BARACK OBAMA AND AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM
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BARACK OBAMA AND AMERICAN
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Philip S. Gorski & William McMillan
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BARACK OBAMA AND
AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISMS
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By Philip S. Gorski and William McMillan
D
oes Barack Obama believe in
“American exceptionalism”? Many
on the right charge that he does
not.1 Some on the left worry that he
2
does. Who is right? And how might it matter,
both for the 2012 presidential campaign and,
beyond that, for American foreign policy?
Before we can begin to answer these questions,
we must first be clear about the terms “American”
and “exceptionalism” and their history. Alas, that
is easier said than done. For one thing, in
colloquial English the word “exceptional” has a
number of different meanings, and “American”
can be contrasted with any number of other
nationalities. Complicating matters further, the
phrase “American exceptionalism” (henceforth:
AE) has a long and checkered history. In political
parlance, AE is a highly contested and often
polemical term, not only between the left and the
right, but also within them.
Understanding AE therefore means outlining
its various connotations and documenting how
the term is deployed in political debate. The first
task of this essay is therefore to supply some
historical perspective and analytical clarity about
the shifting and manifold meanings of AE. The
second task is to determine whether Obama
adheres to AE, and if so, in what way. To
anticipate: We conclude that Obama is indeed an
American exceptionalist—of a certain sort. What
sort? Here, we distinguish two main types of AE:
a “crusader exceptionalism” (CE) favored by most
of Obama’s Grand Old Party (GOP) rivals, and a
“prophetic exceptionalism” (PE) articulated by
Obama himself. CE envisions America as a
blessed nation charged with exporting democratic
capitalism throughout the world. It is generally
triumphalist in tone and loudly celebrates
America’s successes. PE defines America in terms
of certain founding ideals—ideals of potentially
universal significance which the nation tries, but
often fails, to live up to. It is more reflective in
tone and more apt to repent of America’s
excesses. Each brand of exceptionalism rests on a
somewhat different understanding of what makes
America “exceptional.” For example, CE places
greater stress on personal freedom and national
sovereignty, while PE gives more emphasis to
social equality and civic inclusion. At a deeper
level, each exceptionalism pulls on different
strands of the Judeo-Christian tradition—more
millennial and apocalyptic in the case of CE;
more prophetic and ethical in the case of PE.
The New American Exceptionalism
It is important to stress that the idea that
America is somehow “unusual” or “special” is
nothing new. In fact, exceptionalist claims arrived
with the first Puritans who envisioned themselves
as a chosen people and New England as a New
Philip S. Gorski is Professor of Sociology and Religious Studies at Yale
University, where he is also co-director of the Center for Comparative
Research and the MacMillan Initiative on Religion and Politics. His recent
publications include The Post-Secular in Question (New York University Press,
2012). He is currently completing a book on the history of American civil
religion.
William McMillan, M.A. & M. Div. (theological studies), is a graduate student
in the sociology department at Yale University. His research interests focus on
the intersection of religion, culture, and politics, with particular interest in
faith and globalization.
the review of faith & international affairs | 41
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barack obama and american exceptionalisms
Israel.3 The Revolution simply superimposed a
new exceptionalism on the old: Americans were
blessed with republican government.4 During the
Civil War, Unionists and Confederates alike
thought of themselves as exceptionally
Christian.5 The wars of the 20th century
(including the Cold War) appended still more
dimensions: America was exceptional in power
and prosperity—in the might of its military and
the dynamism of its (capitalist) economy.6
However, the concept of AE, the actual phrase
“American exceptionalism,” is less than 100 years
old.7 And the current discourse of AE, the
particular set of interlocking connotations the
phrase currently possesses, is not even 10 years
old. This raises a host of questions: In what ways
do present-day conservatives presume that
America is exceptional? How does the
conservative discourse of AE differ from earlier
ideas about AE? And why did conservatives adopt
the AE label in the first place?
Let us begin by unpacking the connotations of
“exceptional” in everyday usage. Dictionary
definitions distinguish two valences: (1) descriptive,
as in “unusual” or “atypical”; and (2) evaluative, as in
“unusually good” or “outstanding.” In
contemporary legal and philosophical discourse,
“exceptionalism” has acquired two further
connotations, namely: (3) an “exceptional case” that
is somehow exempt from the legal rules or standards
that apply to other nations; and (4) the so-called
“state of exception” in which the sovereign authority
engages in extralegal actions vis-à-vis its subjects.8 As
we will see, it is these latter two connotations that set
apart the old discourse of AE from the new.
Now let us turn to the term “American.”
Because America is an immigrant nation, it must
define itself in opposition to various “others” to
an unusual degree. The wide and ever-changing
distinction from the “other” has been: (1)
civilizational (e.g., Indians, Negroes, Islam); (2)
national (e.g., British, French, Spanish, German,
Japanese, Russian); (3) political (e.g., aristocrats,
monarchists, imperialists, fascists, communists);
and, (4) religious (e.g., antinomians, Catholics,
Mormons, atheists, Muslims).
In crusader exceptionalism, America is the
exception to the “European” rule.9 Commonly
drawn contrasts include:
42 | summer 2012
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Demography: fecund vs. moribund (e.g.,
“Europe is dying”).
Culture: masculine vs. effeminate (e.g.,
“Surrender monkeys”).
Religion: Christian vs. secular (e.g.,
“Godless Europeans”).
Society: open vs. closed (e.g., “Europe is a
class society”).
Social policy: freedom vs. dependency (e.g.,
“The nanny state”).
Fiscal policy: responsible vs. spendthrift
(e.g., “unsustainable expenditures”).
Foreign policy: unilateral vs. multilateralist
(e.g., “power or paradise”10).
Because “Europe” is multivalent—because it is a
civilization, an international institution, and a
diverse set of nation-states—critics can draw
different contrasts according to the political
occasion. Worried that America is in decline?
Europe is much older and sure to nosedive before
us. Up in arms about bureaucratic overregulation?
Look at the EU! Feckless spending? Greece is a
basket case! Geopolitical impotence? They don’t
even have an aircraft carrier! Religious decline? The
French are card-carrying secularists.
This contrast with “Europe” not only helps tie
together a disparate set of concerns about
America’s future; it also helps to separate “real
Americans” from “pseudo-Americans.” The same
set of binaries can be used to portray liberals as
crypto-Europeans: as infertile, effeminate, socialist,
egalitarian, dependent, spendthrift, multilateralist,
secularist, cosmopolitan, and so on.
We use the adjective “crusader” because it
captures an unspoken premise of the new
conservative AE, specifically the presumption that
the American people have received a “great
commission”—a dual commission—to defend
Christian civilization and the Jewish state from
secularists and Islamists, and also to export
democratic capitalism to the rest of the world, by
force of arms where appropriate, and that in so
doing, they are playing the leading role in a great
historical or eschatological drama. Note that it is
the crusade that underwrites the exceptions.
Insofar as American arms are an instrument of
progress, even of providence, they are not
bound by positive or earthly law; they
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philip s. gorski and william mcmillan
answer only to the higher laws of history or
the eschaton.
Under the influence of neo-conservatism,
Republican positions on foreign policy have
become steadily more unilateralist, exemptionalist,
and preemptive, particularly since the election of
George W. Bush and the advent of the War on
Terror.11 Likewise, Republicans have increasingly
made “personal freedom” the lodestar of their social
policy and steadily defined down “social equality,”
particularly during the last several years, following
the formation of the Tea Party and Ron Paul’s
second campaign for the presidency.12 Believers in
the “crusader” version of the concept are
particularly apt to wear the new “American
exceptionalism” label as a badge of honor.
An Ironic History: From Stalin to
Kagan to Romney
But where did the label come from? As it turns
out, the AE concept has had a rather checkered
and ironic career.13 Conservative champions of AE
often attribute it to Alexis de Tocqueville. But this
is a red herring, designed to throw opponents off
the scent. While Tocqueville did use the word
“exceptional” in one passage in Democracy in
America, he did not coin the actual phrase AE.14
Its origins are to be found in the heyday of the
Second International, when socialist theorists and
activists, such as Werner Sombart and Jay
Lovestone, wondered whether Marx’s laws of
historical development would apply to the United
States.15 (Marx and Engels pondered this
themselves.) They fretted that “special conditions”
in American society, such as the strength of racial
and ethnic divisions, and the weakness of class
consciousness, were impeding the development of
the socialist movement and called for a different set
of tactics. Remarkably, Stalin eventually declared
their views heretical, sparking a major schism
within the American Communist Party.16
After World War II, the AE concept slowly
diffused into academic discourse (see Figure 1).
In the 1970s and 1980s, during the heyday of
academic Marxism, the question of AE sparked a
major scholarly debate.17 On the heels of this,
historians and sociologists such as Sean Wilentz
and Seymour Martin Lipset revisited Sombart
and Lovestone’s question: Why is there no
socialism in America?18 How do “American
conditions” differ from European ones? Racial
division, ethnic conflict, Lockean liberalism,
religious vitality, a decentralized state, corporate
power, a violent culture—these are just some of
the “special conditions” identified by scholars of
AE. Interestingly, it is the historians—generally
inclined to emphasize particularity—who have
been most critical of AE, while the social
scientists—vocationally attuned to historical
generality—have acted as its main defenders.
Over the last decade or so, the AE concept has
gradually migrated from neo-Marxist debates into
neo-conservative rhetoric. This trajectory is not as
improbable as it seems. Many first-generation neoconservatives were former socialists who had come of
age in the 1930s and participated in the sectarian
debates amongst American Marxists.19 It seems
likely that their biological and/or intellectual
progeny—men such as William Kristol and Robert
Kagan—would have imbibed the AE concept with
their mother’s milk and still had it lingering on the
tips of their tongues in the 1980s when they began
advocating for a policy of “national greatness,” raging
against liberal multilateralism, and denouncing
the alleged utopianism of the Europeans.20
Shortly after the inauguration of Barack
Obama, the AE concept entered into the wider
public discourse where it now circulates with everincreasing ferocity (see Figure 2). The initial
impetus came from the pen of Karl Rove. In a
widely-read op-ed in the April 23, 2009 edition of
The Wall Street Journal, Rove accused Obama of
“apolog[izing] on three continents for what he
views as the sins of America and his predecessors.”
What is worse, lamented Rove, is that the opening
act of this “apology tour” played before “the French
(the French!).” Rove’s charges: Obama was
pandering to the Europeans, airing the nation’s
dirty laundry, and engaging in multilateralism. His
evidence: Snippets from four speeches, all quoted
out of context. His closing argument: “Mr. Obama
was asked in Europe if he believes in American
exceptionalism. He said he did—in the same way
that ‘the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and
the Greeks in Greek exceptionalism.’ That’s
another way of saying, ‘No.’”21
Two months earlier, CNBC reporter Rick
Santelli had launched into his now-famous rant
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barack obama and american exceptionalisms
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Figure 1. “American Exceptionalism” in Academic Discourse
Source: JSTOR. “American exceptionalism” search. Accessed 12 March 2012. www.jstor.org.
against the bank bailouts and the stimulus
package. Speaking from the trading floor of the
Chicago Commodities Exchange, he urged his
listeners to organize a new “Tea Party” in protest.
“I’ll tell you what,” he concluded, “if you read our
founding fathers, people like Benjamin Franklin
and Jefferson … what we’re doing in this country
now is making them roll over in their graves.”22
By the beginning of 2011 it had become clear
that both Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich were
going to make AE a central component of their
2012 campaigns. This was already evident just
from the titles of their campaign books: No
Apology: The Case for American Greatness (2010)
and Believe in America (2011) by Romney, and
To Save America: Stopping Obama’s SecularSocialist Machine (2011) and A Nation Like No
Other: Why American Exceptionalism Matters
(2011) by Gingrich. Following Rove’s lead, they
and the other GOP candidates repeatedly charge
that Barack Obama does not believe in AE.
Are they right?
Contemporary Conservatism’s
Narrative of Exceptionalism
Before we convict or acquit, let us review the
charges. The key tenets of CE might be summed
up as follows: piety, liberty, capitalism, and
Figure 2. “American Exceptionalism” in Public Discourse
Number of print media mentions by year found in Lexis Nexis search.
Source: Lexis Nexis. “American exceptionalism” search. Accessed 12 March 2012. www.lexisnexis.com.
Note: Data for 2012 is projected from January 2012–March 3 2012 count (552)
44 | summer 2012
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philip s. gorski and william mcmillan
the Ron Paul, but especially the Ayn Rand stripe)
unilateralism. CE affirms that America is
are not especially enamored of piety or power.28
unusually and perhaps uniquely God-fearing
In short, there are varying degrees of AE within
(Judeo-Christian), freedom-loving (and
the ranks of the contemporary GOP. What has
government-hating), capitalist (and therefore
prosperous), and powerful (militarily), especially united them for a full generation is their revulsion
at the “excesses of the 1960s.”
as compared to “Europe.”23
The orthodox creed appeals to a particular
Apart from Ron Paul’s opposition to
narrative of American history. The synoptic gospel unilateralism, however, the current crop of GOP
of CE has three chapters and a coda: (1) America hopefuls has embraced the new AE in toto. As
was founded by “people of faith,” meaning an
indeed they must, in order to hold four of their
“orthodox” or “traditional” Christian faith,
main constituencies together: National greatness
putatively shared by both the Puritans and the
neo-conservatives, socially conservative religious
Revolutionaries; (2) the Revolution was a struggle voters, right-wing economic populists, and
for “liberty” or “freedom,” specifically a negative, hardcore libertarians. If they really wish to carry
anti-statist liberty and a pro-market economic
the nomination or win the presidency, the
freedom; (3) the Progressivism
candidates have little choice
of the 1930s and the liberalism
but to espouse a full-throated
MANY THOUGHTFUL
of the 1960s were aberrant
version of AE.
RELIGIOUS CONSERVATIVES
and heretical creeds that led to
an era of moral backsliding
Is Barack Obama an
ARE UNEASY ABOUT
and decay (in McGovern’s
American
UNILATERALISM AND
famous formula: “amnesty,
Exceptionalist?
SOMETIMES EVEN ABOUT
Obviously, Barack Obama
acid, abortion”) that was
CAPITALISM, IF LEFT
is not this sort of American
ultimately reversed by the rise
of conservatism and the
exceptionalist. While he
UNCHECKED
accepts the main tenets of CE
election of (Saint) Ronald
—piety, liberty, capitalism,
Reagan; and, (4) coda:
Because America is religious, democratic, and
and unilateralism—he qualifies them in various
capitalist, American military strength is usually or ways. For example, he recognizes the central role of
religion in American history, but welcomes nonalways a “force for good in the world.”24 It is
therefore legitimate and necessary that America act believers into the public square.29 He is likewise a
strong defender of personal liberty and human
alone and use any means necessary because the
rights but also seeks some measure of social and
outcome will always be good. This is the
triumphalist narrative of a virtuous and generous
economic equality. While he is a member of a
political party that is, by comparison to most
people who simply wish to share their (wellparties of the “left” around the world, very friendly
deserved!) blessings with the rest of the world.
It is important to note that a good many self- to capitalism, he still insists on uniform rules of the
road in the free market.30 And although he
described conservatives would dissent from one
or another of these tenets. For example, some of believes that American military power entails a
the more secular-minded neo-conservatives who special American role in the global security regime,
he believes that America must abide by the rules of
loudly trumpet liberty, capitalism, and
just war, international law, and the Geneva
unilateralism suddenly go silent on piety.25
Conversely, many thoughtful religious
Conventions, so far as possible.31 But these
conservatives are uneasy about unilateralism and qualified affirmations count for little amongst
sometimes even about capitalism, if left
American conservatives. For them, Obama’s
unchecked.26 Meanwhile, white working-class
version of AE—what we would call prophetic
exceptionalism—is watered-down at best.
voters sometimes have a more jaded view of
capitalism, which they associate with Wall Street
Obama’s version of the American gospel story
and corporate raiders.27 Finally, libertarians (of
overlaps with the CE narrative on some points
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barack obama and american exceptionalisms
but diverges on others. Obama does portray the
Puritan emigration as a quest for religious
freedom and the Revolutionary War as a struggle
for political freedom, and he interprets World
War II as a just war against totalitarianism.32 But
he also makes the abolitionist struggle and the
Civil War into a pivotal chapter of the American
story, casts the social policies of the New Deal in a
more positive light, and reads the 1960s through
the lens of the Civil Rights Movement and the
struggle for women’s liberation.
Note that these two American stories give rise
to different morals. In the conservative CE
narrative, America’s founding documents and
institutions are perfect and God-given. The
challenge is therefore to preserve and protect their
original meaning and structure. In Obama’s PE
narrative, by contrast, the founding documents and
institutions are stained and imperfect—stained
most obviously by the original sin of slavery and
imperfect because of their denial of full human
equality and solidarity.33 The challenge, then, is to
purify and perfect their core ideas and purposes.
Three such ideas and purposes recur again
and again in Obama’s speeches and writings.
Each echoes another phrase from the founding
documents. The first is Obama’s insistence that
Americans must practice solidarity with one
another: “Let us be our brother’s keeper,
Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister’s keeper.”34
It echoes John Winthrop’s famous injunction to
his fellow Puritans that: “We must entertain each
other in brotherly affection. We must be willing
to abridge ourselves of our superfluities, for the
supply of others’ necessities … as members of the
same body.”35 The second is Obama’s insistence
that social equality—and not just individual
liberty—is one of the founding ideals, or, as the
Preamble to the Declaration of Independence
puts it, that “all men are created equal.” The third
is Obama’s call for mutual recognition across
lines of culture, class, and race. Here, he
frequently invokes the Preamble to the
Constitution, which urges Americans to “form a
more perfect union,” and the original motto of
the United States, e pluribus unum: Out of many,
one. For Obama, what truly sets America apart
and gives it a potentially universal significance is
the possibility of equality, solidarity, and unity
46 | summer 2012
amongst people from all parts of the globe. In a
world of increasing movement and
interconnection between nations and cultures,
Obama suggests, the American experiment is a
crucial one, with world-historical significance.
Given these emphases, we do not regard
Obama’s version of AE as just a watered-down
version of CE, but rather as an altogether different
type of AE. The two forms of AE are both rooted in
the Bible, but they draw on different parts of it. The
narrative template for CE has two biblical sources:
The tales of conquest and holy war found in the
books of Judges and Kings, and the millenarian and
apocalyptic prophecies of Daniel and John. The
biblical sources for PE are quite different; they are
found in the deliverance story of the Israelites and
their covenant with God, detailed in Exodus, and in
the ethical teachings of Jeremiah, Isaiah, and Jesus.
The narrative of CE is a linear one: A steady march
towards the eschaton. The PE narrative meanders:
It includes wanderings and backslidings, fleshpots
and idols. The promised land located in the
founding covenant is never quite realized; it is
always still just over the horizon.
Each exceptionalism leads to a very different
understanding of America’s relationship to the
world. CE emphasizes action and conversion. It
enjoins Americans to use their considerable
power to spread the saving gospel of democratic
capitalism throughout the world. Its political
theology and cultural soteriology are broadly
“evangelical,” insofar as they emphasize the
holiness of America and the possibilities of
perfection. PE entails reflection and witness. It
urges Americans to repent of their collective sins
and strive to be an example to the world. Its
political theology is more Augustinian, insofar as
it emphasizes the plenitude of America’s sins and
the difficulties of reform.
Conclusion: Looking Forward,
Looking Backward
As of this writing, the political constellation
seems to favor Obama’s reelection, yet the overall
geopolitical and economic contexts remain highly
volatile and could reconfigure the race in short
order. Regardless, the foregoing analysis does
shed some light on the likely dynamics of the race
and possible foreign policy implications.
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During the primaries, the GOP candidates
border on preventive attack, Bush in Iraq and
often framed the fall elections as a “battle for the Obama in Afghanistan and Pakistan. At the level
soul of America.” It would be more accurate to
of action, there is considerable evidence that the
describe it as a debate about the story of America, Obama administration continues to engage in
and the story of its exceptionalisms. It has not
“rendition” and perhaps even in “enhanced
always been that way. There was a time, not so
interrogation techniques,” notwithstanding
long ago, when the Republican Party had a virtual Obama’s promises to halt these practices.
monopoly on AE. The conservative patriotism of American progressives who thought they were
“faith, family, and flag” was really the only game voting for a peace president have been sorely
in town, and Democrats could either play along disappointed.
or sit on the sidelines.
There have been, however, some striking
That began to change in 2004, not because
discontinuities between the two administrations.
the Democrats chose a decorated war hero (John At the level of strategy, for instance, Obama has
Kerry) as their standard bearer, but because John shifted America’s focus towards Asia in an effort
Kerry chose a young state legislator from Illinois to rebalance against China. In terms of tactics,
to deliver a keynote address at
Obama has relied much more
the Democratic National
heavily on drone strikes and
OBAMA’S FOREIGN POLICY
Convention. In that speech,
special operations to take out
DECISIONS HAVE BEEN
Obama laid hold of the flag in
high value targets (including
at
least one US citizen). There
a way that no Democrat had
TEMPERED BY THE DIALOGIC
have
also been at least two
since John F. Kennedy, using
CRITIQUE INHERENT IN THE
subtle if important shifts in
the themes of national
PROPHETIC EXCEPTIONALISM doctrine. While the Bush
solidarity, opportunity, and
NARRATIVE
administration committed
unity that would become the
itself to promoting electoral
hallmark of his 2008
campaign, and articulating them in the language democracy, the Obama administration has made
human rights its overarching goal. Accordingly,
of the founding documents. The unimpeachability of Obama’s own family values and while Bush aimed for regime change in Iraq,
his ability to speak openly and articulately about Obama has pledged to protect civilians in cases of
domestic instability, as in Libya (but not Syria).
his Christian faith—in a way that did not
Another way of assessing Obama’s foreign
immediately alienate secular progressives—
further insulated him against the old-style culture policy is by imagining what Senator John
war attacks used against Bill Clinton and Kerry. McCain’s would have been, had he been elected.
Given McCain’s protests against the withdrawal
Of course, there are a great many “low
of combat troops from Iraq, it seems highly likely
information voters”—and some well informed
politicos—who actually regard, or cynically portray, that the American occupation would have
Obama as a “European,” a “Muslim,” a “socialist,” continued through the first term of a President
and, in sum, an impostor. But the Republican Party McCain. Likewise, given McCain’s calls for “red
lines” that Iran must not cross, it seems highly
no longer has a monopoly on patriotism.
Will the differences between the two strands likely that the United States would have
of American exceptionalism impact foreign policy undertaken a preventive strike against that
after the 2012 election? We might try to answer country’s nuclear program had he been
commander-in-chief.
this question by looking backward to 2008.
We suggest that Bush and McCain’s foreign
When we compare Obama’s foreign policy to
policy proclivities and positions were informed by
George W. Bush’s, we discover several
continuities. At the level of doctrine, for instance, the monologic certainty of the CE narrative,
both administrations have used just war theory to whereas Obama’s foreign policy decisions have
been tempered by the dialogic critique inherent
legitimate their actions, and both have
interpreted preemptive action so expansively as to in the PE narrative. The former posture meets
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barack obama and american exceptionalisms
other nations via the one-way golden street
envisioned by crusader exceptionalism; the latter
via the guiding path marked out by prophetic
exceptionalism—with its mirror for selfevaluation and historical critique in hand. A CEflavored foreign policy is prone to run headlong
where others fear to tread; a PE-flavored foreign
policy proceeds with a greater degree of
circumspection. In sum, while the Obama
presidency to date has not exhibited as sharp a
break with Bush’s policies as many of his
supporters may have hoped, it has set American
foreign policy on a different trajectory. This
trajectory subtly reflects the differences between
the American exceptionalisms of the GOP and
the Obama administration—differences that will
likely become even more apparent as the 2012
presidential election unfolds. v
1. See, for instance, Factor, “American Exceptionalism “; Heilbrunn, “Is Barack Obama Anti-American or Simply Mediocre?”; Lowry and Ponnuru, “An
Exceptional Debate.”
2. See, for instance, Chomsky, Hopes and Prospects; Landreau, “Obama’s My Dad “; Zinn, “The Power and the Glory.”
3. See Bellah, The Broken Covenant and Cherry, God’s New Israel.
4. See Hatch, The Sacred Cause of Liberty and Noll, America’s God.
Downloaded by [Philip Gorski] at 06:10 02 June 2012
5. See Noll and Blair, The Civil War as a Theological Crisis and Stout, Upon the Altar of the Nation.
6. See Gamble, The War for Righteousness; Haberski, God and War; Inboden, Religion and American Foreign Policy.
7. See Alpers, “How did ‘Exceptionalism’ Become a Conservative Shibboleth?” and Karabel, “‘American Exceptionalism’ and the Battle for the Presidency.”
8. See Koh, “On American Exceptionalism.”
9. See Hannan, Why America Must Not Follow Europe.
10. See Kagan, Of Paradise and Power.
11. See David and Grondin, Hegemony or Empire? and McCarthy, “From Modernism to Messianism.”
12. See Skocpol and Williamson, The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism.
13. See Lipset, American Exceptionalism.
14. “The position of the Americans is therefore quite exceptional, and it may be believed that no other democratic people will ever be placed in a similar
one.” In Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 36–7.
15. See Sombart, Why Is There No Socialism in the United States? and Morgan, A Covert Life.
16. See Fried, Communism in America.
17. See Kammen, “The Problem of American Exceptionalism “ and Rodgers, “American Exceptionalism Revisited.”
18. See Lipset, American Exceptionalism and Wilentz, “Against Exceptionalism.”
19. See Dorrien, The Neoconservative Mind; Heilbrunn, They Knew They Were Right; Vaisse, Neoconservatism.
20. See Kaplan and Kristol, The War Over Iraq; Kagan and Kristol, Present Dangers; Kagan, Of Paradise and Power.
21. Rove, “The President’s Apology Tour.”
22. CNBC, “Shout Heard Round the World.”
23. See Hannan, Why America Must Not Follow Europe; Lowry and Ponnuru, “An Exceptional Debate”; Steyn, America Alone.
24. This narrative of American history can be found implicitly and explicitly in Barton, Setting the Record Straight, and in Gingrich, A Nation Like No Other.
25. See Lowry and Ponnuru. “An Exceptional Debate.
26. See, for instance, Reno, “American Empire.”
27. Rick Santorum has often articulated this position on the stump.
28. The Daily Caller, “Paul.”
29. See Falsani, “Obama on Faith.”
30. See Obama, “Remarks by the President on Wall Street Reform.”
31. See Obama, “Renewing American Leadership.”
32. See Obama, “A More Perfect Union.”
33. Ibid.
34. Ibid.
35. Winthrop, “A Model of Christian Charity,” 294–5.
References
Alpers, Benjamin. “How Did ‘Exceptionalism’ Become a Conservative Shibboleth?” Blog post on US Intellectual History, February 7, 2011. http://usintellectual-history.blogspot.com/2011/02/how-did-exceptionalism-become.html (accessed March 21, 2012).
Barton, David. Setting the Record Straight: American History in Black and White. Aledo, TX: WallBuilders, 2004.
48 | summer 2012
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Bellah, Robert N. The Broken Covenant: American Civil Religion in Time of Trial. 2nd edn. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1992.
Cherry, Conrad. God ’s New Israel: Religious Interpretations of American Destiny. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1998.
Chomsky, Noam. Hopes and Prospects. Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books, 2010.
CNBC. “Shout Heard Round the World,” February 22, 2009. http://www.cnbc.com/id/29283701/Rick_Santelli_s_Shout_Heard_Round_the_World (accessed
March 12, 2012).
The Daily Caller. “Paul: American Exceptionalism Does Not Justify Overseas Intervention,” January 20, 2012. http://dailycaller.com/2012/01/20/paulamerican-exceptionalism-does-not-justify-overseas-intervention/ (accessed March 21, 2012).
David, Charles Philippe, and David Grondin. Hegemony or Empire?: The Redefinition of US Power under George W. Bush. Aldershot; Burlington, VT: Ashgate,
2006.
de Tocqueville, Alexis. Democracy in America. Vol. 2. Trans. Henry Reeve. New York: J.&H.G. Langley, 1840.
Dorrien, Gary J. The Neoconservative Mind: Politics, Culture, and the War of Ideology. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1993.
Factor, Mallory. “American Exceptionalism—And an ‘Exceptional’ President.” Forbes.com, August 31, 2010. http://www.forbes.com/2010/08/31/barackobama-exceptionalism-america-opinions-columnists-mallory-factor.html (accessed March 21, 2012).
Falsani, Cathleen. “Obama on Faith.” Cathleenfalsani.com, March 27, 2004. http://cathleenfalsani.com/obama-on-faith-the-exclusive-interview/
(accessed March 24, 2012).
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Fried, Albert, ed. Communism in America: A History in Documents. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997.
Gamble, Richard M. The War for Righteousness: Progressive Christianity, the Great War, and the Rise of the Messianic Nation. Wilmington, NC: ISI Books,
2003.
Gingrich, Newt. A Nation Like No Other: Why American Exceptionalism Matters. Washington, DC: Regnery, 2011.
Haberski, Ray. God and War. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2012.
Hannan, Daniel. Why America Must Not Follow Europe. New York: Encounter Books, 2011.
Hatch, Nathan O. The Sacred Cause of Liberty: Republican Thought and the Millennium in Revolutionary New England. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press,
1977.
Heilbrunn, Jacob. “Is Barack Obama Anti-American or Simply Mediocre?” The National Interest, September 1, 2011. http://nationalinterest.org/blog/jacobheilbrunn/barack-obama-anti-american-or-simply-incompetent-5833 (accessed March 21, 2012).
Heilbrunn, Jacob. They Knew They Were Right: The Rise of the Neocons. New York: Doubleday, 2008.
Inboden, William. Religion and American Foreign Policy, 1945–1960: The Soul of Containment. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
Kagan, Robert. Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order. New York: Knopf, 2003.
Kagan, Robert and William Kristol, eds. Present Dangers: Crisis and Opportunity in America’s Foreign and Defense Policy. San Francisco, CA: Encounter
Books, 2000.
Kammen, Michael. “The Problem of American Exceptionalism: A Reconsideration.” American Quarterly 45, no. 1 (March 1993):1–43.
Kaplan, Lawrence F., and William Kristol. The War Over Iraq: Saddam’s Tyranny and America’s Mission. San Francisco, CA: Encounter Books, 2003.
Karabel, Jerome. “‘American Exceptionalism’ and the Battle for the Presidency.” Huffington Post, December 22, 2011. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
jerome-karabel/american-exceptionalism-obama-gingrich_b_1161800.html (accessed March 21, 2012).
Koh, Harold. “On American Exceptionalism.” Faculty Scholarship Series. Paper 1778. New Haven, CT: Yale Law School, 2003.
Landreau, John C. “Obama’s My Dad: Mixed Race Suspects, Political Anxiety and the New Imperialism.” Thirdspace 10, no 1 (2011): 1–18.
Lipset, Seymour Martin. American Exceptionalism: A Double-Edged Sword. New York: W.W. Norton, 1996.
Lowry, Richard, and Ramesh Ponnuru. “An Exceptional Debate: The Obama Administration’s Assault on American Identity.” National Review Online, March
8, 2010. http://www.nationalreview.com/nrd/article/?q=M2FhMTg4Njk0NTQwMmFlMmYzZDg2YzgyYjdmYjhhMzU= (accessed March 21, 2012).
McCarthy, Thomas A. “From Modernism to Messianism: Liberal Developmentalism and American Exceptionalism.” Constellations 14, no. 1 (March 2007):
3–30.
Morgan, Ted. A Covert Life: Jay Lovestone: Communist, Anti-Communist, and Spymaster. New York: Random House, 1999.
Noll, Mark A. America’s God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Noll, Mark A., and William A. Blair. The Civil War as a Theological Crisis. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2006.
Obama, Barack. “Address on Faith and Poltics.” Sojourners Call to Renewal Conference, Washington, DC, June 26, 2006.
Obama, Barack. “A More Perfect Union.” Speech delivered March 18, 2008. Available at The Wall Street Journal online. http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/
03/18/text-of-obamas-speech-a-more-perfect-union/ (accessed March 24, 2012).
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Obama, Barack. “Remarks by the President on Wall Street Reform,” April 22, 2010. http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-wallstreet-reform (accessed March 24, 2012).
Obama, Barack. “Renewing American Leadership.” Foreign Affairs 86 (2007): 2–16.
Reno, R.R. “American Empire.” First Things (web only), December 16, 2010. http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2010/12/american-empire/rr-reno
(accessed March 21, 2012).
Rodgers, Daniel T. “American Exceptionalism Revisited.” Raritan 24 (2004): 21–47.
Rove, Karl. “The President’s Apology Tour: Great Leaders Aren’t Defined by Consensus.” The Wall Street Journal, April 23, 2009. http://online.wsj.com/article/
SB124044156269345357.html (accessed March 14, 2012).
Skocpol, Theda, and Vanessa Williamson. The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.
Sombart, Werner. Why Is There No Socialism in the United States? White Plains, NY: International Arts & Sciences Press, 1976 [1906].
Steyn, Mark. America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It. Washington, DC: Regnery, 2006.
Stout, Harry S. Upon the Altar of the Nation: A Moral History of the American Civil War. New York: Viking, 2006.
Vaisse, Justin. Neoconservatism: The Biography of a Movement. Trans. A. Goldhammer. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011.
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Wilentz, Sean. “Against Exceptionalism: Class Consciousness and the American Labor Movement, 1790–1920.” International Labor and Working-Class
History 26 (Fall 1984): 1–24.
Winthrop, John. “A Model of Christian Charity.” In Winthrop Papers. Vol. 2, 294–5. Boston, MA: The Massachusetts Historical Society, 1931.
Zinn, Howard. “The Power and the Glory: Myths of American Exceptionalism.” The Boston Review, Summer 2005. http://bostonreview.net/BR30.3/zinn.php
(accessed March 24, 2012).
50 | summer 2012
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BARACK OBAMA AND AMERICAN
EXCEPTIONALISMS
Philip S. Gorski & William McMillan
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BARACK OBAMA AND
AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISMS
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By Philip S. Gorski and William McMillan
D
oes Barack Obama believe in
“American exceptionalism”? Many
on the right charge that he does
not.1 Some on the left worry that he
2
does. Who is right? And how might it matter,
both for the 2012 presidential campaign and,
beyond that, for American foreign policy?
Before we can begin to answer these questions,
we must first be clear about the terms “American”
and “exceptionalism” and their history. Alas, that
is easier said than done. For one thing, in
colloquial English the word “exceptional” has a
number of different meanings, and “American”
can be contrasted with any number of other
nationalities. Complicating matters further, the
phrase “American exceptionalism” (henceforth:
AE) has a long and checkered history. In political
parlance, AE is a highly contested and often
polemical term, not only between the left and the
right, but also within them.
Understanding AE therefore means outlining
its various connotations and documenting how
the term is deployed in political debate. The first
task of this essay is therefore to supply some
historical perspective and analytical clarity about
the shifting and manifold meanings of AE. The
second task is to determine whether Obama
adheres to AE, and if so, in what way. To
anticipate: We conclude that Obama is indeed an
American exceptionalist—of a certain sort. What
sort? Here, we distinguish two main types of AE:
a “crusader exceptionalism” (CE) favored by most
of Obama’s Grand Old Party (GOP) rivals, and a
“prophetic exceptionalism” (PE) articulated by
Obama himself. CE envisions America as a
blessed nation charged with exporting democratic
capitalism throughout the world. It is generally
triumphalist in tone and loudly celebrates
America’s successes. PE defines America in terms
of certain founding ideals—ideals of potentially
universal significance which the nation tries, but
often fails, to live up to. It is more reflective in
tone and more apt to repent of America’s
excesses. Each brand of exceptionalism rests on a
somewhat different understanding of what makes
America “exceptional.” For example, CE places
greater stress on personal freedom and national
sovereignty, while PE gives more emphasis to
social equality and civic inclusion. At a deeper
level, each exceptionalism pulls on different
strands of the Judeo-Christian tradition—more
millennial and apocalyptic in the case of CE;
more prophetic and ethical in the case of PE.
The New American Exceptionalism
It is important to stress that the idea that
America is somehow “unusual” or “special” is
nothing new. In fact, exceptionalist claims arrived
with the first Puritans who envisioned themselves
as a chosen people and New England as a New
Philip S. Gorski is Professor of Sociology and Religious Studies at Yale
University, where he is also co-director of the Center for Comparative
Research and the MacMillan Initiative on Religion and Politics. His recent
publications include The Post-Secular in Question (New York University Press,
2012). He is currently completing a book on the history of American civil
religion.
William McMillan, M.A. & M. Div. (theological studies), is a graduate student
in the sociology department at Yale University. His research interests focus on
the intersection of religion, culture, and politics, with particular interest in
faith and globalization.
the review of faith & international affairs | 41
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barack obama and american exceptionalisms
Israel.3 The Revolution simply superimposed a
new exceptionalism on the old: Americans were
blessed with republican government.4 During the
Civil War, Unionists and Confederates alike
thought of themselves as exceptionally
Christian.5 The wars of the 20th century
(including the Cold War) appended still more
dimensions: America was exceptional in power
and prosperity—in the might of its military and
the dynamism of its (capitalist) economy.6
However, the concept of AE, the actual phrase
“American exceptionalism,” is less than 100 years
old.7 And the current discourse of AE, the
particular set of interlocking connotations the
phrase currently possesses, is not even 10 years
old. This raises a host of questions: In what ways
do present-day conservatives presume that
America is exceptional? How does the
conservative discourse of AE differ from earlier
ideas about AE? And why did conservatives adopt
the AE label in the first place?
Let us begin by unpacking the connotations of
“exceptional” in everyday usage. Dictionary
definitions distinguish two valences: (1) descriptive,
as in “unusual” or “atypical”; and (2) evaluative, as in
“unusually good” or “outstanding.” In
contemporary legal and philosophical discourse,
“exceptionalism” has acquired two further
connotations, namely: (3) an “exceptional case” that
is somehow exempt from the legal rules or standards
that apply to other nations; and (4) the so-called
“state of exception” in which the sovereign authority
engages in extralegal actions vis-à-vis its subjects.8 As
we will see, it is these latter two connotations that set
apart the old discourse of AE from the new.
Now let us turn to the term “American.”
Because America is an immigrant nation, it must
define itself in opposition to various “others” to
an unusual degree. The wide and ever-changing
distinction from the “other” has been: (1)
civilizational (e.g., Indians, Negroes, Islam); (2)
national (e.g., British, French, Spanish, German,
Japanese, Russian); (3) political (e.g., aristocrats,
monarchists, imperialists, fascists, communists);
and, (4) religious (e.g., antinomians, Catholics,
Mormons, atheists, Muslims).
In crusader exceptionalism, America is the
exception to the “European” rule.9 Commonly
drawn contrasts include:
42 | summer 2012
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Demography: fecund vs. moribund (e.g.,
“Europe is dying”).
Culture: masculine vs. effeminate (e.g.,
“Surrender monkeys”).
Religion: Christian vs. secular (e.g.,
“Godless Europeans”).
Society: open vs. closed (e.g., “Europe is a
class society”).
Social policy: freedom vs. dependency (e.g.,
“The nanny state”).
Fiscal policy: responsible vs. spendthrift
(e.g., “unsustainable expenditures”).
Foreign policy: unilateral vs. multilateralist
(e.g., “power or paradise”10).
Because “Europe” is multivalent—because it is a
civilization, an international institution, and a
diverse set of nation-states—critics can draw
different contrasts according to the political
occasion. Worried that America is in decline?
Europe is much older and sure to nosedive before
us. Up in arms about bureaucratic overregulation?
Look at the EU! Feckless spending? Greece is a
basket case! Geopolitical impotence? They don’t
even have an aircraft carrier! Religious decline? The
French are card-carrying secularists.
This contrast with “Europe” not only helps tie
together a disparate set of concerns about
America’s future; it also helps to separate “real
Americans” from “pseudo-Americans.” The same
set of binaries can be used to portray liberals as
crypto-Europeans: as infertile, effeminate, socialist,
egalitarian, dependent, spendthrift, multilateralist,
secularist, cosmopolitan, and so on.
We use the adjective “crusader” because it
captures an unspoken premise of the new
conservative AE, specifically the presumption that
the American people have received a “great
commission”—a dual commission—to defend
Christian civilization and the Jewish state from
secularists and Islamists, and also to export
democratic capitalism to the rest of the world, by
force of arms where appropriate, and that in so
doing, they are playing the leading role in a great
historical or eschatological drama. Note that it is
the crusade that underwrites the exceptions.
Insofar as American arms are an instrument of
progress, even of providence, they are not
bound by positive or earthly law; they
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philip s. gorski and william mcmillan
answer only to the higher laws of history or
the eschaton.
Under the influence of neo-conservatism,
Republican positions on foreign policy have
become steadily more unilateralist, exemptionalist,
and preemptive, particularly since the election of
George W. Bush and the advent of the War on
Terror.11 Likewise, Republicans have increasingly
made “personal freedom” the lodestar of their social
policy and steadily defined down “social equality,”
particularly during the last several years, following
the formation of the Tea Party and Ron Paul’s
second campaign for the presidency.12 Believers in
the “crusader” version of the concept are
particularly apt to wear the new “American
exceptionalism” label as a badge of honor.
An Ironic History: From Stalin to
Kagan to Romney
But where did the label come from? As it turns
out, the AE concept has had a rather checkered
and ironic career.13 Conservative champions of AE
often attribute it to Alexis de Tocqueville. But this
is a red herring, designed to throw opponents off
the scent. While Tocqueville did use the word
“exceptional” in one passage in Democracy in
America, he did not coin the actual phrase AE.14
Its origins are to be found in the heyday of the
Second International, when socialist theorists and
activists, such as Werner Sombart and Jay
Lovestone, wondered whether Marx’s laws of
historical development would apply to the United
States.15 (Marx and Engels pondered this
themselves.) They fretted that “special conditions”
in American society, such as the strength of racial
and ethnic divisions, and the weakness of class
consciousness, were impeding the development of
the socialist movement and called for a different set
of tactics. Remarkably, Stalin eventually declared
their views heretical, sparking a major schism
within the American Communist Party.16
After World War II, the AE concept slowly
diffused into academic discourse (see Figure 1).
In the 1970s and 1980s, during the heyday of
academic Marxism, the question of AE sparked a
major scholarly debate.17 On the heels of this,
historians and sociologists such as Sean Wilentz
and Seymour Martin Lipset revisited Sombart
and Lovestone’s question: Why is there no
socialism in America?18 How do “American
conditions” differ from European ones? Racial
division, ethnic conflict, Lockean liberalism,
religious vitality, a decentralized state, corporate
power, a violent culture—these are just some of
the “special conditions” identified by scholars of
AE. Interestingly, it is the historians—generally
inclined to emphasize particularity—who have
been most critical of AE, while the social
scientists—vocationally attuned to historical
generality—have acted as its main defenders.
Over the last decade or so, the AE concept has
gradually migrated from neo-Marxist debates into
neo-conservative rhetoric. This trajectory is not as
improbable as it seems. Many first-generation neoconservatives were former socialists who had come of
age in the 1930s and participated in the sectarian
debates amongst American Marxists.19 It seems
likely that their biological and/or intellectual
progeny—men such as William Kristol and Robert
Kagan—would have imbibed the AE concept with
their mother’s milk and still had it lingering on the
tips of their tongues in the 1980s when they began
advocating for a policy of “national greatness,” raging
against liberal multilateralism, and denouncing
the alleged utopianism of the Europeans.20
Shortly after the inauguration of Barack
Obama, the AE concept entered into the wider
public discourse where it now circulates with everincreasing ferocity (see Figure 2). The initial
impetus came from the pen of Karl Rove. In a
widely-read op-ed in the April 23, 2009 edition of
The Wall Street Journal, Rove accused Obama of
“apolog[izing] on three continents for what he
views as the sins of America and his predecessors.”
What is worse, lamented Rove, is that the opening
act of this “apology tour” played before “the French
(the French!).” Rove’s charges: Obama was
pandering to the Europeans, airing the nation’s
dirty laundry, and engaging in multilateralism. His
evidence: Snippets from four speeches, all quoted
out of context. His closing argument: “Mr. Obama
was asked in Europe if he believes in American
exceptionalism. He said he did—in the same way
that ‘the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and
the Greeks in Greek exceptionalism.’ That’s
another way of saying, ‘No.’”21
Two months earlier, CNBC reporter Rick
Santelli had launched into his now-famous rant
the review of faith & international affairs | 43
barack obama and american exceptionalisms
Downloaded by [Philip Gorski] at 06:10 02 June 2012
Figure 1. “American Exceptionalism” in Academic Discourse
Source: JSTOR. “American exceptionalism” search. Accessed 12 March 2012. www.jstor.org.
against the bank bailouts and the stimulus
package. Speaking from the trading floor of the
Chicago Commodities Exchange, he urged his
listeners to organize a new “Tea Party” in protest.
“I’ll tell you what,” he concluded, “if you read our
founding fathers, people like Benjamin Franklin
and Jefferson … what we’re doing in this country
now is making them roll over in their graves.”22
By the beginning of 2011 it had become clear
that both Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich were
going to make AE a central component of their
2012 campaigns. This was already evident just
from the titles of their campaign books: No
Apology: The Case for American Greatness (2010)
and Believe in America (2011) by Romney, and
To Save America: Stopping Obama’s SecularSocialist Machine (2011) and A Nation Like No
Other: Why American Exceptionalism Matters
(2011) by Gingrich. Following Rove’s lead, they
and the other GOP candidates repeatedly charge
that Barack Obama does not believe in AE.
Are they right?
Contemporary Conservatism’s
Narrative of Exceptionalism
Before we convict or acquit, let us review the
charges. The key tenets of CE might be summed
up as follows: piety, liberty, capitalism, and
Figure 2. “American Exceptionalism” in Public Discourse
Number of print media mentions by year found in Lexis Nexis search.
Source: Lexis Nexis. “American exceptionalism” search. Accessed 12 March 2012. www.lexisnexis.com.
Note: Data for 2012 is projected from January 2012–March 3 2012 count (552)
44 | summer 2012
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philip s. gorski and william mcmillan
the Ron Paul, but especially the Ayn Rand stripe)
unilateralism. CE affirms that America is
are not especially enamored of piety or power.28
unusually and perhaps uniquely God-fearing
In short, there are varying degrees of AE within
(Judeo-Christian), freedom-loving (and
the ranks of the contemporary GOP. What has
government-hating), capitalist (and therefore
prosperous), and powerful (militarily), especially united them for a full generation is their revulsion
at the “excesses of the 1960s.”
as compared to “Europe.”23
The orthodox creed appeals to a particular
Apart from Ron Paul’s opposition to
narrative of American history. The synoptic gospel unilateralism, however, the current crop of GOP
of CE has three chapters and a coda: (1) America hopefuls has embraced the new AE in toto. As
was founded by “people of faith,” meaning an
indeed they must, in order to hold four of their
“orthodox” or “traditional” Christian faith,
main constituencies together: National greatness
putatively shared by both the Puritans and the
neo-conservatives, socially conservative religious
Revolutionaries; (2) the Revolution was a struggle voters, right-wing economic populists, and
for “liberty” or “freedom,” specifically a negative, hardcore libertarians. If they really wish to carry
anti-statist liberty and a pro-market economic
the nomination or win the presidency, the
freedom; (3) the Progressivism
candidates have little choice
of the 1930s and the liberalism
but to espouse a full-throated
MANY THOUGHTFUL
of the 1960s were aberrant
version of AE.
RELIGIOUS CONSERVATIVES
and heretical creeds that led to
an era of moral backsliding
Is Barack Obama an
ARE UNEASY ABOUT
and decay (in McGovern’s
American
UNILATERALISM AND
famous formula: “amnesty,
Exceptionalist?
SOMETIMES EVEN ABOUT
Obviously, Barack Obama
acid, abortion”) that was
CAPITALISM, IF LEFT
is not this sort of American
ultimately reversed by the rise
of conservatism and the
exceptionalist. While he
UNCHECKED
accepts the main tenets of CE
election of (Saint) Ronald
—piety, liberty, capitalism,
Reagan; and, (4) coda:
Because America is religious, democratic, and
and unilateralism—he qualifies them in various
capitalist, American military strength is usually or ways. For example, he recognizes the central role of
religion in American history, but welcomes nonalways a “force for good in the world.”24 It is
therefore legitimate and necessary that America act believers into the public square.29 He is likewise a
strong defender of personal liberty and human
alone and use any means necessary because the
rights but also seeks some measure of social and
outcome will always be good. This is the
triumphalist narrative of a virtuous and generous
economic equality. While he is a member of a
political party that is, by comparison to most
people who simply wish to share their (wellparties of the “left” around the world, very friendly
deserved!) blessings with the rest of the world.
It is important to note that a good many self- to capitalism, he still insists on uniform rules of the
road in the free market.30 And although he
described conservatives would dissent from one
or another of these tenets. For example, some of believes that American military power entails a
the more secular-minded neo-conservatives who special American role in the global security regime,
he believes that America must abide by the rules of
loudly trumpet liberty, capitalism, and
just war, international law, and the Geneva
unilateralism suddenly go silent on piety.25
Conversely, many thoughtful religious
Conventions, so far as possible.31 But these
conservatives are uneasy about unilateralism and qualified affirmations count for little amongst
sometimes even about capitalism, if left
American conservatives. For them, Obama’s
unchecked.26 Meanwhile, white working-class
version of AE—what we would call prophetic
exceptionalism—is watered-down at best.
voters sometimes have a more jaded view of
capitalism, which they associate with Wall Street
Obama’s version of the American gospel story
and corporate raiders.27 Finally, libertarians (of
overlaps with the CE narrative on some points
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barack obama and american exceptionalisms
but diverges on others. Obama does portray the
Puritan emigration as a quest for religious
freedom and the Revolutionary War as a struggle
for political freedom, and he interprets World
War II as a just war against totalitarianism.32 But
he also makes the abolitionist struggle and the
Civil War into a pivotal chapter of the American
story, casts the social policies of the New Deal in a
more positive light, and reads the 1960s through
the lens of the Civil Rights Movement and the
struggle for women’s liberation.
Note that these two American stories give rise
to different morals. In the conservative CE
narrative, America’s founding documents and
institutions are perfect and God-given. The
challenge is therefore to preserve and protect their
original meaning and structure. In Obama’s PE
narrative, by contrast, the founding documents and
institutions are stained and imperfect—stained
most obviously by the original sin of slavery and
imperfect because of their denial of full human
equality and solidarity.33 The challenge, then, is to
purify and perfect their core ideas and purposes.
Three such ideas and purposes recur again
and again in Obama’s speeches and writings.
Each echoes another phrase from the founding
documents. The first is Obama’s insistence that
Americans must practice solidarity with one
another: “Let us be our brother’s keeper,
Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister’s keeper.”34
It echoes John Winthrop’s famous injunction to
his fellow Puritans that: “We must entertain each
other in brotherly affection. We must be willing
to abridge ourselves of our superfluities, for the
supply of others’ necessities … as members of the
same body.”35 The second is Obama’s insistence
that social equality—and not just individual
liberty—is one of the founding ideals, or, as the
Preamble to the Declaration of Independence
puts it, that “all men are created equal.” The third
is Obama’s call for mutual recognition across
lines of culture, class, and race. Here, he
frequently invokes the Preamble to the
Constitution, which urges Americans to “form a
more perfect union,” and the original motto of
the United States, e pluribus unum: Out of many,
one. For Obama, what truly sets America apart
and gives it a potentially universal significance is
the possibility of equality, solidarity, and unity
46 | summer 2012
amongst people from all parts of the globe. In a
world of increasing movement and
interconnection between nations and cultures,
Obama suggests, the American experiment is a
crucial one, with world-historical significance.
Given these emphases, we do not regard
Obama’s version of AE as just a watered-down
version of CE, but rather as an altogether different
type of AE. The two forms of AE are both rooted in
the Bible, but they draw on different parts of it. The
narrative template for CE has two biblical sources:
The tales of conquest and holy war found in the
books of Judges and Kings, and the millenarian and
apocalyptic prophecies of Daniel and John. The
biblical sources for PE are quite different; they are
found in the deliverance story of the Israelites and
their covenant with God, detailed in Exodus, and in
the ethical teachings of Jeremiah, Isaiah, and Jesus.
The narrative of CE is a linear one: A steady march
towards the eschaton. The PE narrative meanders:
It includes wanderings and backslidings, fleshpots
and idols. The promised land located in the
founding covenant is never quite realized; it is
always still just over the horizon.
Each exceptionalism leads to a very different
understanding of America’s relationship to the
world. CE emphasizes action and conversion. It
enjoins Americans to use their considerable
power to spread the saving gospel of democratic
capitalism throughout the world. Its political
theology and cultural soteriology are broadly
“evangelical,” insofar as they emphasize the
holiness of America and the possibilities of
perfection. PE entails reflection and witness. It
urges Americans to repent of their collective sins
and strive to be an example to the world. Its
political theology is more Augustinian, insofar as
it emphasizes the plenitude of America’s sins and
the difficulties of reform.
Conclusion: Looking Forward,
Looking Backward
As of this writing, the political constellation
seems to favor Obama’s reelection, yet the overall
geopolitical and economic contexts remain highly
volatile and could reconfigure the race in short
order. Regardless, the foregoing analysis does
shed some light on the likely dynamics of the race
and possible foreign policy implications.
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philip s. gorski and william mcmillan
During the primaries, the GOP candidates
border on preventive attack, Bush in Iraq and
often framed the fall elections as a “battle for the Obama in Afghanistan and Pakistan. At the level
soul of America.” It would be more accurate to
of action, there is considerable evidence that the
describe it as a debate about the story of America, Obama administration continues to engage in
and the story of its exceptionalisms. It has not
“rendition” and perhaps even in “enhanced
always been that way. There was a time, not so
interrogation techniques,” notwithstanding
long ago, when the Republican Party had a virtual Obama’s promises to halt these practices.
monopoly on AE. The conservative patriotism of American progressives who thought they were
“faith, family, and flag” was really the only game voting for a peace president have been sorely
in town, and Democrats could either play along disappointed.
or sit on the sidelines.
There have been, however, some striking
That began to change in 2004, not because
discontinuities between the two administrations.
the Democrats chose a decorated war hero (John At the level of strategy, for instance, Obama has
Kerry) as their standard bearer, but because John shifted America’s focus towards Asia in an effort
Kerry chose a young state legislator from Illinois to rebalance against China. In terms of tactics,
to deliver a keynote address at
Obama has relied much more
the Democratic National
heavily on drone strikes and
OBAMA’S FOREIGN POLICY
Convention. In that speech,
special operations to take out
DECISIONS HAVE BEEN
Obama laid hold of the flag in
high value targets (including
at
least one US citizen). There
a way that no Democrat had
TEMPERED BY THE DIALOGIC
have
also been at least two
since John F. Kennedy, using
CRITIQUE INHERENT IN THE
subtle if important shifts in
the themes of national
PROPHETIC EXCEPTIONALISM doctrine. While the Bush
solidarity, opportunity, and
NARRATIVE
administration committed
unity that would become the
itself to promoting electoral
hallmark of his 2008
campaign, and articulating them in the language democracy, the Obama administration has made
human rights its overarching goal. Accordingly,
of the founding documents. The unimpeachability of Obama’s own family values and while Bush aimed for regime change in Iraq,
his ability to speak openly and articulately about Obama has pledged to protect civilians in cases of
domestic instability, as in Libya (but not Syria).
his Christian faith—in a way that did not
Another way of assessing Obama’s foreign
immediately alienate secular progressives—
further insulated him against the old-style culture policy is by imagining what Senator John
war attacks used against Bill Clinton and Kerry. McCain’s would have been, had he been elected.
Given McCain’s protests against the withdrawal
Of course, there are a great many “low
of combat troops from Iraq, it seems highly likely
information voters”—and some well informed
politicos—who actually regard, or cynically portray, that the American occupation would have
Obama as a “European,” a “Muslim,” a “socialist,” continued through the first term of a President
and, in sum, an impostor. But the Republican Party McCain. Likewise, given McCain’s calls for “red
lines” that Iran must not cross, it seems highly
no longer has a monopoly on patriotism.
Will the differences between the two strands likely that the United States would have
of American exceptionalism impact foreign policy undertaken a preventive strike against that
after the 2012 election? We might try to answer country’s nuclear program had he been
commander-in-chief.
this question by looking backward to 2008.
We suggest that Bush and McCain’s foreign
When we compare Obama’s foreign policy to
policy proclivities and positions were informed by
George W. Bush’s, we discover several
continuities. At the level of doctrine, for instance, the monologic certainty of the CE narrative,
both administrations have used just war theory to whereas Obama’s foreign policy decisions have
been tempered by the dialogic critique inherent
legitimate their actions, and both have
interpreted preemptive action so expansively as to in the PE narrative. The former posture meets
the review of faith & international affairs | 47
barack obama and american exceptionalisms
other nations via the one-way golden street
envisioned by crusader exceptionalism; the latter
via the guiding path marked out by prophetic
exceptionalism—with its mirror for selfevaluation and historical critique in hand. A CEflavored foreign policy is prone to run headlong
where others fear to tread; a PE-flavored foreign
policy proceeds with a greater degree of
circumspection. In sum, while the Obama
presidency to date has not exhibited as sharp a
break with Bush’s policies as many of his
supporters may have hoped, it has set American
foreign policy on a different trajectory. This
trajectory subtly reflects the differences between
the American exceptionalisms of the GOP and
the Obama administration—differences that will
likely become even more apparent as the 2012
presidential election unfolds. v
1. See, for instance, Factor, “American Exceptionalism “; Heilbrunn, “Is Barack Obama Anti-American or Simply Mediocre?”; Lowry and Ponnuru, “An
Exceptional Debate.”
2. See, for instance, Chomsky, Hopes and Prospects; Landreau, “Obama’s My Dad “; Zinn, “The Power and the Glory.”
3. See Bellah, The Broken Covenant and Cherry, God’s New Israel.
4. See Hatch, The Sacred Cause of Liberty and Noll, America’s God.
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5. See Noll and Blair, The Civil War as a Theological Crisis and Stout, Upon the Altar of the Nation.
6. See Gamble, The War for Righteousness; Haberski, God and War; Inboden, Religion and American Foreign Policy.
7. See Alpers, “How did ‘Exceptionalism’ Become a Conservative Shibboleth?” and Karabel, “‘American Exceptionalism’ and the Battle for the Presidency.”
8. See Koh, “On American Exceptionalism.”
9. See Hannan, Why America Must Not Follow Europe.
10. See Kagan, Of Paradise and Power.
11. See David and Grondin, Hegemony or Empire? and McCarthy, “From Modernism to Messianism.”
12. See Skocpol and Williamson, The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism.
13. See Lipset, American Exceptionalism.
14. “The position of the Americans is therefore quite exceptional, and it may be believed that no other democratic people will ever be placed in a similar
one.” In Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 36–7.
15. See Sombart, Why Is There No Socialism in the United States? and Morgan, A Covert Life.
16. See Fried, Communism in America.
17. See Kammen, “The Problem of American Exceptionalism “ and Rodgers, “American Exceptionalism Revisited.”
18. See Lipset, American Exceptionalism and Wilentz, “Against Exceptionalism.”
19. See Dorrien, The Neoconservative Mind; Heilbrunn, They Knew They Were Right; Vaisse, Neoconservatism.
20. See Kaplan and Kristol, The War Over Iraq; Kagan and Kristol, Present Dangers; Kagan, Of Paradise and Power.
21. Rove, “The President’s Apology Tour.”
22. CNBC, “Shout Heard Round the World.”
23. See Hannan, Why America Must Not Follow Europe; Lowry and Ponnuru, “An Exceptional Debate”; Steyn, America Alone.
24. This narrative of American history can be found implicitly and explicitly in Barton, Setting the Record Straight, and in Gingrich, A Nation Like No Other.
25. See Lowry and Ponnuru. “An Exceptional Debate.
26. See, for instance, Reno, “American Empire.”
27. Rick Santorum has often articulated this position on the stump.
28. The Daily Caller, “Paul.”
29. See Falsani, “Obama on Faith.”
30. See Obama, “Remarks by the President on Wall Street Reform.”
31. See Obama, “Renewing American Leadership.”
32. See Obama, “A More Perfect Union.”
33. Ibid.
34. Ibid.
35. Winthrop, “A Model of Christian Charity,” 294–5.
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