The Left and the Right Have Abandoned American Exceptionalism
Democrats don’t think America lives up to liberal democratic ideals. Republicans don’t think Americans need to.
Barack Obama and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have a lot in common. They’re both courteous, charismatic and wonky. They’re both people of color who rose from modest means in part because their mothers fought to get them a decent education. They were both community organizers. And at tender ages they both challenged older, entrenched House Democrats, though Obama—in his 2000 race against Chicago Congressman Bobby Rush—lost.
One difference lies in the way they talk about America. Obama consistently acknowledged America’s racist history. He would never have , as George W. Bush did in his second inaugural that, “From the day of our founding, we have proclaimed that every man and woman on this Earth has rights and dignity and
