Patrick Semansky/AP Photo
A statue of President George Washington stands in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda.
The term “exceptionalism” has long been applied to the United States. Tocqueville was the first to describe America as “quite exceptional” among nations, and the usage was common in the 19th century. For some historians, it referred to an exceptional land, apart from Europe, with no feudal tradition to transcend as America became a democracy.
For conservative patriots, exceptionalism came to mean America as a country with unique virtues and natural blessings that make it a model and a leader among nations. The right has also demanded an American exception from coverage of the International Criminal Court.
Leftists used the phrase to mean that the U.S., as a country with significant individual opportunity, has never had a serious socialist movement.
But for ordinary citizens, America has seemed exceptional because we have managed to avoid most of the curses that ravage much of the rest of the world. We have the occasional hurricane or tornado, but for the most part killer monsoons, famines, and plagues have occurred elsewhere.
For immigrants, exceptional America meant a place with much more safety, opportunity, and tolerance than their tempest-tossed homelands. For African Americans, of course, there was nothing exceptional about America other than the brutality with which blacks were treated. Yet for whites, exceptional America sailed on.
Unlike so much of the world, we’ve had the domestic tranquility that comes with a functioning democracy. Our one bloody civil war ended in 1865. With the exception of Pearl Harbor, none of the carnage of World War II occurred on American soil. We came out of that war stronger than ever. Even the attacks of 9/11, which looked to change everything, receded into a one-off.
In the postwar era, we were a leader of alliances. Sometimes, we played that role well, as in the containment of Soviet Russia until it collapsed of its own weight. At times, we led perversely, as in the Vietnam War and in several coups sponsored by the CIA, in Chile, Iran, Guatemala, and elsewhere. But the messes, the violence and suffering, always occurred somewhere else.
Whatever American exceptionalism means, it has just ended, perhaps forever.
The kind of crippling epidemic that always seemed to strike elsewhere is now here. The coronavirus will do more damage than in many countries because of staggering lapses in President Trump’s leadership.
By a brutal coincidence, the exceptionalism of American democracy, as well as its global leadership, is now on the ropes.
Even the rich and powerful can’t buy their way out. (What if your limo driver, housekeeper, or deliveryman has the virus?) Several Republican public officials have tested positive.
Almost upstaged by the virus is the self-inflicted plague of global climate change. America is not immune to this one either. Indeed, our reckless use of fossil fuels is the world’s leading cause. Ironically, the economic collapse triggered by COVID-19 will create a short respite from global warming, not because of deliberate policies but through accidental side effects of depressed consumption.
By a brutal coincidence, the exceptionalism of American democracy, as well as its global leadership, is now on the ropes. President Trump’s excesses, his grandiosity and penchant for denying reality, and the Republican willingness to deny that the king is mad, have left our democracy vulnerable in multiple ways.
To combat the virus, we will need the kind of near-authoritarian presidential leadership that was used by Roosevelt and Lincoln in two of America’s most dire past national emergencies, but with respect for democracy. That magnificent balancing act and respect for what America stood for also made this land exceptional. It doesn’t describe Donald Trump.
When this epidemic and the Trump interregnum are at last over, we can turn to the business of rebuilding our economy and our democracy, as well as getting serious about climate change. And America will be, and feel, less exceptional.
To express more optimism than the situation warrants, there could be one silver lining. We may emerge from this catastrophe with a little more humility and compassion for the rest of the world. In time of climate calamity and global pandemic, no nation is exceptional, if it ever was.
