Exceptionalism is isolationist
Perhaps Liberation Day can be seen as the world being liberated from America. Alan Kohler
This is exactly as I see it. The rest of the world unhooking from the teat of America and finding their feet collectively.
Bubbles burst. It is law.
And America, despite the felon in the white house raging about its history of being raped and pillaged by the rest of the world, is the great modern pillager. Covertly overthrowing governments who do not conform to their agenda, and in the process producing broken economies and all the nasties that go with intractable poverty. Crime. Mafia. Guns. Drugs. Autocrats. Military dictatorships.
Leaving the people, parents who care for their children, little option other than to put any worthy possessions on their backs and make their way across borders as refugees. Only then to face the second round of cruelty from the very country that created the environment that created the refugees.
Can you imagine gathering a few meagre possessions and fleeing, leaving behind everything you know, people you care about, to make a dangerous trek across hostile land and ocean? The right-wing fearmongers tell you that these people are coming for your jobs.
The majority of them are not. They are escaping violence and seeking anything better.
In 1983 I spent four months travelling the USA solo. I visited 40-something states, crisscrossing the country by bus, air and car.
As a young Aussie, I had seen the story of America as some glossy wonder. What I found instead was a strange mix of ignorance (the number of times I was asked why I spoke such good English – an example.), ultra-conservatism – which astounded me – the usual exceptionalism which I found based on a myth cultivated in-house without any real substance, and obscene excess, which made me sick to the stomach.
On my first day, I had the strongest sense that we were witnessing the modern-day fall of the Empire.
The bully country of the last few decades is broken. It was written clearly even in 1983. The biggest bully has broken it.
The rest of the world needs to grow up, come together and be stronger for it. I hope they do.
Exceptionalism is isolationist. The two are complementary pairs. The truth will be hard to endure.
Photo April 6th 2025, Article written April 7th 2025
