The History of American (White) Exceptionalism

 

Introduction

“Nobody is going to mess with us, believe me, nobody. … I would bomb the shit out of them. We’re going to make America great again.” Donald Trump

American Exceptionalism has been described by historians since the mid-1800’s. Definitions fall basically into three camps.

1. Because of its unique origins, born from revolution, America is unique from all other nations. Never having Kings and Queens it had always been ruled by the people thru its elected representatives.
2. America has a unique mission to transform the world and has the responsibility to ensure that its form of government always exists.
3. America’s mission, resources and history make it superior to all other nations.

I propose that American Exceptionalism is interchangeable with White Exceptionalism as it has never been used in any inconsistent manner. It has been used historically to justify the taking of land belonging to non-whites, first under the Monroe Doctrine and then Manifest Destiny to take the land God intended for white people to have to support their nation.

In the next approximately 25 chapters I will examine why the tenets of American Exceptionalism are basically wrong in that the rich have always been our royalty. Our laws, our courts, our police forces and our politicians have always acted in their interest. We are also seeing in the discussions of possible contested party conventions that the will of the people can always be usurped by the will of the power brokers when they desire. Even the notion of elections reflecting the people’s desires is undone by the proliferation of gerrymandering which does all it can to defy demographics and keep power in the hands of a decreasing white population. Our mission to shape the world has more to do with our financial interests than any humanitarian considerations. We use the notion of our exceptionalism (read superiority) as justification to intervene in the affairs of the rest of the world as we see fit.

We will look at the major events in the history of America and how those events were shaped by the needs of white people or the desire to resist the expansion or influence of brown ones. The Monroe Doctrine was as much about preventing Spanish Influence in Latin and South America leaving America alone to influence them and was in fact enforced there by the British Navy while we ignored their own colonization. Our international friendships have as much to do with the colors of their peoples and “similar values” as any other factor.

We’ll look at the Civil War, emancipation, reconstruction and the various compromises that allowed white people to be always more exceptional that its non-white citizens. We’ll look at education and the inequality thereof. The current whitewashing of history will not be overlooked including things like Texas literally rewriting textbooks to put its and America’s history in a better light.

We will examine the two World Wars, Vietnam and the new make-up of the “all volunteer Army”. America offers unilateral support of Israel and has the ability to ignore any transgression of theirs while assessing blame to the Palestinians for all. We of course will look at the Civil Rights era which some believe to be over but the struggle continues.

When I say “we”, it is because this will be less of a presentation than a discussion. Approximately twice a week, a new Chapter will be presented and you the reader will have the opportunity to contribute or respond. I even welcome the trolls if they’re willing to engage in an actual conversation and defend their views.

This conversation wouldn’t be complete without a discussion of the first African-American President, his attempts to redefine American Exceptionalism excluding the supremacy element and the conservative backlash. The final Chapter will be on Donald Trump who exemplifies American Exceptionalism on steroids. When he says, “Make America Great Again”, it’s a thinly veiled cry to make it white again, not that it ever wasn’t.

#whiteexceptionalism #american exceptionalism