Unfortunately, Exceptionalism Isn't Dead Yet

The U.S. and the world would be much better off if the U.S. abandoned American exceptionalism, but this isn’t going to happen anytime soon.

Andreas Kluth gets a bit carried away:

That framing neglects a change that may be less obvious but more consequential for other countries, a shift that will keep playing out no matter who wins in November: For the first time in its two-and-a-half centuries, the US will stop looking at the world through the lens of its own exceptionalism [bold mine-DL], and behave as just another Great Power using its awe-inspiring might to serve a narrow self-interest.

The U.S. and the world would be much better off if the U.S. abandoned American exceptionalism, but this isn’t going to happen anytime soon. That exceptionalism has taken different forms over the course of U.S. history, but it never goes away. It mutates and sometimes becomes cancerous, but it doesn’t disappear. The U.S. has frequently justified its actions by appealing to its exceptional status and place in history, and it isn’t going to stop doing that until it is led by Americans that genuinely no longer believe in the myth. There seems to be a generational shift on this question, but it will probably be decades before the younger cohorts of Americans that no longer believe it will be setting policy. Unfortunately, a contest between the two oldest presidential candidates isn’t going to be the occasion for scrapping the exceptionalist worldview.