Could it be that we’ve forgotten who we are? Was all our past talk about American exceptionalism just a fawning over worn-out myths?
Some might reason that anyone could fool their own citizens into thinking their country was the greatest nation on earth, because in reality, who doesn’t think their nation is great already? But in America’s case, it turns out a lot of people are falling for it. The fact that immigration is such a hot issue should tell us something about that. I mean, can’t the very words of those who push the view that America is a racist nation that tramples the rights of the poor be used to deter those who want to come here?
Of course not. Because there’s hyperbole and demagoguery, and then there’s reality.
Not every American is a violent right-or left-wing extremist. Not everyone who voted for Trump wants to lock up immigrant children and bulldoze Alaska. Not everyone who voted for Biden wants to kill babies and tax the upper-class out of existence.
In fact, we’re really not that bad off.
Yes, America is going through a rough patch right now – we’re facing our demons and it truly is time for a reckoning. But think carefully: while the world (and yes, America) seems to be circling the drain with this pandemic, are we all truly doomed?
In the mid-twentieth century, when Hitler was marching through Europe and the Japanese through the Pacific, America said, “that’s enough” …and it was. And not long after, while we were barely out of diapers in outer space, we had a president who said, “Let’s go to the moon,” and just a few years later, we did. Yes, there are aspects of America about which we should be deeply ashamed. And you know what? We’re facing those right now.
But let me get to the point: It ain’t over. It’s far from over. The fact that we’re here is part of the evidence for that.
We’ve just been through an election, and it’s laughable that people are sounding the death knell for American democracy just because we had someone in office whom a lot of Americans didn’t like. On the contrary, this election was one of the greatest demonstrations of the strength of our democracy. If we are going to try to toss out the entire system just because of some distasteful episodes, we are fools who deserve what we get.
But I’m not writing this to extol the greatness of our American democracy as the only, or even the main demonstration of our exceptionalism. I’m actually talking more about that in which America is still capable of leading the world.
While the Russians and Chinese have claimed to have a vaccine for this virus, and the Chinese have all but eliminated it within their borders, the reality is that the world has been waiting for America to do its thing.
And it has. Because when you do a Google search on Pfizer and Moderna, the first lines you’ll see are, “Pfizer Inc. is an American multinational pharmaceutical corporation,” and “Moderna is an American biotechnology company…”
And while we can’t deny that great efforts have been made by many around the world, and the very researchers from Pfizer and Moderna included many who came to America for this great undertaking; we must also admit that it was “the American way” that made it happen in record time.
In the end, if you couple our turning the corner on this virus with our turning the corner on the mistakes of our past (and the present), you’ve got something that is still quite exceptional.
This is real moon-shot stuff.