Where do Rob Kall and other liberals today stand regarding President Obama's view of American exceptionalism? Do they join with his conservative critics in taking the opening sentence as the expression of some kind of heresy? And what do Rob Kall and other liberals today have to say regarding the rest of President Obama's lengthy response?
It strikes me that liberals today should be able to articulate and endorse a view of American exceptionalism that is free of the kind of triumphalism expressed by Pericles regarding Athenian exceptionalism, as President Obama has shown he can.
Moreover, liberals should be able to turn the tables on the GOP presidential hopefuls not only by calling attention to Obama's full 300-word statement about American exceptionalism, but also by making triumphalism the issue in discussions of American exceptionalism.
The movement conservatism that Buckley helped engender was predicated not on a realistic sense of American exceptionalism, such as President Obama's realistic sense of American exceptionalism, but on an exaggerated sense of triumphalism. The triumphalism of anti-communist conservatives was heady stuff. Movement conservatism today wants to continue to that kind of heady stuff.
By contrast, Zimmerman shows how a realistic sense of American exceptionalism has been used by the great warriors for social justice in American history. They used the idealistic claims of American ideology to critique American shortcomings.
However, at the present time, as Zimmerman says, the GOP presidential hopefuls are making American exceptionalism their battle cry. But I am suggesting that they are doing this because they want to renew the heady stuff of triumphalism.
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