American exceptionalism

The history of America can seem rather bleak.  Indian removal and slaughter, slavery, immigrant bashing, prejudice against various religious groups, racial segregation, anti-union violence, wars against Mexicans, Filipinos, and Vietnamese, Japanese internment camps, Red Scares–you can extend the list.

We taught all of this in American studies.  We also taught that for every evil committed by our country, voices always spoke out in protest.  While the Puritans fought Indians, Roger Williams negotiated agreements and wrote a dictionary of the local Indian language.  When a Boston mob demanded blood from British troops after the Boston Massacre, John Adams was the defense attorney for those troops.  John Wollman and Ben Franklin spoke out against slavery even before it was outlawed in Britain.  The Underground Railroad helped slaves reach freedom.  The Wobblies and the Knights of Labor pushed for workers’ rights.  The Suffragettes marched and fought for the right of women to vote.  The NAACP fought segregation.  The ACLU defined victims of the Red Scare.

If you look you can always find brave men and women who spoke out against bigotry, violence, and hate.  They didn’t always win, but they made a mark.  We can look back on their efforts with pride.  

America is an exceptional nation not because we are strong, not because of our military, not because of our wealth, and certainly not because of our political leadership.  We are an exceptional nation because our our ideals;  ideals that the rest of the world looked up to and in many cases tried to emulate.  It was not our successes that were important, it was our goals and aspirations.

The irony of “Make America Great Again” as a slogan for this administration is almost too much to bear.  We are no longer the model for idealistic people.  We are becoming the nation that decent and caring people turn away from, while so-called “strongmen” and neo-fascists now see us as a model.  

Large crowds cheer hateful rhetoric.  White House staffers and cable network pundits make fun of crying children.  Our president whips up bigotry and calls desperate immigrants an “infestation.”  How did this happen to us?