The Curse of American Exceptionalism

Nothing seems to cause one of the neocon talking heads to fall into a rage more than discussing a politician or political candidate who “doesn’t believe in American exceptionalism!!”  Sean Hannity seems especially unhinged under such circumstances.  This is because “American exceptionalism” has long been the ideological underpinning of – and justification for –the American empire and all of its military adventures.  As shills for the American military/industrial complex and the empire that it is forever expanding, Hannity, O’Reilly, Limbaugh, and all the rest are required by their masters to express outrage – outrage! – whenever anyone questions the propriety of American imperialism and empire building.

All empires claim to be “exceptional” in some ways, and that such exceptionalism gives them license to invade, conquer, and plunder other lands, usually hidden behind the false propaganda of benevolence (i.e., “peacekeeping,” “making the world safe for democracy,” rooting out the next Hitler, etc.).  The American version of “exceptionalism” has a long history.  Abe Lincoln arrogantly claimed that his government was “the last best hope of Earth.”  exceptionalism.”  The “Civil War,” he said, left the North (which is to say, the U.S. government) with a “treasury of virtue.”  But this “virtue”depends on ignoring the facts that Lincoln and both houses of Congress repeatedly declared that the war had nothing to do with slavery; that Lincoln pledged to enshrine slavery explicitly in the U.S. Constitution; that his political speeches were filled with white supremacist language that would make any Ku Klux Klansman blush; and many other falsehoods.  Nevertheless, this “moral narcissism,” this “plenary indulgence for all sins, past, present and future” was “justification for our crusades of 1917-1918 and 1941-1945,” wrote Warren.  And it was all done with “our diplomacy of righteousness, with the slogan of unconditional surrender and universal spiritual rehabilitation for others.”

This “treasury of virtue” was also the fundamental “justification” for all other wars and military interventions since then, up to the present day.

This “treasury of virtue,” another way of saying “American exceptionalism” provides the “moral” cover for the unmitigated greed for war profiteering by the American military/industrial complex and is therefore a perfect example of the “bootleggers and Baptists”convention that economists talk about.  The originator of this convention is economist Bruce Yandle, who explained that alcohol prohibition was supported by bootleggers who profited from selling illegal alcohol and by religious people (“Baptists”) who opposed drinking on moral grounds.  Pure greed won’t garner much public support; it has to be hidden behind a veil of pseudo-morality such as the phony “American exceptionalism” canard.