Senate candidate Ben Sasse from Nebraska said in an interview:
"What motivates me first is the identity we have as Americans, and we have to celebrate the Constitution, and we have to be having these discussions. And if we don't have more people who run for office for the purposes of having that civic conversation, we will lose the republic. I don't think that's going to happen, because I think people are going to demand more serious leadership that talks about these issues. The next generation does not wake up in the morning understanding American exceptionalism and the fact that natural rights predate government, and government is just a tool to secure those rights. And we've got to teach it."The identity we have as Americans? Understanding American exceptionalism? Natural rights predate government? Codephrases that function as sjiboleths among today's Republicans. No wonder Marvin Olasky eagerly retweeted this interview. And it is true, you can find American Exceptionalism on the GOP website as part of the partyplatform. But is American exceptionalism really something we should teach our children? Is it really something we inherited from our parents? Does American exceptionalism represent the history of the party or the early history of America?
Intuitively to me American exceptionalism comes across as an example of the influence of 19th century Romantic nationalism on American politics. Romantic nationalism as imported by folks like Philip Schaff. Using the term American exceptionalism is equal to capitulating for attempts by folks like De Tocqueville or contemporaries like Seymour Martin Lipset. The book To pretend that the American ...
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