The no longer unique U.S.A.
As a people we have long celebrated the idea of “American exceptionalism.”
The concept itself has been debated from time to time, and while the idea that America is unique among the nations of the world has been buffeted about, its staying power has been little short of remarkable.
It has been part and parcel of our civic catechism for a long time.
Just after World War II, the historian C. Vann Woodward wrote that the legend of American invincibility had been “supported by an unbroken succession of victorious wars.”
In a later essay, Woodward, a historian of the old and of the new South (there is always a “new” South aborning), not uncritically wrote that the country’s “unique record of military triumphs was matched by unparalleled successes in the fields of diplomacy, domestic politics, and economic growth that stretched back to the settlement.”
The Great Depression, two worldwide wars, “the rigors of the Cold War and a nasty little war in Korea” did nothing to dim the glow Americans felt in the success of their country. Their pride in the the country only seemed to grow.
Woodward observed, “None of these harrowing experiences, nor the national response to them, seriously called into question the national legend of success and invincibility – the assumption that in the end American will would prevail.” He quoted his fellow historian Arthur Schlesinger Sr. : “… Nothing in the world is beyond [America’s] power to accomplish.'”
Woodward had these thoughts and penned these later words in the midst of the Vietnam war. Vietnam was followed by Watergate. The shock of failure abroad and betrayal at home was a brew likely to undercut the national pride Americans felt in being … well … Americans. But they turned out to be but small ripples on otherwise prideful sea.
It was once again and forever “Morning in America.” The old pride was undiminished. “USA, USA!”
Until recently. The George Floyd episode has been a profound shock, at least to white Americans. The idea that an officer of the law might act as callously and flagrantly as Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin did in snuffing out Floyd’s life was mind-bending.
The video and image of white officer Chauvin stepping on the neck of Floyd, an African-American, for nine excruciating minutes was akin to watching a public lynching.
We might have been witnessing something from the bad old South, the South of Mississippi swamp dogs, the South of Louisiana rednecks gawking mercifully at yet another victim of racial “justice” in the early 20th century slumped dead at the end of rope.
It was ugly. That it happened in Minneapolis, about as far north of the Mason-Dixon line as you could get, makes the whole thing, if only in the perspective of white America, humiliating and not a little incomprehensible.
“The one great failure in national history was Reconstruction,” Woodward wrote in his essay of 1967, “the failure [following the Civil War] to solve the problem of the Negro’s place in American life.”
George Floyd’s death, in it singularity, speaks to our collective failure in regard racial harmonizing, North and South. The one truly “exceptional” thing about American race relations is that a last triumphant chapter is far from being completed.
If the Floyd episode was a gut punch, then COVID-19, and our reaction to it, has been a stiff, savage uppercut to the jaw, knocking “American exceptionalism” to the canvas.
Far from being envied by the rest of world, we are a pandemic outlier. We are first in spread, first in deaths, and not just by small margins. Our failure to come to grips with the virus has been historically bad. Consider the number of unemployed, the economic and social disarray. Consider that Americans are barred, by the EU, from traveling to Europe!
During the Second World War, one commentator took note of American “exuberance” and our “can-do” spirit. No challenge was too great. “American exceptionalism” was riding high in the saddle.
Today, we are low-riders, or no-riders. It’s shameful.
The American legend of invincibility has been struck a double blow. The whole idea of U.S. ingenuity and smarts and goodness has been called into question. As for American leadership, there is none, or none that’s worth having.
Our notion of ourselves as an exceptional people and nation has suffered a grievous blow.
Richard Robbins lives in Uniontown. His latest book, “JFK Rising”, is available on Amazon. He can be reached at dick.l.robbins@gmail.com.