My father used to say America was ‘the only country in the world that believes its own bullshit.’ He also liked to say ‘Only in America’ when something good happened, as if only the US could produce such things. This attitude is called ‘American Exceptionalism,’ and people really believed it.
In academic terms, American exceptionalism is often defined, as Seymour Martin Lipset puts it, as:
“… the notion that the United States is a unique nation, different from all others because of its historical evolution, political institutions, and set of values.”
This concept has been explored by many political scientists, including Alexis de Tocqueville and, more recently, Deborah Madsen, who argue that these national myths have profoundly shaped the country’s self-image and foreign relations.
In this essay, I will argue that America’s perceived global dominance and influence result primarily from the deliberate construction and ongoing promotion of these national myths, rather than from any intrinsic national superiority. These consciously manufactured narratives have played a decisive role in shaping both domestic attitudes and the direction of American foreign policy.
After World War II, America worked to establish global dominance not only through its military and economic power but also by promoting ideological narratives that presented the nation as inherently superior. Building on historian Deborah Madsen’s analysis in American Exceptionalism (1998), these narratives were carefully crafted and disseminated to foster a sense of uniqueness, which scholars argue played a decisive role in shaping both domestic and international perceptions. This strategy underlines my thesis: America’s influence and reputation were largely built on deliberately constructed national myths, rather than innate superiority.
The use of government propaganda campaigns such as the Truman Doctrine speech of 1947 and the publication of National Security Council Report 68 (NSC-68) in 1950 explicitly tied American foreign policy to a moral crusade against communism (see Gaddis, Strategies of Containment, 1982).
Government efforts to equate opposition to capitalism with support for communism strategically cultivated the perception of American exclusivity and virtue, as historian Ellen Schrecker details in Many Are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America (1998). Senator Joe McCarthy’s investigations in the 1950s exemplify this process; his actions, often unsupported by evidence, fostered a climate of fear and conformity that stifled dissent, as documented in primary sources such as congressional hearing transcripts from the Army-McCarthy hearings.
These campaigns did not arise from inherent national virtues, but instead served to strengthen the myth of American exceptionalism, which shaped both domestic attitudes and foreign policy. Thus, the deliberate creation and promotion of these narratives, supported by government documents and reinforced by key political figures, more than any intrinsic quality, have defined America’s influence at home and abroad.
This association between American identity and anti-communist sentiment found its most prominent figure in Senator Joseph Raymond McCarthy, who represented Wisconsin as a Republican from 1947 until his death in 1957. As the leading symbol of the early 1950s “Red Scare,” McCarthy embodied and intensified the era’s pervasive anti-communist anxiety, using his platform to influence both public perception and government policy.
McCarthy made additional baseless accusations of Communist infiltration into the State Department, the administration of President Harry S. Truman, the Voice of America, and the U.S. Army. He also used various charges of communism, communist sympathies, disloyalty, or sex crimes to attack a number of politicians and other individuals inside and outside of government.
No one was exempt from his communist accusations. A single mention of one’s name could end an athlete’s career, halt an entertainer’s contract, or ruin a politician’s future.
The persistent legacy of McCarthyism, which stigmatised countless individuals as ‘Commos,’ continues to permeate American political culture. Trump, much like McCarthy in the 1950s, capitalises on this historical rhetoric by invoking similar accusations to mobilise his political base ahead of the upcoming midterm elections. Both figures exploit public anxieties by framing political opponents as existential threats aligned with alleged subversive ideologies. By drawing on the tactics of scapegoating and fear-mongering that characterised McCarthy’s era, Trump illustrates how these divisive narratives remain a potent force in shaping electoral strategies and public discourse.
As political commentator and former U.S. Secretary of Labour Robert Reich observed in one of his widely circulated email newsletters:
“Trump has run out of cards to play in the Midterm elections, which is why he’s now talking about the ‘communist menace’.”
Let’s face it. The US economy is a total wreck, prices are rising faster than wages, and as a consequence Americans are getting poorer.
The war in Iran continues to be a complete fiasco, and he doesn’t know what to do about it.
His tariffs have been a failure. Full stop.
He cannot talk about immigration because his raids and mass deportations are an unmitigated disaster.
He promised to settle the war in Ukraine on Day One and has achieved nothing.
Consequently, he has nothing substantive to present to the electorate. This lack of meaningful policy achievements has prompted him to revive accusations of communism against a rising generation of young Democratic politicians. By deploying this rhetoric – most recently in his 250th speech delivered beneath the gaze of Mount Rushmore – he reinforces the manufactured self-image and political discourse that my thesis highlights.
Quoting the President, he said:
“There is now a resurgence of the communist menace in our land., including from newcomers to our country who embrace ideas totally opposed to our way of life and our great success. You can be a communist or you can be a patriot. You cannot be both.”
It’s the same ploy former Prime Minister Menzies used to bait the Australian people for election after election. In America, Trump is trying to scare Americans into believing that progressive Social Democrats favour things like Medicare for all, universal childcare, and free public higher education, with higher taxes on the super wealthy to pay for it.
These initiatives are supported by most Americans, so Trump’s attempts to brand Democrats as “godless communists” has fallen flat.
Like in Australia, communism was the throwaway word used after the Second World War to win election after election. Menzies cleverly used slogans like “Reds under the beds” to frighten the population into believing that hordes of reds would be coming down from the North to invade the country.
In the US, McCarthyism name-shaming was used to eradicate “Pink puppets from the Bureaucracy,” name-shaming, outing queers and intellectuals. The midterm elections of 1946 became a battle between Republicanism and Communism, and the GOP did all the baiting of those “those egg-sucking phony liberals.”
According to Reich:
“The problem for Trump is that the new stars of the Democratic Party whom Trump wants to defile have nothing whatsoever to do with Communism. They barely have anything to do with socialism.”
Conclusion
In light of the upcoming midterm elections, it is essential for American voters to take active measures to limit the influence of leadership that has exhibited considerable shortcomings in effective governance. Looking ahead to subsequent elections, a thoughtful reconsideration of support for alternative political leadership, such as the Democratic Party, is warranted to promote more effective and inclusive policies.
My thought for the day
For the life of me I fail to understand how anyone could vote for a party who thinks the existing education and health systems are adequately funded and addresses the needs of the disadvantaged”
Note: Some AI has been used only to find facts.
Also by John Lord
This Commander in Chief couldn’t even navigate a consequence
Keep Independent Journalism Alive – Support The AIMN
Dear Reader,
Since 2013, The Australian Independent Media Network has been a fearless independent voice – holding power to account and delivering journalism that matters.
Running this site isn’t cheap. Rising costs mean we need your support now more than ever. Every donation, big or small, keeps our servers running, our writers working, and our stories free for everyone.
Donate here:
PayPal or credit card – just click on the Donate button below
Direct bank transfer: BSB: 062500; A/c no: 10495969
We’ve also set up a GoFundMe as a dedicated reserve fund for hosting and future improvements.
Thank you for standing with us. We couldn’t do this without you.
With gratitude,
The AIMN Team
Exceptional America needs heroes. True heroes (there weren’t many) existed in WW2. WW2 was an existential threat to USA and those heroes were immortalised by propaganda that mesmerised the emerging youth who yearned to enter the mythology. Thus US foreign policy (born of the Monroe Doctrine) creates “others” that must be eliminated via creating international instability and little wars to continue the supply of heroes who are encouraged eliminate the “others”. So many US males have been indoctrinated with the power of war and weapons that gun play is normalised and authorised by the US Constitution 2nd Amendment. Normalised gun play brings a callous disregard for the human comfort of “others”. Unbridled hubris and exceptionalism makes for an unstable society that will eventually destroy itself from within as the “communists” and “socialists” are revealed as the next existential threat.
When a perverted, corrupted, under educated, spineless, sickodicko backward boy somehow gets the big job, one wonders from afar. How did this land of selfabsorbed achievement lower itself to embrace a giant dinosaurial dropping as if it was a precious object of admiration? Caponerist Trumpian filth, scheming, plotting, vindictive and sadistic, is dirt wrong, pox wrong, eternally grubby and wrong and must be ended. Let the subsequent cheers shift the moon’s orbit.
Thanks for your reading and your wonderful comments.
Mediocrates gets it.
The Americans have been doing it since McCarthyism, the caped Jet Jackson figure fighting for “truth, justice and the american way”.
As a long term ”conspiracy theorist” I am grateful that finally the world recognises that US foreign policy is directed by the demands of US owned multinational corporations seeking access, preferably for free, to the natural resources of the world, regardless of their location behind other national boundaries. Every strategy is appropriate in the location of operations.
This imperialist strategy has continued since before the mid-40s decision that warfare was a too expensive cost for conquering foreign resources, whereas diplomacy was paid for by the US government and taxpayers, so actually free to corporations. This was a deliberate decision during the 40s planning for reconstruction after WWII.
There were a couple of ”security leaks” since then when various authors exposed the plot, to receive denigration from the MSM. However, Gary Allen (1971) ”None Dare Call it Conspiracy” (available on Internet) made a major exposure of forward planning that sold over 5 million copies in six months.
The benefits of this corporate domination of US government is seen in the enormous profits earned by the US NE Military Industrial Complex in the failed Korean defence, Vietnam imperialist war, Iraq ”Words of Mass Deception” war, the Afghanistan Intervention. Citizens are expendible.
American Exceptionalism has always been a myth, an ”American Dream” crafted in Hollywood, that slowly decayed with the sale of the movie studios. Now, today, America under TACO Trumpery is “”the Nightmare on Main Street”, with a near worthless education system, a residual middle class being eviscerated by corporations failing to pay their fair share of taxation and an ever growing national debt, just waiting for a foreign government to flood the US securities market with US government paper, making it totally worthless.
Anybody for another ”gas” price rise??
Menzies use of the “”Reds under the Beds” strategy that is still believed among many of the socially isolated agriculture community of regional electorates. Few want to know that he resigned his Australian Army commission on the first day of WWI.
Trump has such a massive, stratospheric ego, he views EVERYONE who justifiably condemns him as the enemy! Problem is that the morally-bankrupt, child-molesting paedophile, multiple-convicted criminal and notorious misogynistic predator, Trump, is the most depraved, godless political psychopath to have ever risen to the powerful position as POTUS in living memory! We all thought that murderous war criminal, George Bush, was evil but Trump is shaping up to be so depraved, he makes Bush look almost good by comparison! The world is now asking: “If Trump is the crazy “answer”, what the hell was the insane question?” … No doubt about it, the repugnant Republican movement keeps vomiting up delusional psychopathic leaders with ever-increasing and terrifying rapidity!
Trump is not only a deluded, totally unconscionable megalomaniacal narcissist, he is a dangerously undemocratic, born-to-rule fascist who can be described as a mentally-unbalanced modern day Nero who is absolutely despised throughout the whole world (with the single exception of that Islamophobic, child-murdering psychopath, Netanyahu, in Israel). Despite the fact that Trump was a yellow-bellied coward who managed to avoid being conscripted into the Vietnam War no less than FIVE times, Trump has proven himself to be a reprehensible, unspeakably deranged hypocrite – an Islamophobic war mongering sociopath – who is prepared to sacrifice the lives of everybody ELSE’s sons or daughters in his depraved, unprovoked attacks against other nations but NEVER his own (or the lives of his family).
The fact that Trump is now deteriorating into a state of crazed power-obsessed dementia makes this unspeakably depraved sociopathic paedophile, deluded internationally-condemned political psychopath and war mongering monster even MORE dangerous and ruthlessly unpredictable! America needs to rapidly remove this lunatic as president before Trump’s ever increasing, petulant childish and dangerously deluded sense of omnipotence creates WW3 !! Ever since Americans so foolishly elevated that monstrous, totally erratic psychopath, Trump, into the powerful position as a mentally-deranged POTUS – with his shaky, erratic and vengeful finger poised over the Doomsday Button – the world has, undoubtedly, become an increasingly more dangerous place!
Agree with the article and the comments.
However, to me, America was founded on exceptionalism. From its very start it progressed with breathtaking incompetence and barbaric cruelty. A barbarity over and above the cruelty and barbarism sanctified throughout the ‘west’ from the assaults on the Scythians by the Greko-Romans, through to the doctrines & writs of the Pontiffs, in Britain the eternal threats of the Carolingian & Holy Roman empires, the English enclosures, the Magna Carta(s) and Henry VIII’s Reformation onwards to the Puritans, Cromwell et al. All established and maintained by a framework of brutal conquest and the hereditary elite.
The Declaration of Independence may have been idealistically fine, but the subsequent writ by ‘founding fathers’ mostly loath to relinquish their ‘possessions’ regardless of how acquired, but keen to demonstrate superior ‘godly’ ideals, cast the Constitution full of ambiguities and loopholes for the informed elite to make use of.
And so America proceeded, becoming a destination for (a predominance of Christian) escapees, opportunists, freebooters and gangsters from far and wide. They all participated in (and influenced) the appalling American ‘white superior’ hegemonic interference foisted upon the rest of the world, and with the advent of the corporation, developed much faster than the Dutch and English the corrupt and mutual alliance of corporations and government. To the detriment of ordinary common citizens, it became the great and persistent battle of capital (by any means) vs labour.
There was certainly a time when American philanthropists and scientists prevailed in bringing about the spread of American wealth via international aid. But whilst this was happening, under the cover of ‘World’s Policeman’ the old paranoid and corrupt forces within government and corporations continued its interference and greedy scourging of the rest of the world for the benefit of its elite only.
WWI & WWII brought home the necessity for an end to destruction and a need for defined agreed boundaries and treaties, first via the League of Nations, then the United Nations, and later the Rome Statute. So be it. But America of course, plagued with hubris and exceptionalism, persisting in its mythological ‘World’s Policeman’ deception, refused to ratify the Rome Statute and instead progressed its hegemonic ambitions via guile and coercion, eg: NATO, ANZUS etc. And in due course, pounced with ‘neoliberal/neoconservative’ zeal. After all, by that time it had much of the world’s capital by the short and curlies, and desired to set about obtaining all the assets.
America’s undergirding paranoia developed staggering incompetence that saw it increase its wealthy elite via government-cum-corporate unstoppable global gangsterism, and a propaganda system second to none.
Trump is a symptom of America’s eternal con job, and its invariable decline to economic and moral bankruptcy. A reading of King John’s convenient Magna Carta of 1215 may give clues to the American mercantile puppeteers’ ways and means with Trump as ‘neo-King’ and regression to trial by combat and near-feudal governance.
And of course, not satisfied with its usual tearing-up of treaties and its wrecking exercise of veto in the UNSC, now it’s trying to dismantle the entire UN, all its personnel, instrumentalities and the ICC.
The dying cycle of uncontrolled MAGAts.
PS:
The big questions that remain: What have the Democrats learned, and will they achieve global peace and betterment of any substance?