as well as of Statesmen.” The nation soon followed by founding the Library of Congress in 1800.</p>
<p>But the view spread beyond them. Taxpayer support of the humanities was never an East Coast, privileged, elite activity. By the early 20th century, the historical societies of Iowa and Kansas rivaled <a href="https://academic.oup.com/ahr/article-abstract/40/1/10/39209/State-and-Local-Historical-Societies-in-the-United?redirectedFrom=PDF">East Coast societies</a>. The size and stability of the Wisconsin Historical Society exceeded the Massachusetts Historical Society because state legislatures supported history. </p>
<p>The most influential historian of the late 19th and early 20th century, Frederick Jackson Turner, emerged from the Midwest. Because of taxpayer support and broad legislative backing, Wisconsin held sway for several decades over the shaping of American history.</p>
<p>In 1965, the NEH was <a href="https://www.neh.gov/about/history">created</a> in part because any “<a href="https://www.neh.gov/about/history/national-foundation-arts-and-humanities-act-1965-pl-89-209">advanced civilization</a>” should support the humanities. From the founding of the nation, into the 19th century and to today, this nation’s most formative leaders have agreed wholeheartedly in this: History is fundamentally important. Today it finds its strongest support in the NEH.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/74721/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Abram Van Engen currently receives funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this article do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.</span></em></p>Trump’s budget would eliminate the National Endowment for the Humanities, breaking a tradition of funding humanities scholarship that goes back to the nation’s founding.Abram Van Engen, Associate Professor of English, Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. LouisLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/653142016-09-26T01:31:39Z2016-09-26T01:31:39ZWhat’s behind America’s insistence on instilling grit in kids?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/138869/original/image-20160922-22514-1g088jk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Some say coddled kids need to be taught how to persevere through setbacks and disappointments.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-263663474/stock-photo-white-flower-growing-on-crack-street-soft-focus-blank-text.html?src=undefined-undefined-7">'Flower' via www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the same way that actual grit accumulates in the cracks and crevices of the landscape, our cultural insistence on possessing grit has gradually come to the forefront of child-rearing and education reform.</p>
<p>Recent academic papers on grit include the <a href="http://gradworks.proquest.com/10/11/10119261.html">education-leadership dissertation project</a> of New England College’s Austin Garofalo, titled “Teaching the Character Competencies of Growth Mindset and Grit To Increase Student Motivation in the Classroom,” and UMass Dartmouth professor Kenneth J. Saltman’s “<a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/566832">The Austerity School: Grit, Character, and the Privatization of Public Education.”</a></p>
<p>In contrast to the range of perspectives on grit offered in academia, the popular media will often frame it as an essential characteristic for healthy, productive maturation – and certainly a necessary component for academic success.</p>
<p>In 2012, Paul Tough’s book on the topic, “<a href="http://www.paultough.com/the-books/how-children-succeed/">How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity and the Hidden Power of Character,”</a> was a critical and commercial success, earning positive acclaim from <a href="https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/paul-tough/how-children-succeed/">Kirkus Reviews</a>, <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21569680-new-research-how-close-achievement-gap-stay-focused">The Economist</a>, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/26/books/review/how-children-succeed-by-paul-tough.html?pagewanted=1&smid=tw-share&pagewanted=all&mtrref=www.paultough.com&gwh=9DF5943DCE0C4515859382445FF1208B&gwt=pay">The New York Times</a>, <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2012/11/best_books_2012_slate_staff_picks_their_favorites.single.html">Slate</a> – and even former Secretary of Education <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887324001104578165432521728030">Arne Duncan</a>.</p>
<p>And last year, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/parenting/wp/2015/03/09/grit-the-key-ingredient-to-your-kids-success/">in a column for The Washington Post</a>, Judy Holland, editor and founder of <a href="http://www.parentinsider.com/">ParentInsider.com</a>, wrote that the “coddled kids” of the “‘self-esteem’ movement in the 1980s” produced children who were “softer, slower and less likely to persevere.”</p>
<p>“Grit is defined as passion and perseverance in pursuit of long-term goals,” she continued. “Grit determines who survives at West Point, who finals at the National Spelling Bee, and who is tough enough not to be a quitter.”</p>
<p>As someone who specializes in children’s literature and cultural attitudes toward childhood, I’ve been interested in this insistence on fostering grit. I’ve also taught writing and literature over the past year to West Point cadets, who, it seems, must learn how to acquire this somewhat elusive quality. </p>
<p>But I can’t help but wonder if we’re talking about grit in an unproductive way. And maybe one of the problems is that it’s presented as a concept: abstract, indeterminate and somewhat magical or mysterious. </p>
<p>How can we define grit, or the idea behind it, in a way that means something? What if we’re not framing the discussion of grit in the right way, since grit can mean something entirely different for a kid living in the Chicago’s South Side than it does for a kid living in the suburbs?</p>
<h2>A slippery buzzword?</h2>
<p>In 2014, National Public Radio’s Tovia Smith looked at how educators and researchers are using the concept of grit in the classroom. She interviewed MacArthur Genius Grant recipient Angela Duckworth, associate professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania and author of “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Grit-Passion-Perseverance-Angela-Duckworth/dp/1501111108">Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance,”</a> which was published in May. In it, she considers how teaching grit can revolutionize students’ educational development.</p>
<p>“This quality of being able to sustain your passions, and also work really hard at them, over really disappointingly long periods of time, that’s grit,” Duckworth <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2014/03/17/290089998/does-teaching-kids-to-get-gritty-help-them-get-ahead">told Smith in the NPR segment</a>. Expanding on the national significance of grit, Duckworth added, “It’s a very, I think, American idea in some ways – really pursuing something against all odds.” </p>
<p>But more recently, Duckworth has backtracked from some of her earlier advocacy. In March she <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/03/03/468870056/is-grit-doomed-to-be-the-new-self-esteem">told NPR’s Anya Kamenetz</a> that the “enthusiasm” for grit “is getting ahead of the science.” And Duckworth has since resigned from the board of a California education group that’s working to find a way to measure grit. </p>
<p>As Kamenetz notes, part of the problem with buzzwords like “grit” – and the attempt to measure or implement them in the classroom – “is inherent in the slippery language we use to describe them.” </p>
<p>Is grit something that can even be taught? Can we measure it? Is it a trait or a skill? If a quality like grit is a trait, then it may be genetic, which would make it difficult to simply instill in kids. If it’s a skill or habit, only then can it be coached or taught.</p>
<h2>Grit’s place in children’s literature</h2>
<p>The Oxford English Dictionary <a href="http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/81639?rskey=eyVD1p&result=1#eid">tells us</a> that grit – the kind that describes “firmness or solidity of character; indomitable spirit or pluck; stamina” – originated as American slang in the early 19th century. It’s easy to see its kinship to the other definition of grit: “minute particles of stone or sand, as produced by attrition or disintegration.” </p>
<p>It’s come to represent a refusal to give up, no matter the odds – a refusal to wash away, break down or completely dissolve. </p>
<p>American children’s literature has long had “gritty” protagonists: characters who’ve arguably instilled moralistic values of bravery, industry and integrity in generations of readers.</p>
<p>In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, another word featured in the Oxford English Dictionary’s “grit” definition figured more prominently in mainstream children’s literature – <a href="https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/pluck">pluck</a>. </p>
<p>Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn both exhibited pluck, seen in their wily charm, adventurous spirit and underlying moral conscience. But the notion of pluck, grit’s forefather, was largely popularized in Horatio Alger’s stories, which are known for their hardworking young male protagonists trying to eke out livings and educate themselves within the American urban landscape.</p>
<p>“Dick knew he must study hard, and he dreaded it,” Alger wrote in his landmark text, “Ragged Dick.” “But Dick had good pluck. He meant to learn, nevertheless, and resolved to buy a book with his first spare earnings.”</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/138850/original/image-20160922-22509-mqtmre.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/138850/original/image-20160922-22509-mqtmre.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=985&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138850/original/image-20160922-22509-mqtmre.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=985&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138850/original/image-20160922-22509-mqtmre.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=985&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138850/original/image-20160922-22509-mqtmre.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1238&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138850/original/image-20160922-22509-mqtmre.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1238&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138850/original/image-20160922-22509-mqtmre.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1238&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Grit goes mainstream with Charles Portis’ plucky protagonist Mattie Ross.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Though he hates it, Dick studies hard because he believes he needs an education “to win a respectable position in the world.”</p>
<p>The determined, plucky child figure arguably evolved into one of grit through Mattie Ross in Charles Portis’ 1968 western novel of revenge set in the late 19th century. </p>
<p>The novel quickly establishes Mattie’s resilience and resolve, which solidify after the murder of Mattie’s father. Mattie, reflecting on her doggedness, says, “People do not give it credence that a fourteen-year-old girl could leave home and go off in the wintertime to avenge her father’s blood.”</p>
<h2>Grit to what end?</h2>
<p>Mattie Ross and Horatio Alger’s clever street boys helped shape an American ideal of youthful grit. But these fictional characters asserted their grit because they had goals. What good is grit if you feel like you have nothing to strive for?</p>
<p>In early children’s literature for African-Americans, publications such as W.E.B. Du Bois’ monthly youth magazine The Brownies’ Book attempted to also give its young readers an idea of what they could achieve. While much of American children’s literature during the turn of the last century – <a href="http://weneeddiversebooks.org/">and even today</a> – filters ideas of grit through the perspective of the middle-class white child, The Brownies’ Book specifically addressed the lives and experiences of African-American children. First published in 1920, the magazine encouraged African-American children to fully embrace their cultural identities, participate in their communities and become citizens of the world.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/138851/original/image-20160922-22509-vvskva.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/138851/original/image-20160922-22509-vvskva.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=809&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138851/original/image-20160922-22509-vvskva.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=809&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138851/original/image-20160922-22509-vvskva.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=809&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138851/original/image-20160922-22509-vvskva.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1017&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138851/original/image-20160922-22509-vvskva.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1017&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138851/original/image-20160922-22509-vvskva.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1017&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Brownies’ Book was a monthly magazine for African-American kids.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But that was 1920, during the dawn of the Harlem Renaissance, a time when the work of African-American artists, activists and thinkers brought newfound optimism to the push for racial equality and cultural pride. Over the course of the 20th century, circumstances for many children of minority communities changed. As Atlantic writer Ta-Nehisi Coates has explained, a <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/05/the-ghetto-is-public-policy/275456/">public policy</a> of ghettoization has left many urban school districts <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/">impoverished and underserved</a>, with few examples of hope or achievement outside the drug trade. Yes, kids could develop grit – they could find confidence, diligence and resilience outside the law – a version of grit demonized by mainstream society. </p>
<p>David Simon’s Baltimore-set HBO series “The Wire” illustrates the narrow possibilities for black kids growing up in the city. Grit, as depicted in “The Wire,” comes via success in the drug trade. This kind of grit has the bottom line of economic gain. It’s not about a search for identity, cultural understanding or artistry because kids don’t think they have the same opportunities and potential highlighted in the issues of The Brownies’ Book.</p>
<p><a href="http://ocrdata.ed.gov">A 2014 study from the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights</a> found that in America, there still exists a pattern of racial inequality in public schools, whether it’s course offerings, teacher performance or student expulsion. These statistics – the same as those echoed in “The Wire” – leave many somber, dejected, angry or, too often, complacent. </p>
<p>So how can students have – or learn – grit when all kids face different realities – different struggles, different dreams and different social structures?</p>
<p>Yes, it’s important to reevaluate the education system, as monumental a task that may be. But all institutional or systemic change starts with the individual. </p>
<p>“A lot of what ‘The Wire’ was about sounds cynical to people,” Simon <a href="http://www.vice.com/read/david-simon-280-v16n12">said in a 2009 Vice interview</a>. “I think it’s very cynical about institutions and their ability to reform. I don’t deny that, but I don’t think it’s at all cynical about people.” </p>
<p>Maybe the first step is to think of grit not as something to cultivate in students. Instead, maybe grit is the debris – the dream – that lingers. If children and young adults get that piece of grit stuck to them, they’ll be motivated to keep going until the grit is gone.</p>
<p>Perhaps the job of adults, then, isn’t to tell kids to buckle down and work through adversity. It’s about opening their eyes to the innumerable possibilities before them – so they’ll want to persevere in the first place. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>Correction: In an earlier version, the academic papers on grit were conflated with popular media coverage. A paragraph has been rearranged and a phrase added to differentiate the two.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/65314/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paige Gray does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>One of the newest trends in education is teaching students how to develop grit. But what’s even meant by ‘grit’? And what if grit means something different for everyone?Paige Gray, Visiting Assistant Professor, Fort Lewis CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/650242016-09-07T21:40:42Z2016-09-07T21:40:42ZClinton’s American exceptionalism puts a new twist on an old idea<p>How does a belief in American exceptionalism shape foreign policy? </p>
<p>The views of the presidential candidates will likely be on display during a national security and military affairs forum hosted by the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America and NBC News this week. What may be most surprising is not what the candidates say, but the way in which they say it. Donald Trump <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/06/donald-trump-american-exceptionalism">dislikes</a> the term “American exceptionalism” and refuses to use it. Hillary Clinton said in <a href="http://time.com/4474619/read-hillary-clinton-american-legion-speech/">August</a>, “If there’s one core belief that has guided and inspired me every step of the way, it is this: The United States is an exceptional nation.”</p>
<p>She is not the only Democrat making this profession of faith. Two years earlier, <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/05/28/remarks-president-united-states-military-academy-commencement-ceremony">Obama declared</a>, “I believe in American exceptionalism with every fiber of my being.” </p>
<p>This sort of language has historically been associated with Republicans, who added a belief in American exceptionalism to their <a href="http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=101961">2012 party platform</a>. Now, Ronald Reagan’s <a href="http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=29650">“shining city on a hill”</a> is moving across the aisle. In adopting such rhetoric, however, Democrats are also trying to reframe it.</p>
<p>American exceptionalism – <a href="http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=101961">defined</a> as “the conviction that our country holds a unique place and role in human history” – has long celebrated a singular people specially called to spread liberty and democracy to the world. The exceptionalism touted by Obama and Clinton celebrates a diverse country that sees other nations as essential partners for global good. Theirs is an American exceptionalism with a cosmopolitan twist.</p>
<p>In <a href="http://rap.wustl.edu/courses/city-on-a-hill-the-concept-and-culture-of-american-exceptionalism/">a course I teach</a> on the history of American exceptionalism, my students and I look at how this rhetoric has evolved into a story of a nation with a grand and global mission. Politicians, standing in the middle of the story, often <a href="http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/TNEQ_a_00320?journalCode=tneq#.V9BX9U0rLIU">choose a beginning</a> that will define America and direct the country to its proper end. Knowing how that story has traditionally been told, we can see how Obama and Clinton are adapting it to redefine the nation’s identity and purpose in the world.</p>
<h2>Cosmopolitan exceptionalism</h2>
<p>In her embrace of <a href="http://time.com/4474619/read-hillary-clinton-american-legion-speech/">American exceptionalism</a>, Clinton stated, “We celebrate diversity as a source of national strength.” </p>
<p>Consider the contrast between this statement and the ideas of Josiah Strong, a 19th-century Protestant clergyman whose unexpectedly <a href="https://archive.org/details/ourcountryitspo07strogoog">popular book</a> “Our Country: Its Possible Future and Its Present Crisis” spelled out what many of that time believed about America. Strong contended that the Anglo-Saxon race was “the representative of two great ideas”: civil liberty and a pure, spiritual Christianity. These “two great needs of mankind” flourished best in America, Strong contended. And as America increasingly embraced them, they would spread to all the world. </p>
<p>Strong’s hope for a transformed world reveals how theology and politics became intertwined in the history of American exceptionalism. During the 19th century, the story of America settled on a narrative of God-given liberty – a tale of self-government spreading from the Puritans through the Founders to a future world saved by the grace of America. As the influential preacher Washington Gladden <a href="https://archive.org/details/nationandkingdo00gladgoog">asked in 1909</a>, “Is there not work to do in the salvation of the world which can only be done on the scale of the nation?” </p>
<p>The idea was that God works his purposes primarily through nations, not churches – and specifically through one nation, the United States. That idea appealed to many at a time when the United States was rapidly expanding its influence around the world. It gave American power a religious purpose of redemption.</p>
<p>Such was the Cold War ideology that fueled Ronald Reagan’s “shining city on a hill.” Reagan loved to tell a story of America that began with John Winthrop, the first governor of Massachusetts Bay. Shortly before arriving, Winthrop declared to fellow Puritans: <a href="https://history.hanover.edu/texts/winthmod.html">“we shall be as a city upon a hill.”</a> Borrowing this phrase from Matthew 5:14, Winthrop hoped New England would model godliness, along with all other true Christian communities across the world. According to Reagan, however, the Puritans came primarily in search of freedom. And ever since, Reagan claimed, Americans had remained true to that noble ideal, serving as a beacon of liberty in a world threatened by communism.</p>
<p>When Mario Cuomo <a href="http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mariocuomo1984dnc.htm">challenged Reagan</a>, arguing that America was really a “tale of two cities” – a story of success for the few and constraints for the rest – Democrats became known as the opponents of American exceptionalism. This is the view Obama tried to flip when he set Trump <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/dnc-2016-obama-prepared-remarks-226345">against Reagan</a>: “Ronald Reagan called America ‘a shining city on a hill.’ Donald Trump calls it ‘a divided crime scene’ that only he can fix.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136948/original/image-20160907-25257-ksd88i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136948/original/image-20160907-25257-ksd88i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136948/original/image-20160907-25257-ksd88i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136948/original/image-20160907-25257-ksd88i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136948/original/image-20160907-25257-ksd88i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136948/original/image-20160907-25257-ksd88i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136948/original/image-20160907-25257-ksd88i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">President Ronald Reagan speaking at a rally in Minnesota.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://catalog.archives.gov/id/198527">National Archives</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For many years, Obama, like Reagan, has sketched a story of America that begins with the Puritans, <a href="http://obamaspeeches.com/074-University-of-Massachusetts-at-Boston-Commencement-Address-Obama-Speech.htm">our “earliest settlers,”</a> and carries forward by remaining “<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2009/01/21/president-barack-obamas-inaugural-address">true to our founding documents</a>.” Yet, the national narrative he offers has attempted to alter Americans’ understanding of what Strong called our country’s “present crisis” and “possible future.” For both him and Clinton, the military exemplifies American exceptionalism – not because of its might, but because of its diversity. Obama said, it represents <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/dnc-2016-obama-prepared-remarks-226345">“every shade of humanity, forged into common service.”</a> </p>
<p>That celebration of diversity includes affirming other nations’ contributions to global good. According <a href="http://time.com/4474619/read-hillary-clinton-american-legion-speech/">to Clinton</a>, “American leadership means standing with our allies because our network of allies is part of what makes us exceptional.” In this newer exceptionalism, America fights not only for others, but with others. <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/05/28/remarks-president-united-states-military-academy-commencement-ceremony">As Obama explained</a>, “what makes us exceptional is not our ability to flout international norms and the rule of law; it is our willingness to affirm them through our actions.” In the language of American exceptionalism, Obama has tried to claim that America is exceptionally good at following norms set by international coalitions.</p>
<h2>A new exceptionalism, an old problem</h2>
<p>While it may seem radically new in some ways, this rhetoric of Obama and Clinton reveals a longstanding tension in the language of American exceptionalism: How should a nation that sees itself as a savior shape its foreign policy? When it comes time to act, after all, the nation must decide whether it is acting primarily in its own interest or in the interest of others. </p>
<p>In his book, Strong proclaimed, “Our plea is not America for America’s sake; our plea is America for the world’s sake.” What is good for the nation, he was saying, is good for the world. In fact, Strong’s entire book is based on the premise that the savior, America, must be preserved from several evils, including Mormons, Catholics and immigrants, in order to save the world.</p>
<p>Over a century later, Clinton much more subtly made the same kind of claim, that serving American interests ultimately serves the world. <a href="http://time.com/4474619/read-hillary-clinton-american-legion-speech/">Clinton declared</a>: “American leadership means leading with our values in pursuance of our interests, in protection of our security.” The entire sentence centers on the values, interests and security of the United States. But Clinton continued: “At our best, the United States is the global force for freedom, justice and human dignity.” </p>
<p>Together, these back-to-back lines eliminate any difference between national goals and global good. In the rhetoric of American exceptionalism there is no distinction between self-interest and world service.</p>
<p>While Obama and Clinton have endorsed a newer, more diverse and cosmopolitan exceptionalism, its primary narrative nonetheless remains intact. America is “the indispensable nation,” as Clinton reiterated. She offers a vision of the world as a round table where America, paradoxically, remains seated at the head.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/65024/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Abram Van Engen receives funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities. The opinions expressed in this article are the author's own and do not reflect the views of the National Endowment for the Humanities.</span></em></p>Is America exceptional? An expert on rhetoric examines how the idea has changed over time, and how Democrats are claiming their own version.Abram Van Engen, Associate Professor of English, Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. LouisLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/627612016-07-22T04:19:21Z2016-07-22T04:19:21ZIn acceptance speech, Trump embraces role as hero of the forgotten<p>Donald Trump accepted the Republican nomination for the presidency <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/full-transcript-donald-trump-nomination-acceptance-speech-at-rnc-225974#ixzz4F5LHIG38">in a speech</a> destined to be remembered by history as the “I am your voice” speech – a phrase that Trump repeated several times to tie together his themes of economic revitalization, military strength and government honesty. </p>
<p>As a scholar of American political rhetoric, I have <a href="http://www.tamupress.com/product/Rhetoric-of-Heroic-Expectations,7737.aspx">written</a> about how presidential candidates will often use campaign speeches to depict a nation in crisis, with themselves as the saviors. True to tradition, Trump’s speech contained a narrative of crisis and heroism. </p>
<p>He also fulfilled the expectations for a typical presidential nomination speech by arguing for a united party, explaining his political philosophy and appearing presidential. Of the many topics addressed in his wide ranging speech, he was at his best when he railed against government corruption. </p>
<h2>Make America isolationist again?</h2>
<p>The culmination of four days of speeches organized around the themes of keeping America safe, putting America to work, putting America first and making America one, Trump’s speech offered a new version of <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=812lbix0oH4C&pg=PA18#v=onepage&q&f=false">American Exceptionalism</a>. Since 1980 our understanding of American Exceptionalism has been framed by Ronald Reagan’s famous Republican Party acceptance <a href="http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=25970">speech</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Can we doubt that only a Divine Providence placed this land, this island of freedom, here as a refuge for all those people in the world who yearn to breathe freely.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Trump’s version was less tied to this sort of “divine” exceptionalism that’s welcoming of all people.</p>
<p>Nor was his American Exceptionalism grounded in America’s unique role as an “exemplar of liberty,” as this year’s <a href="http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/papers_pdf/117718.pdf">Republican Party platform</a> declared.</p>
<p>Instead, Trump’s American Exceptionalism was more isolationist and protectionist, devoting the first half of his speech to this theme under the guise of “America First.” </p>
<p>“Americanism, not globalism, will be our credo,” he said.</p>
<h2>Speaking for the neglected and ignored</h2>
<p>Consistent with his campaign so far, the speech was largely vague about his plans for accomplishing his campaign promises and specific about his criticisms of presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. His overarching criticism of Clinton is that she is “corrupt,” and rhetorically, his speech was most coherent in its critique of Clinton’s and government’s corruption. </p>
<p>His motivation for seeking office is to protect the “forgotten men and women”:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Every day I wake up determined to deliver for the people I have met all across this nation that have been neglected, ignored, and abandoned.… These are the forgotten men and women of our country. People who work hard but no longer have a voice.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Perhaps drawing an analogy between the hardships of the Great Depression and the hardships of the Great Recession, Trump may have borrowed the “forgotten man” figure from Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s April 7, 1932 <a href="http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=88408">Fireside Chat</a> in which he explained:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“These unhappy times call for the building of plans that rest upon the forgotten, the unorganized but the indispensable units of economic power, for plans like those of 1917 that build from the bottom up and not from the top down, that put their faith once more in the forgotten man at the bottom of the economic pyramid.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Like FDR, Trump positioned himself as an empathetic leader as well as defender of the downtrodden: “I AM YOUR VOICE,” he boomed.</p>
<h2>Corrupted logic</h2>
<p>We don’t see the word “corruption” used frequently in presidential nomination addresses. To the best of my knowledge, only Al Smith and Dwight Eisenhower used the word. Smith used it to talk about Prohibition, and Eisenhower <a href="http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=75626&st=corruption&st1=">used</a> it to rail against the federal government: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Our aims – the aims of this Republican crusade – are clear: to sweep from office an administration which has fastened on every one of us the wastefulness, the arrogance and corruption in high places, the heavy burdens and anxieties which are the bitter fruit of a party too long in power.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Like Eisenhower, Trump argued that he is motivated to become president because our current politicians are too corrupt to help people: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“I have embraced crying mothers who have lost their children because our politicians put their personal agendas before the national good. I have no patience for injustice, no tolerance for government incompetence, no sympathy for leaders who fail their citizens.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>He then pointed his finger directly at the establishment.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Remember: all of the people telling you that you can’t have the country you want, are the same people telling you that I wouldn’t be standing here tonight. No longer can we rely on those elites in media, and politics, who will say anything to keep a rigged system in place.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>So far, so good: Trump has laid out his argument that there’s widespread corruption and we know who to blame for it. However, what makes Trump the right hero to save the nation from corruption? </p>
<p>He never really gives a coherent answer.</p>
<p>According to Trump, he’s the nominee even though corrupt media and pundits said that he would not be; therefore, Donald Trump has been right all along and the system is “rigged.” It’s an awkward logical construction that equates his detractors being wrong with their being corrupt – which, of course, isn’t the exact same thing. </p>
<p>What evidence does Trump give to support that he is the right hero for stopping corruption? Again, his speech makes an odd logical leap. Trump argues (with a wink) that because he once got involved in corrupt dealings himself, he knows how it works.</p>
<p>He doesn’t specify how or why he’s no longer corrupt, however, and the audience is left to wonder whether and if his “conversion” has taken place. “Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it,” he boasted. “I have seen firsthand how the system is rigged against our citizens, just like it was rigged against Bernie Sanders – he never had a chance.” </p>
<p>Despite reverting to some of his vague rhetoric, Trump did a much better job, stylistically, of performing his speech from the teleprompter than in the past. Only going off script occasionally, he delivered the speech with great energy, rousing the crowd to chant, at various points:</p>
<p>“USA! USA! USA!” </p>
<p>“Build a Wall!” </p>
<p>“Lock Her Up!”</p>
<p>To that last chant Trump responded, “Let’s defeat her in November.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/62761/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jennifer Mercieca does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Trump appeared surprisingly presidential. According to a scholar of American political rhetoric, there were echoes of Roosevelt, Eisenhower and Reagan.Jennifer Mercieca, Associate Professor of Communication and Director of the Aggie Agora, Texas A&M UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/565552016-04-07T09:51:11Z2016-04-07T09:51:11ZThe most American pop culture phenomenon of them all<p>“American Idol” was “born” exactly nine months after 9/11. The timing was significant, because since its premiere on June 11, 2002, the show has become an integral part of the country’s coping strategy – a kind of guidebook for our difficult entry into the 21st century. </p>
<p>By carefully curating a distinctly American mix tape of music, personal narratives and cultural doctrine, “American Idol” has painted a portrait of who we think we are, especially in the aftermath of tragedy, war and economic turmoil.</p>
<p>As the show concludes after 15 seasons, it’s worth looking at how the past and present collided to create a cultural phenomenon – and how we’re seeing shades of the show’s influence in today’s chaotic presidential race.</p>
<h2>All our myths bundled into one</h2>
<p>The premise of “American Idol” – the idea that an ordinary person might be recognized as extraordinary – is firmly rooted in a national myth of meritocracy. </p>
<p>This national narrative includes the dime-novel, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horatio_Alger_myth">rags-to-riches fairy tales</a> of Horatio Alger, which were intended to uplift Americans struggling to get by after the Civil War. Then there was the <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/invention-american-dream-000000727.html">American Dream</a> catchphrase – first coined in 1931 by James Truslow Adams in his book “The Epic of America” – that promoted an ideal of economic mobility during the hopeless years of the Depression. </p>
<p>Indeed, decades before host Ryan Seacrest handed out his first golden ticket to the first golden-throated farm girl waiting tables while waiting to be “discovered,” we’d been going to Hollywood in our dreams and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Jwgp_DyhJQ">on screen</a>.</p>
<p>The show has shown us archetypes of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSDkzIQhzMk">immigrant narratives</a>, like when Season Three contestant Leah Labelle spoke of her Bulgarian family’s defection to North America during Communist rule. It has demonstrated how to rely on faith in the face of hardship, exemplified by <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GR7Y54ZKEVk">Fantasia Barrino’s victory song, “I Believe,”</a> performed with a gospel choir. Meanwhile, it served as a stage for <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPnLBLnX14Y">patriotic passion</a>, broadcasting two performances of Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the U.S.A.” when the United States entered Iraq in 2003. Meanwhile, the many “Idol Gives Back” specials remind us of American philanthropic values.</p>
<p>The show has celebrated failure as both a necessary stumbling block and a launchpad to fame. Many singers needed to audition year after year before they earned their chance to compete. For others, such as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0d5eP0wWLQY">William Hung</a>, their televised rejection brought fame and opportunity anyway.</p>
<p>“American Idol” has also served as a course in American music history, featuring discrete genres like Southern soul and Southern rock, together with newer, blurrier categories like pop-country and pop-punk.</p>
<h2>Making the old new again</h2>
<p>In one sense, “American Idol”‘s format was nothing new. In fact, British entertainment executives Simon Fuller and Simon Cowell – who shepherded in a 21st-century version of the “British Invasion” – fashioned their juggernaut show as a new take on old business models. </p>
<p>There is something distinctly American about contestants standing in a Ford-sponsored spotlight, judges sipping from Coca-Cola glasses, and viewers sitting in front of television screens texting their votes on AT&T phones. The show’s conspicuous commercialization recalls the earliest days of television, <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-tvs-shifting-landscape-advertisers-scramble-to-adapt-53721">when programs were owned and produced by advertisers</a>. And “Idol,” like that early programming, was intended to be “appointment television,” bringing families together at the same time every week. </p>
<p>“Idol”’s production model is also a throwback. It’s structured like Berry Gordy’s Motown – a one-stop fame factory that offers stars a package of coaching, polishing, a band, album production and promotion.</p>
<p>The format also draws from amateur regional and national radio competitions of the early 20th century. (Frank Sinatra got his start winning one on “Major Bowe’s Amateur Hour” in 1935, with the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BM5O_elYnU">Hoboken Four</a>.) Another influence is the half-ridiculous and <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/eurovision/entries/18aa5cc2-0f94-3882-9c57-07fdec46dc5b">totally political</a> “Eurovision Song Contest,” the hugely popular and mercilessly mocked annual televised event that pits nation against nation in (almost) friendly singing competition. </p>
<h2>A vote that counts?</h2>
<p>“Eurovision,” which originated in 1955 as a test of transnational network capabilities and postwar international relations, introduced telephone voting a few years before “Idol” premiered. </p>
<p>And like Eurovision, the impact of “American Idol” extends far beyond our annual crowning of a new pop star. The show’s rise has taken place at a time when the boundaries between entertainment, politics and business have become increasingly blurred. </p>
<p>Season after season, “American Idol” fans have placed votes for their favorite contestants – options which, somewhat like our presidential candidates, have been carefully cultivated by a panel of industry experts looking for a sure bet. </p>
<p>The initial success of “Idol” heralded not only an era of similar television programming, but also a new era in which we’re given the opportunity to “vote,” whether it’s for <a href="http://www.dumdumpops.com/vote-for-flavors">dum-dum pop flavors</a> or <a href="https://www.time.com/4264746/2016-time-100-poll/">the world’s most influential people</a>. </p>
<p>Considering these trends, it’s not so farfetched to suggest that the wild popularity of shows like “American Idol” played some role in setting the blinding chrome stage and slightly “pitchy” tone for this year’s election. </p>
<p>It isn’t just that Donald Trump presided over “The Apprentice,” a reality competition that rode in on “American Idol”’s coattails. </p>
<p>His persona also seems to meet the same sadistic public need satisfied by original “Idol” judge Simon Cowell: the executive heir, the imperious arbiter of taste who owes his fortune at least as much to his superiority complex as to any financial acumen. At the same time, personas like Cowell and Trump deign to give an ordinary, hardworking American a chance. </p>
<p>That conceit, though, is mitigated cleverly by both moguls: they capitalize on what Cowell <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1374378/Simon-Cowell-Losing-father-worst-day-life.html">has identified</a> as a universal desire to feel important. </p>
<p>The crux of their personal appeal is that they understand that everyone wants to matter, and we are willing – as TV viewers or as citizens – to risk an awful lot just to feel like we do. We each want to imagine our own sky-high potential, and laugh in relief when we see others who will never get off the ground. We want to be judge and jury, but also be judged and juried. </p>
<p>“Idol” gives Americans permission to judge each other, to feel like our opinion makes a difference. Trump’s unfiltered rhetoric has done something similar, giving his supporters implicit and sometimes explicit permission to mock, dismiss, exclude and even attack others based on racial and ethnic identity, religion or ability.</p>
<p>And so now, as “Idol” makes its final journey from Studio 36 to the Dolby Theatre, we deliberate over whose victory will herald the last “Seacrest – out.” </p>
<p>Whatever happens, and whichever way our presidential election goes, the U.S. is on the brink of something new, a major cultural shift. Wherever we’re going, “Idol” has served its purpose, and we don’t need it in the same desperate way anymore. </p>
<p>I think, though, that we’ll always be searching for the next big thing. And we’ll always be glad we had <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uC21yoI8Di8">a moment like this</a>.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/uC21yoI8Di8?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Kelly Clarkson, the first winner of American Idol, performs ‘A Moment Like This.’</span></figcaption>
</figure><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/56555/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Katherine Meizel does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>‘American Idol’ fittingly appeared nine months after 9/11 – and ends just in time for Donald Trump’s rise.Katherine Meizel, Assistant Professor of Ethnomusicology, Bowling Green State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/549392016-04-01T10:19:39Z2016-04-01T10:19:39ZWhy so many Americans think they’re #blessed<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/116535/original/image-20160328-17840-1g243or.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Feeling blessed?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Nick Lehr/The Conversation</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Last month, my colleagues and I were moved by a beautiful and tragic <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/14/opinion/sunday/death-the-prosperity-gospel-and-me.html"><em>New York Times</em> editorial</a> by Kate Bowler, a religion professor from Duke Divinity School <a href="http://wunc.org/post/life-death-and-faith-collide-prosperity-gospel-scholar-kate-bowler-faces-stage-4-cancer#stream/0">who was recently diagnosed with stage 4 cancer</a>. </p>
<p>Bowler recently wrote a book – <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Blessed-History-American-Prosperity-Gospel/dp/0199827699">Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel</a></em> – that has been hailed as the first monograph tracing the history of the prosperity gospel in America. The prosperity gospel, Bowler explains, is “the belief that God grants health and wealth to those with the right kind of faith.” </p>
<p>Bowler recalls how the prosperity gospel transformed the Mennonite farming community in Manitoba where she grew up. When the community’s pastor showed off the motorcycle he received for “pastor’s appreciation day,” it signaled a new religious attitude about material wealth. She describes explaining this change as her “intellectual obsession.”</p>
<p>The experience of fighting cancer, however, gave her fresh insight to this obsession: can the prosperity gospel make sense of radical and senseless tragedy? Or does its theology rob us of the opportunity to come to terms with our suffering?</p>
<p>Today, America seems divided between those who engage with some version of the prosperity gospel and those who smugly dismiss it as fraudulent and puerile. While there are a number of problems with the gospel, it’s important to look at why this strand of religious thinking evolved in the first place, and why it persists. </p>
<h2>A right to wealth and health</h2>
<p>The prosperity gospel is based on a simple premise: God wants us to live “in abundance.” But in order to receive the gifts we are promised, we must demonstrate faith and claim the prosperity that is rightfully ours.</p>
<p>Even if many Americans have never heard the term, most are familiar with images of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztcFTKfgQBM">oft</a>-<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7y1xJAVZxXg">satirized</a> televangelists shaking down their viewers for donations in return for blessings. </p>
<p>The prosperity gospel has also been used to explain good health and even good luck.</p>
<p>After a string of lethal tornadoes moved though Texas in December 2015, a survivor named Sabrina Lowe <a href="http://www.npr.org/2015/12/28/461247354/tornado-victims-in-north-texas-recall-train-sound-as-they-sought-shelter">claimed</a> that God had given her authority over the winds – and that her family had “commanded” the tornado to move elsewhere. </p>
<p>Lowe’s narrative strangely inverted feelings of survivor’s guilt that often follow natural disasters. Instead, she claimed agency and credit for her good fortune. Like the televangelist’s promise of financial blessings in exchange for “seed” donations, the idea of commanding immunity from natural disasters is also a manifestation of prosperity gospel theology.</p>
<p>Bowler’s work has shown that the prosperity gospel is much more embedded within American culture than these spectacular examples might suggest. </p>
<p>The origins of the prosperity gospel date back to a 19th-century movement called <a href="http://www.britannica.com/event/New-Thought">New Thought</a>, which asserted that health and fortune can be achieved through positive thinking. New Thought never went out of fashion: it survives today in books like <em>The Secret,</em> which promises financial success and physical health to those who think positively. The book has sold <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/26/books/review/Chabris-t.html?_r=0">more than 19 million copies</a>. </p>
<p>Bowler credits the early 20th-century pastor <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._W._Kenyon">E.W. Kenyon</a> with creating a new theology that blended New Thought with the idea that the Bible promises Christians a “legal right” to prosperity. After World War II, the prosperity gospel was spread by popular evangelists like Oral Roberts and became associated with Pentecostalism and televangelism. </p>
<p>While relatively few congregations define themselves as preachers of the “prosperity gospel,” elements of the theology saturate American culture. </p>
<p>Controversial televangelist Joel Osteen claims that he <a href="http://www.christianpost.com/news/interview-joel-osteen-on-life-tragedy-and-why-he-shuns-prosperity-gospel-label-94355/">“shuns”</a> the prosperity gospel label, but still asserts that those who are “blessed” can expect financial rewards along with healthy families and peace of mind. Talk show hostess Oprah Winfrey <a href="http://www.patheos.com/Resources/Additional-Resources/Prosperity-Gospel-of-Oprah-Winfrey-Thomas-Kidd-03-09-2011">has been accused</a> of promoting prosperity gospel thinking by pushing inspirational messages to her audience that emphasize the benefits of a positive attitude. Instagram photos and tweets marked with the hashtag “#blessed” populate social media feeds.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, politicians will often claim that America’s prosperity is a direct result of God’s blessing. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/116543/original/image-20160328-17840-7gigu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/116543/original/image-20160328-17840-7gigu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=219&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116543/original/image-20160328-17840-7gigu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=219&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116543/original/image-20160328-17840-7gigu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=219&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116543/original/image-20160328-17840-7gigu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=275&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116543/original/image-20160328-17840-7gigu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=275&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116543/original/image-20160328-17840-7gigu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=275&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In a Facebook post, Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz says God has blessed America – before hitting up his followers for money.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.facebook.com/tedcruzpage/posts/10153221777472464">www.facebook.com/tedcruzpage</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Beyond the United States, the prosperity gospel is now spreading rapidly to countries like <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/andersonantunes/2013/01/17/the-richest-pastors-in-brazil/#237276a461e6">Brazil</a> and Nigeria. In fact, Nigeria is now home to some of the <a href="http://gazettereview.com/2016/02/richest-pastors-in-world/">wealthiest pastors</a> on the planet – which, from the perspective of the prosperity gospel, is an accomplishment to be proud of.</p>
<h2>Holy hypocrites?</h2>
<p>Criticizing the prosperity gospel is arguably as American as the prosperity gospel itself. </p>
<p>Theologians have <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Health-Wealth-Happiness-Prosperity-Overshadowed/dp/0825429307/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1459265795&sr=8-3&keywords=the+prosperity+gospel">denounced</a> its denial of the reality of suffering. Religious scholar Reza Aslan <a href="https://www.rawstory.com/2014/08/religious-scholar-reza-aslan-destroys-charlatan-joel-osteen-jesus-hated-wealth/">has called</a> prosperity gospel preachers “charlatans,” and the Lausanne Movement, a group cofounded by Billy Graham, <a href="https://www.lausanne.org/content/a-statement-on-the-prosperity-gospel">has accused them</a> of “gravely distorting the Bible.”</p>
<p><a href="http://time.com/3912366/kareem-abdul-jabbar-prosperity-gospel/">In a 2015 editorial for <em>Time</em></a>, Kareem Abdul Jabar called the prosperity gospel “war on the poor,” arguing that it works like the lottery, exploiting the hopes of the poor and desperate. Journalist Sarah Posner <a href="http://www.alternet.org/story/80976/the_hypocrisy_gospel%3A_get_rich_for_jesus">writes</a> that the movement equates capitalist ideology with Christianity in order recruit the poor as foot soldiers for a conservative culture war. </p>
<p>While liberals associate the prosperity gospel with conservative Christianity, it also has critics on the right. In 2010, Iowa Republican Senator Chuck Grassley <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/id/40960871/m/videos/#.VuiF4WQrL-k">launched an investigation</a> into six televangelists who have been known to preach the prosperity gospel. After more than three years, Grassley’s investigation failed to discover any evidence of wrongdoing or impose any penalties.</p>
<p>Other investigations have exposed the gospel’s capacity for duplicity.</p>
<p>In 1991, ABC’s “PrimeTime Live” featured <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yncWoylN0o">a devastating expose</a> of Robert Tilton, a televangelist who mailed handprint tracings, packets of “holy oil” and other mementos to his donors. He encouraged recipients to write their needs on these objects and mail them back with donations so that Tilton’s ministry could ensure their prayers are answered. “PrimeTime Live” discovered the donations went directly to a bank for deposit. </p>
<p>In the dumpster behind the bank their team found sacks of unread mail from believers desperate for help.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The ABC ‘PrimeTime Live’ report on Robert Tilton.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>Painful certainty</h2>
<p>But rather than further eviscerate the prosperity gospel, Bowler’s study attempts to render this movement understandable. </p>
<p>Drawing from her ethnographic research in prosperity gospel churches, she shows how this movement is not simply about “praying yourself rich,” but is instead a “comprehensive approach to the human condition.” </p>
<p>Far from lazily hoping that God would somehow fix all their problems, Bowler found that the prosperity gospel requires practitioners to cultivate an intense mental discipline in order to constantly suppress thoughts of negativity or doubt. </p>
<p>The idea of the prosperity gospel as a system for controlling one’s thoughts may explain its popularity in a country where 18 percent of adults suffer from <a href="http://www.adaa.org/about-adaa/press-room/facts-statistics">anxiety disorders</a>. Americans spend an estimated US$42 billion a year treating these disorders. </p>
<p>Bowler’s findings suggest that one reason for the prosperity gospel’s popularity is that it serves a function similar to therapy or medication. With some discipline, it may, in fact, be possible to feel “too blessed to be stressed.”</p>
<p>Even though historians of religion are trained to avoid making normative claims about how religions should be practiced, several <a href="http://englewoodreview.org/kate-bowler-blessed-history-of-the-american-prosperity-gospel-review/">reviews</a> of <em>Blessed</em> were critical of Bowler’s sympathetic portrayal of the prosperity gospel. They felt she had downplayed the outrages of figures like Tilton. Some even called her an apologist.</p>
<p>But in her editorial, Bowler is able to speak with a more personal voice. She offers some wise critiques of the prosperity gospel and the broader project of finding meaning in human suffering. </p>
<p>Emphasizing her perspective as a Christian, as well as a historian, she writes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The prosperity gospel has taken a religion based on the contemplation of a dying man and stripped it of its call to surrender all. Perhaps worse, it has replaced Christian faith with the most painful forms of certainty. The movement has perfected a rarefied form of America’s addiction to self-rule, which denies much of our humanity: our fragile bodies, our finitude, our need to stare down our deaths (at least once in a while) and be filled with dread and wonder. At some point, we must say to ourselves, I’m going to need to let go.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In other words, while the prosperity gospel clearly “works” for its believers, its benefits come with a price. The promise that we can have whatever we want leaves us ill-equipped to confront the realities of death and suffering. </p>
<p>Tragedy becomes much harder to deal with when we are conditioned to think of ourselves as “blessed.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/54939/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joseph P. Laycock does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The prosperity gospel – a uniquely American strand of Christian theology – creates a dilemma for its adherents.Joseph P. Laycock, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, Texas State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/356422015-01-07T06:15:34Z2015-01-07T06:15:34ZWhat Call of Duty can tell us about US foreign policy<p>The latest instalment of wildly popular videogame Call of Duty, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFu5qXMuaJU">Advanced Warfare</a>, shows the narratives of today’s games can reveal the motives behind real-world politics. </p>
<p>Over the past decade, fictional videogame adversaries have expanded to regularly include those of Middle Eastern, Chinese or even North Korean origin, reflecting the changing times. However there is another internal element within the US state – a military-industrial complex – that is little studied. Its key role in shaping foreign policy is made explicit through the narratives of military games. </p>
<h2>Spaces for thinking differently</h2>
<p>There is a growing desire to understand the so-called “<a href="http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/American_exceptionalism">exceptionalism</a>” of US foreign policy that has become more apparent following the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001. This is the idea that the US is so uniquely vulnerable and threatened that its responses should not be constrained by the international laws that govern other states. Why does the US react in this way – and is it justified in doing so? </p>
<p>Videogames offer a lens through which to examine US attitudes and to understand contemporary US foreign policy. Military games tend to depict the US as threatened, for example the narrative of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQZEjVYYUMY">Homefront</a> is of the US having been invaded by North Korea, whose troops carry out atrocities against civilians. In the [Call of Duty: Modern Warfare series](http://callofduty.wikia.com/wiki/Modern_Warfare_(series), the US is threatened by nuclear weapons and subjected to full-scale invasion. In these examples, that sense of US vulnerability is realised: the feared invasions and attacks occur and the enemy forces are beyond reason and cannot be negotiated with. </p>
<p>Games with this line of narrative affirm the stance that the US should not be bound by the rules that constrain others. In these aspects, the military video games precisely underscore the sentiments behind an exceptionalist US foreign policy.</p>
<h2>The subversive military</h2>
<p>Yet military games also depict ambiguities in the role of US military power that play into another trope. In his farewell address to the nation in 1961, then US president Dwight D Eisenhower warned the US public of the dangers of what he termed the “<a href="http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/eisenhower-warns-of-military-industrial-complex">military-industrial complex</a>”. Sociologist C Wright Mills had earlier conceived of a “<a href="https://www.csub.edu/%7Eakebede/SOC502Mills2.pdf">power elite</a>” in which American power was concentrated within political, military and industrial institutions, capable of turning the US into a “permanent war economy” such that “virtually all political and economic actions are now judged in terms of military definitions of reality”.</p>
<p>A military-industrial complex is a prominent theme in many videogames, films and television programmes – for example the <a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/TheBourneSeries">Bourne</a> series of films (and books), the film <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoNT6u3mQew">Enemy of the State</a>, and television series <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0285331/">24</a>. It is presented as an insidious power within American politics, an alliance between political and military elites that echoes Mills’s concerns. </p>
<h2>Enemies within</h2>
<p>Perhaps the clearest example of this narrative within games is <a href="http://uk.ign.com/games/tom-clancys-splinter-cell-conviction/xbox-360-902601">Splinter Cell: Conviction</a>. With a similar conspiracy-laden story to the Bourne films, the game places you in the role of ex-Special Forces operative Sam Fisher, tempted out of retirement by his former handler with the promise of information about why and how Fisher’s daughter was killed. It is revealed that his daughter is in fact not dead but held captive by members of a secret US government counter-terrorist unit, Third Echelon, as leverage to control Fisher. The plot also includes a private military contractor (“Black Arrow”) which colludes with Third Echelon to overthrow the liberal president Patricia Caldwell (America’s first female president) and her desires to downscale the US military.</p>
<p>The game <a href="http://callofduty.wikia.com/wiki/Call_of_Duty:_Modern_Warfare_2">Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2</a> spins a narrative that involves a conspiracy of convenience between a hawkish US military general and a Russian ultra-nationalist with similar motivations to enhance his country’s military credibility, who conspire to have Russia invade the US. Both are seen as out-of-date products of the Cold War, whose overwhelming desire to maintain their nations’ military capabilities lead to all out global war.</p>
<p>The latest Call of Duty game, Advanced Warfare, places the player in the role of a former US Marine working for a private security corporation, Atlas, fighting the KVA terrorist network. Set in the near future of 2054-60, initially the game conforms to a typical post-9/11 narrative arc: fighting terrorists in Nigeria, the US and Greece. As the game unfolds, however, it becomes clear that the terrorists and Atlas are collaborating. Atlas is protecting the considerable political and economic gains it has made through largely replacing the US armed forces and profits from the insecurity that the terrorists cause. It is up to the player/character, Jack Mitchell, to reveal the conspiracy.</p>
<h2>Saying the un-sayable</h2>
<p>There is a common but paradoxical trend among military games – that they are frequently criticised for celebrating war, their narratives in fact provide a means to critically reflect on the nature of war in the 21st century. Here the portrayal of the integral role played by the military-industrial complex in demands for a US exceptionalist foreign policy provides a quite different explanation to official justifications for going to war.</p>
<p>We must re-examine the foundational myths that US exceptionalism is the product of American ideology – bound up in notions of “beacon of democracy”, “God’s country” or a nation with a “unique destiny”. If instead it is the product of a military-industrial complex that serves to justify war under the cloak of exceptionalism, then this raises very serious implications not only for the academic scholarship – or lack thereof – in this area, but also for the veracity of justifications offered to the public.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/35642/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nick Robinson receives funding from the Swedish Research Council.</span></em></p>The latest instalment of wildly popular videogame Call of Duty, Advanced Warfare, shows the narratives of today’s games can reveal the motives behind real-world politics. Over the past decade, fictional…Nick Robinson, Associate Professor in Politics, University of LeedsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/54582012-02-22T02:58:41Z2012-02-22T02:58:41ZMore than just money: differing morals at the heart of US economic divide<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/7913/original/657qbzmk-1329804591.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Amid an ongoing economic crisis, American exceptionalism faces the ultimate test.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Flickr</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Herbert Hoover was wrong about America. During a press conference in February 1931 - amid the depths of the Great Depression - he famously warned that the American values of “rugged individualism” risked being diluted by “European-styled socialism”. </p>
<p>Hoover suggested that the Depression presented a dilemma as to “whether the American people, on one hand, will maintain the spirit of charity and mutual self-help through voluntary giving and the responsibility of local government, as distinguished on the other hand, from appropriations out of the Federal Treasury for such purposes”. </p>
<p>In short, his fear was that too much federal involvement would weaken the bonds of local connection and civil society, displacing religious and charitable organisations and undermining American ideals. </p>
<p>Hoover was wrong because – as Franklin Roosevelt showed in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Deal">New Deal</a> – American values were not exclusively individualist. Instead, they also contained an important egalitarian, if not communitarian, commitment to fairness. </p>
<p>In recent weeks, Hoover’s arguments have been resuscitated by conservative intellectual [Charles Murray](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Murray_(author). In a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/12/opinion/sunday/douthat-can-the-working-class-be-saved.html">widely</a> <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/10/opinion/krugman-money-and-morals.html">commented-upon</a> new book, <a href="http://www.randomhouse.com/book/119020/coming-apart-by-charles-murray">Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010</a>, Murray advances the thesis that a decline in basic individual values – most importantly, of industriousness – explains an erosion of social mobility and America’s exceptionalist identity. </p>
<p>To be sure, in describing the fragmented nature of American society, there is much to commend in Murray’s account. He describes a society in which elites and the general public have equally withdrawn from community engagement. However, his view is fundamentally flawed as he emphasises the pervasive effects of excessive statism to explain societal trends over a period in which the state has been in more or less continual retreat from its postwar peak of influence. </p>
<p>Indeed, that his argument kicks off in November 1963, with the premature end of the Kennedy administration, is somewhat telling, as it was Kennedy who – as Ronald Reagan later stressed – inaugurated the current trend to cutting taxes.</p>
<p>To be sure, no single variable explains the social, economic and demographic shifts that have characterised the past half-century. Yet a lack of individualism is not the problem. Murray would have seen this, had he offered a more encompassing view. Contrary to free-market nostrums, post-Depression era America was marked by the extensive use of wage and price controls, which derived considerable popular legitimacy from a commitment to fairness. </p>
<p>Indeed, Republican President Eisenhower advanced a doctrine of “shared responsibility” for economic stability. Such appeals in turn succeeded only by virtue of the existence of a postwar trust in government: in 1958, 73% of Americans stated that they could trust the government either “just about always” or “most of the time”. Moreover, this trust was paralleled by a mass scepticism in markets, as only 14% of Americans blamed government for economic instability. </p>
<p>What explains the demise of these controls, and the broader sense of fairness upon which they relied? Over the 1960s and 1970s, the experiences of Vietnam and Watergate would undermine faith in government, giving rise to a much more libertarian ethos. By 1978, only 25% of Americans would assert that they could trust the government “just about always” or “most of the time” by 1980. Paralleling these general shifts, the percent of the public blaming government for inflation would rise from 14% in 1959 to 51% in 1978. </p>
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<p>As scepticism in government assumed the force of a self-fulfilling prophecy, successive inflationary crises – in the “great stagflations” of the 1970s – and financial crises – from the savings and loan crises of the late 1980s to the global financial crisis of recent years – wracked the US economy. Yet with each crisis, the wave of deregulation has been advanced in tandem. </p>
<p>In this light, Murray may be underrating the importance of a communitarian ethos, as his Tea Party-styled libertarian values might be juxtaposed against the Occupy Wall Street-styled view on display in say, the revived communitarianism of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Warren">Elizabeth Warren</a>. </p>
<p>In a widely-circulated clip, Warren recently asserted the case for an alternative view of American exceptionalism, arguing that “there is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear: you moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for; you hired workers the rest of us paid to educate … God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.” </p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/5458/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Wesley Widmaier receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>Herbert Hoover was wrong about America. During a press conference in February 1931 - amid the depths of the Great Depression - he famously warned that the American values of “rugged individualism” risked…Wesley Widmaier, Australian Research Council Future Fellow, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.