American Exceptionalism After 2016

Eight years ago, long before we ever imagined the Trump-Clinton disaster election we just had, a younger Senator Obama was being hammered for his views on "American Exceptionalism." Basically, he didn't believe we are an exceptional nation by birth. He didn't believe in some form of divine greatness that Americans have by birth. Conservative Americans were insulted.

Barack Obama was right.

America has been an exceptional nation throughout it's history. The Declaration of Independence and Constitution were exceptional. The first Moon landing was exceptional. The Emancipation Proclamation and winning the Civil War was exceptional. Building the Interstate Highway System was exceptional. Winning both World Wars was exceptional. Developing the nuclear bomb was exceptional. The Civil Rights Movement was exceptional. Bringing the internet to household scale was exceptional. Building the New York City skyline was exceptional. The Marshall Plan was exceptional. America has many exceptional moments in it's past.

"Making America Great Again" this past Fall is not exceptional.

I don't view us as exceptional right now. Talk of building a wall on the Mexican border isn't exceptional. Building a "Muslim registry" is not exceptional. Withdrawing from the Iran Deal is not exceptional. Putting more guns on the street is not exceptional. Denying climate change is not exceptional. Cutting and privatizing Medicare and Social Security is not exceptional. De-regulating the banks is not exceptional. Nothing this man is proposing is exceptional.

I find nothing exceptional about Donald Trump or his 62.5 million voters. I find it embarrassing. With promises of nonsensical things, like bringing back factories and mines, the President-elect has convinced millions of uneducated and desperate people to sign onto his xenophobic, hyper-nationalistic agenda. We will now have a President-elect who wishes to partner with Vladimir Putin, of all the terrible people he could pick, but wants to pick a fight with China. This is not a welcome change.

We're not exceptional right now.

The Coastal Trap

Hillary Clinton now leads by more than 2.5 million votes, or about 1.9%. She lost the election, but got substantially more votes than Donald Trump. Because this was the system everyone agreed to run under before hand, there's not a whole lot of sense complaining about that now. Trump won under the rules the 2016 election were contested under. He'll get to be President. That's not to say that this makes things any better.

We've heard a lot of Democrats in the past few weeks talk about being a "coastal" party. The leadership, the candidates, and the policies reflect a party of New York, California, Massachusetts, and Washington. They're right. Every single state Hillary Clinton won, with the exception of Illinois (which is on a Great Lake), Colorado, Nex Mexico, and Nevada, is within an hour's drive of the beach, or is on the shore. We clearly are a coastal party. That does seem bad, if you want to win.

Let's have a reality check though for a second- that is where most of America is. Hillary Clinton is going to receive more votes than Donald Trump, by a lot. Our economy is driven by California, New York, and the other large, blue states on the coasts. Our culture, the things we are entertained by, are also coming from those places. It would seem like we should listen to those places a little bit more- they are the majority.

But we're not. By a 306-232 margin, we're not. We're letting Western Pennsylvania, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Utah tell us what our future is. We're letting Michigan and Wisconsin. We're letting Northern Florida tell us how we will answer the call of tomorrow. We're bowing to the wisdom of North Dakota and Arkansas.

For the second time this century, the candidate who won the popular vote will lose the Presidential Election, because of "flyover country." Our Congress has an inherent geographical bias towards lands outside of our cities. While Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York pay the bills, they are prisoners of the electoral college, where Wyoming counts more than Los Angeles County, and almost as much as Nevada on the whole. We have a Congress that is hostile to the way of life in our economic engines, and a limited voice in the Presidential election that makes their votes count less.

I am not saying that Democrats shouldn't hear voices outside of Manhattan, what i'm saying is that perhaps southeast Ohio should open their ears a bit too. If life is so bad in my native Rust Belt, perhaps that's because folks there aren't changing with the times and moving forward. Let's stop beating on the coastal "elites," many of whom are at work right now making a living too, and start being honest with ourselves- if we're going to be a great nation, our future is a lot more like Brooklyn or Silicon Valley, and a lot less like smalltown America.