The death of ‘exceptionalism’

Last March I gloomily hazarded a small prediction:

We have forfeited for a generation or more the presumption that America, if sometimes misguided, can always be trusted to proceed with at least good intentions, for the election of Trump was nothing so much as the triumph of malice and ignorance.

What do you know? World regard for America has gone over a cliff.

President Trump has alarmed citizens of the nation’s closest allies and others worldwide, diminishing the standing of the United States in their eyes, according to a wide-ranging international study released Monday.

But in the survey of 37 countries, Russia is a bright spot for Trump. As beleaguered as the president is at home, a majority of Russians say they have confidence in him. And Russians’ attitudes toward the United States have improved since Trump took office.

Trump exemplifies the dark impulses that humanity has struggled to control for uncountable millennia: He is corrupt, he is thuggish, he is a serial liar, he is unable to comprehend any problem or issue in any terms other than his own immediate self-interest. He is turning the centerpiece of decent-humanity’s ambitions into a cheap banana republic.

I believe without reservation that the ideals of the Declaration of Independence will persist and ultimately triumph in human affairs, but it won’t be the United States that carries the banner unless that primitive ignoramus is removed from office — and soon.

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