American Exceptionalism Died on Trump's Lying Lips

 

In an essay on Socrates, Hannah Arendt says Socrates wanted all of us to be at peace within ourselves: as much as possible our inner self should be in line with who we present to the world.

To Socrates, one of the problems with being a murderer is that, even if you are never caught, for the rest of your life, you are a murderer. Your inner self can never line up with your public self in a civilized place. You will never be a virtuous person.

In the same way, American exceptionalism died in the five weeks between the election and Mitch McConnell saying "It's over." We were the first successful revolution followed by an enduring democracy. Even if Joe Biden is sworn in as President and the orange liar leaves office, America is now a place in which the sitting President of the United States lied, is lying and will continue to lie about the result of the election. We did not have a peaceful transfer of power and 2018 may still be the last free and fair election in American history.

America is now no better than any broken country fighting against a would-be dictator.

And when the rest of the world laughs at us, as they should, they can point to more than 70 million voters who looked at four years of hate and lies and said, "I want more of that."

America will never again have standing to lecture another country about peaceful transfer of power and democratic norms.

Foreign policy magazine has a good summary of American Exceptionalism.