American exceptionalism: an old idea and a new political battle
..But with Republicans and tea party activists accusing President Obama and the Democrats of turning the country toward socialism, the idea that the United States is inherently superior to the world’s other nations has become the battle cry from a new front in the ongoing culture wars..
And last week, Rick Santorum, the former senator from Pennsylvania, told a group of College Republicans at American University: “Don’t kid yourself with the lie. America is exceptional, and Americans are concerned that there are a group of people in Washington who don’t believe that any more.”
Some, however, wonder whether Obama’s conservative critics are sounding an alarm about the United States’ place in the world - or making an insidious suggestion about the president himself…