American Exceptionalism

American exceptionalism is on my mind. This idea was coined by Joseph Stalin in 1929. It is the perception or belief that our peoples, country, society, Democratic Republic, health care system etc. are extraordinary. I have no difficulty thinking about various Americans that excel and have made extraordinary accomplishments. People like  Curry,  Durant,  Lee,  Sorkin,  Jackson,  Friedman,  Krugman,  Bezos,  Gates,  Buffett,  Chomsky Sanders and  Fauci easily come to mind. This essay challenges “American Exceptionalism.”

The Covid- 19 pandemic exposes the “exceptionalism” of our American healthcare system.  Our country, at start, looked good as we had not done testing. This meant we had the absence of diagnostic criteria. Then we learned that we had to test for a diagnosis and that we didn’t even the tests.  We took care of that little problem and we now lead the world statistically in cases and deaths per population.  We still hear from the governors that their hospitals do not have enough PPE gear, respirators, beds and other supplies. The Defense Production Act could be used to reduce PPE shortages and the government could step in and eliminate the bidding by FEMA and the 50 states on the purchase of ventilators. Trump’s capitalistic exceptionalism in action .Hospital personnel get sick. Schools have graduated nurses early and other healthcare workers have come out of retirement and returned to work to deal with the shortages.

Unfortunately, there are a number of red states without stay-at-home orders. These states are adding to the numbers of the Covid-19 statistical model that suggests we’re going to lose over 200,000 to this deadly virus. How does contributing more disease thus increasing the death rate dovetail with the religious right notion of the sanctity of life, love thy neighbor and not kill thy neighbor? We place our war hero dead with medals at the Arlington National Cemetery. Where will we bury our Covid-19 victims? We will have to come up with some storyline like they died to save Trump’s capitalistic economy.

 The expertise and leadership from the governors has been impressive while our top guy is inept, flip-flops, and says one thing to our public and another thing to various governments. One can’t keep track of all that comes out of his mouth. In fact, he denies what he says. And at times it’s difficult to determine, from his words, what is a lie, from a non-lie, or just ignorance. He’s exceptionally incompetent and sadistic and an example of the Peter Principle.

Our exceptional democratic republic process continues to be hampered by divide, pettiness and dysfunction. We live in political exceptionalism. Yes, there was a $2 trillion government “socialistic” bailout. It’s okay to print money as long as the majority of it goes to the corporations, pharmaceuticals and big business. The lobbyists made sure of where to send the money. Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich said that 80% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. These 80% do not have any lobbyists working for them and the credit card companies still charge interest or late fees. Will this handout, save the economy for the big and powerful or will it further divide the haves from the have-nots; keeping wages low and stagnant? Time will tell. Having a dysfunctional and incompetent person in the White House leading an exceptionally dysfunctional Senate seems a perfect fit.

We the people, at one time were labeled the “melting pot. Detroit, in the 50s, was no melting pot then nor is it now. In fact I can’t remember, when our country could have been called a “melting pot.” Despite our exceptionalness, we don’t seem to get along very well as evidenced by the divorce rate, physical abuse, and child sexual abuse statistics. We could lead the world in these categories too. We do lead the world with a number of owned guns, with the number of deaths, the number of hate crimes, and the number of incarceration rates. How does our God, in our God loving country, explain? We are the home of the brave in the land of the free. I’m not sure what is meant by in the land of the free. Free from what?  Are we really better than other countries?  What is our definition and our measuring tool? Regardless, we are exceptionally exploitive among our own.

We’ve also been told, that we have the best educational system. Inner-city statistics with its low graduation rates quickly challenges that idea. Moreover, our students can attend college and then they can pay off their massive student debt with exorbitant interest rates. I’m not sure that we want to compare our education system to Singapore’s, Hong Kong’s or Finland’s.  But we are dumbing down; many question the validity of science; and many legitimize creation beliefs. We are exceptionally ignorant.

Yes, we have exceptionally talented people that have achieved within our unbalanced society that favors the rich and powerful. For America to become exceptional, which means for more to benefit, would require a different functioning society. The society would favor the individual over the corporation; favor opportunity over discrimination; favor union over alienation and aloneness; favor significance over conformity; favor wisdom over prejudice; and favor education over ignorance are a few examples. Hopefully, the society would reinforce the development of creativity and artistry so that more could have a better opportunity to develop their potential .More than likely that would promote better and more productive human interactions.