Is America exceptional? Liberals, conservatives agree — and disagree
The United States is an exceptional country. On this, almost all U.S. politicians agree. And millions of Americans, do too, according to recent polls.
More than three centuries after John Winthrop first preached that the new Massachusetts Bay colony would be a “city upon a hill,” Presidents John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan both reiterated his admonition that “the eyes of all people are upon us.” For President Barack Obama, the United States is “not just a place on a map, but the light to the world.”
This broad agreement on American exceptionalism is often overlooked. This is especially so for conservatives, who now demand allegiance to the idea and chastise Obama, despite all evidence to the contrary, for not believing sufficiently in the exceptional nature of the country he leads.
Exceptionalism is a flashpoint in American politics today not because the claim is contested, but because conservatives and liberals hold differing views of what makes the United States exceptional. These differences are at the core of our current fights over foreign policy.
David Lake
Conservatives believe the United States is exceptional because its people are inherently good. And we are. By and large, Americans are upstanding, moral individuals who instinctively support noble policies in our relations with other countries. Nonetheless, conservatives are much more likely than liberals to believe that American values and culture are superior to those of other nations.
In a recent Pew Research Center poll, 63% of conservatives believe our culture is superior to others, compared with just 45% for moderates and 34% for liberals. Although the decline in overall support for this view of cultural superiority from 60% in 2002 to only 49% today received the headline attention, the dispersion across political ideologies is perhaps even more important. For conservatives compared with liberals, American exceptionalism rests in large part on a belief in the country’s superior culture and values.