I should note that unless one cherishes armed conflict, or embraces the oxymoronic concept of benevolent imperialism, what absolutely does not square with any sanitized view of American exceptionalism would be the manner in which the mightiest nation on Earth expresses itself militarily. Although as any survivor of Nagasaki or Hiroshima could attest, the U.S. military has been unquestionably exceptional for quite some time now. That said, any relationship between America's vast military capabilities and this article's interpretation of American exceptionalism has no presence as an underlying point.
Nonetheless, it should come as no surprise to many that America's ascension to its potential place as the world's premier benevolent force is in fact directly linked to its military might. It's an inherited by-product of the growth and advancement that occurred in American society after World War II. As France, Great Britain, North Africa, Poland, Japan, Germany and many other parts of the world struggled to recover from the war's devastating aftermath, the American homeland, which escaped comparatively unscathed, went on to undergo phenomenal economic growth.
The result is that now, some 75 years later, pretty much the best of any and all of the resources needed to fulfill the lofty mission of elevating humanity -- such as universities, teaching hospitals, think tanks, research facilities, and other physical and natural resources; the technology, curiosity, ingenuity, drive, effort and most of the financial capital -- can be found here in America. As such, America, at least for now, is both the de facto guardian and curator of the future of the human species.
And right now, we're in WAY over our heads
How did we get here?
The United States of America is a geographically small part of a large planet that's bursting with a wildly disparate menagerie of nations, regions, peoples, norms, customs and cultures. Hence, if we are to insist upon singularly bestowing the mantle of exceptionalism upon this nation, it's important that Americans embrace the totality of what that means. The fact is that all too often, we Americans talk the exceptionalism smack talk with needlessly repulsive aplomb; boasting ad-nauseam both to each other and to the rest of the world about how fortunate we are to live in the only place on Earth where impossible dreams can become a reality. But talk has always been cheap (at least it was prior to the emergence of the iPhone) which may explain why in America, walking the walk amounts to what's oftentimes little more than baseless, self-serving rhetorical bluster.
Consider the issue that is mankind's greatest near-term threat these days -- global warming. It looms as our planet's man-made replication of its Mesozoic era . The evidence is clear; global warming, unlike American exceptionalism, is no ill-defined concept. It's now clearly "a thing." There's little or no basis for further doubt about Mother Nature having now advanced well beyond the early symptoms stage of full a full-blown nervous breakdown. She's heated and it shows, having violently spazzed out at humanity with growing regularity for well over a decade. With vindictively lethal passion, she's wreaked havoc and destroyed lives from Port au Prince to Puerto Rico; from New Orleans to New Guinea and well beyond. Mankind is clearly on the brink. Planet Earth, as former Vice President Al Gore warned back in 1992 is in the balance
Still, I'm certain that once the impact of global warming reaches extinction level proportions -- thus rendering today's penthouses easily affordable to poor folks because all the high rent dwellings will be constructed (belatedly, of course) safely below Earth's surface -- a great many Americans may find themselves asking: "How did we get here?"
I'm also certain that at some point during any debate which seeks an answer to that question, donald trump's name will emerge. Beyond the impact of his own colossal carbon footprint, we certainly can't blame trump's policies today for any global warming adversities set in motion in the years prior to his time in office. However, considering the absolute doltish absurdity of some of his ideas for dealing with current global warming abnormalities (which include the use of nuclear weapons as a means of dissipating mega storms andraking leaves as the solution to California's wildfires ), it would be insane to presume that trump's policies won't accelerate the pace of global warming. And these policies come at a time when many climate scientists are forecasting the current pace of global warming as on a track that gives Planet Earth just over a decade before the problem becomes irreversible.
While it's true that one can spend days reciting examples of trump's utter contempt for the same constitution that he took an oath to uphold, for the rule of law which he regularly flaunts, and toward the institution of the presidency itself which is probably already tarnished for decades, it's his foreign and domestic policies that most threaten the legitimacy of the American exceptionalism ethos. Indeed, perhaps along with the reneging of the Iran Nuclear Agreement and the decision to assassinate its top military commander , few of trump's policies seem more lethally shortsighted or come with consequences more far-ranging to mankind's destiny than his policies related to global warming .
It started of course, with his near instantaneous withdrawal of America from the Paris Climate Agreement . Although for many Americans, that move signaled the death knell for Planet Earth,trump's narrow-minded, penny-wise-pound-foolish act was not surprisingly viewed by millions of the more shortsighted of his supporters as a major policy achievement.
But the point of this prolonged, if not rambling preamble isn't so much the decisions made by trump that fly in the face of simple logic, basic foresight, and common sense reasoning; it's ultimately, the potential decision by millions of Americans to turn a blind eye to the clearly established pitfalls of trump-ism and vote for his re-election. And it is also America's stubborn refusal to end its use of an antiquated method for tabulating votes in presidential elections that even the most sinister of dictatorships might view as exceptionally peculiar for a supposed democratic republic.
Unlike "regular" math, electoral college math relies on a rather peculiar formula devised right after the abolition of thepeculiar institution otherwise known as slavery. That formula's primary purpose was to enhance the ballot strength of residents of states in which slaves outnumbered slave-owners thus, rendering the latter in those states as a voting minority. Since then, on two occasions over the past 20 years, the electoral college process has thwarted the will of the majority by certifying both George W. Bush and donald trump as winners of their presidential bids despite both having lost the popular vote. And in both cases the decision to do so has led to unfortunate consequences.
In the year 2000, it was the electoral college process, rather than a plurality of America's voters, that gave Bush the opportunity to lead America into a pseudo-benevolent mission to disarm Saddam Hussein thus sparking a Middle East conflict that's continued in some capacity ever since. But not only has the shortsighted nature of Bush's misuse of America's military capacity had the effect of igniting a worldwide, East/West clash of cultures, it's also drained America of copious amounts of its own blood and treasure.
Americans can only guess as to just how less threatening both America's Middle East dilemma or the current global warming outlook might be today had a Gore presidency not been thwarted by America's stubborn use of what should clearly be recognized as an outdated electoral process. Still, less than two decades later, the electoral college had done it again, exerting its control over the results of the 2016 election that's produced an outcome that could threaten not just America's well-being or that of the Middle East, but potentially, the future well-being of the entire planet as well.
A pattern of predictability
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