American Exceptionalism

Bobby Orokos

February 21, 2017

Does Obama Believe in American Exceptionalism?

Throughout Obama’s eight years serving as President of the United States, there are many debates as to whether he believes in American Exceptionalism.  Despite his actions serving as President abroad and domestically, there are disputes as to what qualifies his view of American Exceptionalism.  To clarify, American Exceptionalism is the ideology that the United States has a role to fill to stand above others as an example of how a society should work, because it proved exceptional against Europe when the United States claimed and won independence.

President Obama has taken a different approach towards American Exceptionalism.  Whereas his predecessors (Goerge W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George H. W. Bush), demonstrated American Exceptionalism with military force and deployment of American strength throughout the world.  In a Washington Post article by Greg Jaffe, he discusses how critics of President Obama discuss how he does not embrace America’s exceptionalism the same was as Presidents before him.  Jaffe says, “Today, just about every Republican presidential candidate is condemning Obama for a failure to grasp America’s exceptional nature. They say he’s too quick to criticize the country for its failings at home” (Jaffe 1).  The argument that American Exceptionalism only exists because America has more potential than the rest of the world, however, if domestically the United States is behind the rest of the world, how can be we better?  The history of the United States post-World War II involves US military intervention and demonstrating military strength around the world.  However, where the United States is superior in military strength, other parts of the world challenge the idea of American Exceptionalism when it comes to domestic policies and practices.  Yes, the United States is one of the original democracies and an experiment that resulted in a massive success, but by focusing on military strength and interventions around the world to better it and spread American ideologies, domestic implementation of American ideology itself may have been weakened in the process.

President Obama does believe in American Exceptionalism, which can be observed from his speech after winning the 2008 election.  In Grant Park, Chicago, President Obama said in a speech, “If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer” (Jaffe 1).  The election of the first African-American President is truly exceptional for the United States, however, other places around the world have reached similar goals before us, with one example being Angela Merkel as the Chancellor of Germany since 2005, whereas the United States has yet to have a female President.  By focusing on more domestic issues and not embracing the full power of the military abroad, President Obama only strengthened American Exceptionalism by reinforcing the great values that made America exceptional in the first place.

The United States lived up to the title it was given as exceptional, but since 1945, focused on spreading its ideology through military strength.  Under President Obama, the United States took a more reformative approach towards American Exceptionalism by strengthening domestically the values that makes America greater than other places around the world before trying to continue spreading them around the world.  While President Obama did not utilize American Exceptionalism to the fullest he could have in his actions abroad, by taking American Exceptionalism on an analytical level and strengthening the values that makes America exceptional, President Obama displayed a form of American Exceptionalism that was not practiced in the post-World War II era.

News Article:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2015/06/03/obama-and-american-exceptionalism/