The Flickering of American Exceptionalism
The insurrection on the 6th of January 2021 where mobs of Trump supporters wearing racist and anti-Semitic symbols violently desecrated the US capital motivated me to write my thoughts on the evolution of American exceptionalism, and what can be done to resist the temptation of cynicism and despair.
Discovering America in 1998
I first visited the Capitol in January 1998 as part of a school trip to visit Washington D.C. landmarks. The late Dr. Ron Knapp, our world history teacher at the International Community School of Abidjan was our chaperon. My peers and I were impressed by the opulence of American malls, the stature of the buildings that housed US institutions, and the three limousines of president Clinton leaving the Capitol after a testimony to congress during his impeachment hearings. I returned home from my first U.S. visit with a heightened interest in politics and convinced that America was a special place ‘we’ should seek inspiration from. In hindsight, that trip might have nudged me to study political science in addition to economics. As I came of age, I realized that American society was wealthy beyond comparison but ailing from its unresolved history of racial oppression. As a foreigner, I admired the might of American power but was keenly aware of the resentments in the rest of the world about America’s unjust wars from Vietnam to Iraq.
The Nature of American Exceptionalism
In 2015, a close friend who was an intern for the Obama White House invited me to visit and gave me a personalized tour of that world renowned seat of power. I appreciated the long journey on the path of moral progress that the US has made from the time when Martin Luther King was standing over president Johnson when he signed the civil rights act into law to the election of its first Black president. As an immigrant Black man in America I knew that the march to equality was far from over. My intellectual and artistic discovery of American life through Childish Gambino’s This Is America, Issa Rae’ Insecure, Lin-Manuel Miranda’ Hamilton, Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow opened my mind to the many ways that Black oppression continued in the form of systemic racism, institutional bias, and daily microaggressions. Yet, progress towards a more just society was undeniable when one ponders in historical scales.
On my way back to N.Y. from D.C, I tried to reconcile the unprecedented achievement of American society with the dark chapters of its history in a coherent framework. I wanted to understand what made America different from other industrialized democracies and what explained its unmatched economic success. To me American exceptionalism was the result of a unique political experiment with three key features.
- America was a nation of immigrants that was more than willing to adopt those whose perceived talents made them desirable. Unlike many Western nations it did not resent the successes of its new members. To the contrary one’s success amplified one’s legitimacy in American society.
- Respect for the rule of law enforced a set of norms for punctual improvements in the social contract. The amended US constitution has progressively extended citizenship to the landless, women and people of color. The Civil Rights movement landmark achievement was based on its ability to make the government honor its promissory notes as far as its citizens of color were concerned (MLK: “I have a Dream”).
- A unique liberal conception of freedom ensured that enfranchised citizens had more autonomy in the pursuit of their happiness than those of any other western nation. This American conception of freedom, allowed the coexistence of various communities with different value systems. The richness of these systems has inspired America’s reinvention after consecutive crises. Wilson ended America’s voluntary autarky on the world stage. Roosevelt shepherded the welfare state based on Keynesian principles. Johnson abolished Jim Crow. Reagan outcompeted communists’ vision.
The Erosion of American Exceptionalism
On the 3rd of November 2016, I had declined an invitation to an electoral watch party believing that Hillary Clinton was going to be declared winner before I had the time to make the 4 subway stops journey from my job in Oakland to San Francisco. As a reader of fivethirtyeight.com, I realized that the probabilistically less likely outcome had materialised and led Donald Trump and his misogynistic, fascist, and isolationist vision of America to power. When less probable outcomes materialize, we need to evaluate our world view in search of explanations that can help us construct a better model of reality.
From the 3rd of November 2016 to the 6th of January 2021, American life has been characterized in part by the revendications of two movements with competing visions of America’s future. Trumpists’ main claim was a revision of the american social contract to disenfranchise minorities and marginalize foreigners as a means of improving their economic lot. In this, they are channeling a fascist utopia that believes that the good society can only be achieved if it is composed of the ‘right’ people. This is reflected by their nostalgia for a mythical racist past and their admiration for fascist movements that have brought calamity to the world. On the other hand are Black-Lives-Matter advocates (BLM). BLM’s simple but powerful ask is a demand that black people’ equal dignity as humans be respected, and that their right to participate in the promise of the American dream be upheld. BLM has outgrown its original aim of denouncing police brutality and become a powerful movement for the affirmation of equal rights and respect for Black people in all spheres of life. In their methods, Trumpist try to enforce a binary view of the world where there is no space for objective truths and only facts that support their interests are acceptable. Beyond Trumpist selectivity of what they accept as true, they have created an alternative universe of ‘alternative’ facts which legitimizes a world view out of touch with objective reality. BLM advocates on the other hand embrace emerging conceptions of intersectional identities whose emphasis of lived experiences is able to reveal pervasive and corrosive forms of discrimination and inequality.
While it is impossible to fully analyze the genesis of these movements, we can highlight two common drivers:
1) The perpetually falling cost of communication technology that has enabled social media’s rise and its ability to unite kindred spirits by creating spheres of information where people’s beliefs are amplified. This first driver explains why president Trump has been able to mobilize millions of people with simplistic Twitter messages bypassing the moderation of traditional media organizations. This also explains why BLM has become a successful social movement without the charismatic leader that characterized previous social and political movements. In both cases, the ability to mobilize through social media is supported by free platforms whose monetization algorithms leverage individuals’ confirmation bias by prioritizing content that appeals to our instinctive system-1 thinking. For example: I don’t see a lot of thought provoking content on my FB News feed. In fact I can curate my experience to whatever worldview I prefer, giving me the illusion that my perceived reality is more popular than it actually is. For an in-depth overview of the cognitive biases that behavioral economics can leverage for profit, I highly recommend Daniel Khaneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow. While the first driver explains the stupendous rise of these movements it does not explain their origin.
2) Arguably, the rise of BLM and Trumpism is the realization to many Americans that the current version of the American social contract and its implied ‘dream’ does not hold for them the same promise as it did for previous generations. Adopting an economic lens can help us illustrate. Trump’s support is amplified in counties that are racially more white and economically less prosperous. This is a proxy that does not exhaust the full spectrum of president Trump’s supporters. These Americans’ economic prospects relative to their parents’ have been eroded by the forces of globalization that have flattened the world and exposed them to competition from emerging nations like China, Vietnam, Mexico and now Ethiopia. For a white man in Detroit in 1950, a high school education was sufficient to guarantee one’s family a decent standard of living and an experience of steady economic advancement. This is no longer the case as globalization has levelled the economic playing field to the benefit of qualified labor in emerging nations and capital owners in wealthy nations. This trend is reflected by the rising inequality in OECD nations. In the past three generations, US intergenerational social mobility has deteriorated to the bottom of the OECD rankings. Unlike Baby Boomers, Millennials’ reach of the American dream is no longer guaranteed. The lowest rung of the property ladder is higher, and a rising student loans burden delays family formation and reduces the fertility rate towards its replacement rate. The American dream has become unreachable to those who were not born into it. A regressive taxation system where Warren Buffett pays proportionately less taxes than his secretary entrenches structural inequality. For an elegant analysis of the historical dynamics of inequality in a selection of western countries, including America, I highly recommend Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty First Century, particularly the first part.
For Black Americans, in addition to these economic dynamics comes the realization that systemic inequalities that is pervasive across American institutions (the police, banks, hospitals, the criminal system, corporations) implies that they will not be able to close the opportunity gap relative to their white peers unless the institutional nature of discrimination is resolved. For a Black millennial, the punctual gain from the civil rights movement is already priced into their economic prospect and the parameters of the social contract that penalizes people of color need to be revised yet again to enable any meaningful convergence.
The realization that the current version of our social contract is no longer adapted to a world that has become more complex and interconnected can lead to despair and worst, cynicism. It is undeniable that Trumpism has eroded American exceptionalism. In the past four years, America’s reputation as a nation that welcomes immigrants has transformed into that of a country that no longer welcomes foreigners and wishes to disengage from the world. Countries like Germany, Japan, and South Korea that have hitherto relied on American hegemony for their stability and prosperity would be wise to reevaluate their options in a world without American protection. Ambitious Indian and Brazilian talents are looking more closely at the UK and Canada to pursue their education than their US-educated parents did.
Donald Trump’s presidency has been characterized by a disrespect for political, legal, and civic norms that have been the bedrock of American democracy. Truth has become a transactional commodity that can be traded for immediate gains in the perpetual news cycle. This erosion has weakened American institutions and reduced public confidence in equality of opportunity. The famed system of checks and balances failure to prevent acts of extreme objective and symbolic violence against minorities, immigrant children, and women has raised questions about its effectiveness. More worryingly, a modern precedent has been created where the rule of law can be compromised for political gain. Without the rule of law, American politicians have the potential to outperform their counterparts in the proverbial and derogatory ‘banana’ republic.
Lastly, the emerging notion of ‘freedom’ favors individual autonomy unlimited by any constraints of mutual interdependence. By abusing this notion of freedom, people legitimize individual behaviors without any consideration for their social consequences. The ridiculous polemic about wearing masks is a case in point. Many people refuse to wear masks under the pretext that doing so is a violation of their freedom. By doing so, they are amplifying the spread of the Covid virus that has killed 2,000,000 people Worldwide and more than 300,000 in the United States as of Jan 9th 2021. When the numbers about Covid casualties have been fully tabulated and analyzed, we are going to discover that far too many have died far too soon because of an irresponsible notion of freedom. To those who claim the right of not wearing a mask, John Stuart Mill’s classical definition of freedom as “liberty of tastes and and pursuits … doing as we like … without impediment from our fellow creatures, so long as what we do does not harm them” is the product of their adversaries’ conspiracy. It is Ironic that far right ‘freedom’ advocates see themselves as patriots defending a mythical original conception of freedom whereas the founding fathers were preoccupied by forging a system with principles that recognized the political balance of power of their time but was also able to evolve with changing times and new generations’ challenges.
What future does history predict?
American exceptionalism has been significantly eroded by the rejection of difference, disrespect for the rule of law, and the abuse of freedom. In this context, the Cassandras of historical analysis are prophesying the collapse of the United States’ influence and the destitution of its exceptional destiny. A cynical application of Francis Fukuyama’s Political Order and Political Decay would conclude that the current ailments of the American political system and society are consistent with the obsolescence of institution and rise in corruption and nepotism that have preceded the collapse of many great empires. As a rational optimist I believe that history rhymes but does not repeat itself and therefore we have the ability to defeat self fulfilling prophecies. What is possible for the vision of America’s future? Futurology is a hazardous endeavor but we can leverage some first principles in shaping our analysis.
People’s changed expectation for their future has led to the rejection of ‘traditional’ politics and empowered iconoclastic, populist, politicians to offer alternative visions. While different in character and vision, many radical new leaders like Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines, have exploited this popular discontent with tragic consequences.
Technologically, the future has never been brighter as innovations in artificial intelligence, robotics, genomics, energy production, environmental sustainability are improving our lives at an accelerating pace. This progress, supported by an accelerating expansion in the universe of our collective knowledge has amplified the returns to good ideas. The successful commercialization of many technologies have enabled inventors and Tech Entrepreneurs to become cult heroes.
What has not kept up is our ability to improve our political, economic, social systems to reflect our new potential. This dynamic is eroding the just ideal of equality of opportunity and creating adversarial systems where people no longer believe in shared principles of human progress. The solution, in my humble opinion lies in our ability to deeply analyze the changes in our human condition and leverage our unprecedented technological power to improve our institutional systems, public policy, and recognition of our shared humanity. This is a daunting task for which we have never had so many tools at our disposal. I hope that America’s realization that it is able to influence its destiny when it rejected a future with Donald Trump’s values will create a spark that will allow a new Phoenix to shine the world over.
In future essays, I will explore our changing notions of liberalism and the role that technology can play in a better world.