Across the first two centuries of US history, the idea of American exceptionalism was unexceptional. Politicians of nearly every stripe, and citizens supporting nearly every political persuasion, endorsed the idea that the United States, the product of a republican revolution, held a unique place in the world as a beacon of liberty, equality, and opportunity. The phrases Novus Ordo Seclorum (“a new order for the ages”) and Annuit Coeptis (“Providence favors our undertakings”) were affixed to the Great Seal of the United States in 1782, and leaders ranging from George Washington to Franklin Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln to Ronald Reagan would affirm the uniqueness of the principles proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence and codified in the Constitution. Critics of the prevailing American order, from Elizabeth Cady Stanton to Martin Luther King, Jr., agitated for the country to uphold and fulfill its lofty ideals rather than challenging the ideals themselves.
“Since the 1960s…the notion of American exceptionalism has become toxic.”
Since the 1960s, however, particularly on the political left, the notion of American exceptionalism has become toxic. Many progressives now see the American experience not as a saga of advancing freedom and opportunity at home and around the globe— a halting process laden with struggle, partial achievements, and frustrating failures—but rather as a dark tale of oppression. Since its inception, in this view, the United States has been guided by systemic racism, colonial settlement, rampant greed, persistent misogyny and patriarchy, imperialist aspirations, elite domination, and unrelenting injustice.