Biden’s American exception has its limits

Nonetheless, President Biden refuses to abandon the specter of American exceptionalism. Throughout his election campaign and his first weeks in office, he invoked the supposedly unrivaled state spirit. “Betting on the American people is not a good bet at all,” Biden said during a prime-time speech on Thursday as he announced his administration’s plans to make vaccines available to all Americans by May. Biden continued: “America will return.” The development, manufacture and distribution of vaccines in record time is a true scientific miracle. It is one of the most extraordinary accomplishments any country has ever achieved. ”The president overlooked the vital role that multinational corporations and scientists outside the United States played in helping to develop and produce coronavirus vaccines. And then an even greater rhetorical boom ensued:“ And we’ve just seen the perseverance rover vehicle. On Mars – amazing images of our dreams are now a reality, another example of extraordinary American ingenuity, commitment and belief in science and each other, ”Biden said: This is not a shallow victory. Unlike some of his Republican counterparts, Biden uses a sorrowful rhetoric over the losses caused by the pandemic And a sober recognition of the work that needs to be done. His administration, unlike the administration of former President Donald Trump, will not initiate suspicious committees that attempt to mandate the teaching of American exceptionalism in schools or consider, as the Trump Commission has done, training course materials on the sins of the country’s past a threat to “civil society.” “… the bonds that unite all Americans.” Biden appears to believe in the virtuous power of the American model. He and his allies support seeing the country as a “city on a hill,” that pure city. Yetania is a beacon to the rest of the world that gained fame in US politics as Cold War tensions escalated. They see the Trump administration’s ultra-nationalist agenda of “America first” as a betrayal of that legacy and hope to compensate for it with efforts like the “Summit of Democracies” discussed later this year, backed by an implicit belief in the validity of American values ​​and liberal ideals. . (Unsurprisingly, the summit already has a large number of skeptics.) They write: “The disparities are rarely as clearly displayed as in recent weeks and months,” noting, in one case, the lack of reliable, clean running water in Texas neighborhoods. . Not far from the NASA control room that directed that spacecraft that Biden celebrated to Mars. Historic breakthroughs in science, medicine, and technology coexist closely – and with difficulty – side by side with massive failures of infrastructure, public health, and equitable access to basic human needs. On many levels, Biden’s America is not particularly exceptional. Compared to many other societies in the developed world, their citizens are less healthy, less secure, and less educated. Its political system is increasingly viewed for its outdated flaws. “ While there is much to appreciate about a government that has survived both civil wars and world wars, it has progressed slowly, albeit slowly, to provide expanded rights to many of its citizens, including books by Scott Warren, founder of Generation Citizen, a national civic organization. , In a column noting the sweeping lack of confidence of the American public in the federal government and the often superior results that the voting systems of some other countries have achieved. “This notion is not only correct, but perhaps more importantly, there is much that we can and must learn. From democracies around the world. “Then there is the country’s physical infrastructure – from power grids, utility lines, broadband to port networks, roads, and train tracks, all of which need generational repairs and upgrades.” Joseph Kane, Associate Fellow at the Brookings Institution, told my colleagues: “The Eisenhower Administration It is really a time when we had a goal or a vision for our infrastructure. ”“ We are now in a completely different era with a more extreme and unpredictable climate, more inequality, and a lack of access. We are still working as if we are in the fifties of the last century. “American exceptionalism is a theological principle, an affirmation not of truth but of faith,” commentator Peter Beinart wrote. It is a kind of “magical thinking” that obscures wise strategy. Let’s take into account, as Bennart suggests, the current predicament with Iran: Tehran wants to see At least some degree of sanctions relief if it is to risk a return to the nuclear deal that the Trump administration scrapped its terms for the first time. But Biden and his allies have so far indicated that the ball is in Iran’s court to take the first step. America’s goodwill is self-evident, ”Beinart noted. Nevertheless, why should they do so?“ This magical reasoning is a serious problem for US foreign policy, ”he wrote.“ It is a problem because it blinds US policymakers to how the United States views it. Non-Americans who, of course, judge the United States not from its own perspective but on its actions. ”