American Exceptionalism and Jim Crow
I’m struck by the parallels of today’s ‘American Exceptionalism’ advocates and the ‘reform’ movement in the southern Democratic party at the turn of the 20th century. Back then, the rule of dark-skinned peoples in the Philipines, ‘the white man’s burden,’ was used to bolster the justification for white rule in the South, suppressing black voting and bolstering Jim Crow. Today, American Exceptionalism is the raison d’etre for American interference (so-called ‘leadership’) in the Mid-East.
The original idea behind American exceptionalism was that America was founded upon principles that were not found in other nations: democracy and egalitarianism. This idea has been completely distorted so that today it means that America ‘knows better’ than those ignorant, backward Others, i.e., darker-skinned peoples.