More exceptional America

American exceptionalism is a type of nationalism, but it isn't necessarily a malignant nationalism. Yesterday I noted at the end of this post the kind of American exceptionalism that can be a force for good and recognizes "the fact that we've played a special role in defending liberalism, both our own and others." This exceptionalism is intimately related to the discussion of Bush's faith rising out of Ron Suskind's NYT Mag article because Bush believes (or creates the impression that he believes) the US is uniquely blessed by God and as President he has a unique role to play in the fulfillment of the goals of the US and God. I linked to and excised parts of a post by Bull Moose Blog that cautions against grouping Christians with Bush.

Today I found an article entitled God's Chosen People that manages to both decry American exceptionalism and throw Christians in wholesale with Bush. The Christians:

This campaign, I would argue, is one of the last convulsions of angry, real American men, fighting desperately (and well) to hold back the time and tide of the new—the un-white and un-Christian, and girlie-men, too, who sooner or later will be America.

American exceptionalism:

I said, with appropriate respect, that I thought Bush was ignorant of history and was doomed to repeat it. I added that I thought his secretary of State was incompetently presiding over the rape of diplomacy and that his secretary of Defense seemed to be crazy enough to actually believe that American invaders and occupiers would be greeted by dancing in the streets. There was applause for that.

But the next question was different: I was asked about how history might view this Iraq war. I answered that one possibility was that President Bush might be overreaching and that history could one day judge that this was the “beginning of the end of American empire.”

A hundred people, maybe more, in the crowd of 1,750 people began to boo. Some people walked out, too, or maybe they just wanted to get out early to avoid traffic as the parking lot emptied. Before applause drowned out dissent, some guy yelled, “Go back to Russia, you bum!” I loved that; it made me feel like a kid again. There was something encouragingly American about the scene: The crowd, or at least some of it, would let me demean the president and his men but not diminish the country or its actions, right or wrong.

The idea of America has always been powerful in the world. The idea of American righteousness has always been powerful at home. “Avoid foreign entanglements,” said George Washington. “The last best hope,” said Abraham Lincoln. “A shining city on a hill,” said Ronald Reagan. That is what professors call “American exceptionalism”: We think we are not like other people because God did shed his grace on us. A lot of Americans, Reagan one of them, have always believed, simply and deeply, that we are better than other people. That is a key to President Bush’s rhetoric. The old story: We are going to save the world, whether or not the world wants to be saved.

The belief in American exceptionalism is not rooted, at least for me or anyone I know personally, in anything close to a feeling of genetic or national superiority. I don't believe, and know it not to be the case, that I am better than other people. My American exceptionalism is rooted in a few unavoidable empirical facts. The United States is the most powerful nation on earth, it is the richest nation on earth, it was one of the first democracies, and the primary language of its people is the primary language for business, culture and science in the world. This is not a comprehensive picture of the US. Slavery is not forgotten, nor the more than hundred years of black subjection that followed. American exceptionalism, recognizing that our country occupies a unique place in the world , does not mean American supremacy in a white supremacy, nazi supremacy type of usage. Neither does it mean that we believe ourselves to be specially ordained by God, God's Chosen People, the title of the article cited above whose subtext seems to be that Jews who believe this are also necessarily racist in the same way Americans are nationalistic To understand the US is exceptional is not a supremacist belief, but if the world needs saving in a conventional sense, i.e. from military threat, the US has a decent record at it and is now alone in its capability to do so.

To get some of the background of how and why American 'nationalism as exceptionalism' differs from the pathological European 'nationalism as fascism' I recommend The Two World Orders, an insightful article from this summer. His argument more broadly concerns international law and the reluctance to accept it here and the opposite being true for Europe which he traces back to the fact that nationalism (as fascism) destroyed Europe--twice--but nationalism (as exceptionalism) based on the constitution was what mobilized the public in the US against fascist nationalism and brought about its defeat.