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If you've ever waded into ragebaity online discussions, for example Europeans taunting Americans about the lack of public healthcare or basic worker rights, the

If you've ever waded into ragebaity online discussions, for example Europeans taunting Americans about the lack of public healthcare or basic worker rights, there will always be a loud contingent of Americans spouting counter-arguments based in American Exceptionalism, claiming that everyone else somehow, magically, has the US to thank for its standard of living. It was always easy to dismiss those as uninformed morons, but Signalgate showed that at least Vance and Hegseth truly believes it, and who knows how many more of their ilk. Up until 2016, the US was predominantly governed by people who understood the post-WWII world order, who understood the immense benefit of Pax Americana to the US itself. People who understood soft power and diplomacy, people who understood that although the upfront costs of maintaining the military hegemony, of playing world police, the benefits far outweighed the costs. People who understood mutually beneficial trade agreements, and that a trade deficit is a small price to pay to maintain the USD as the world's reserve currency. But now, it's the spoiled grandchildren who are in power, who have been brought up suffused with the exceptionalism such that they take America's position for granted in eternity. And they look at the cost of all of these things, how much it directly benefits other countries, and react with stupid short-sighted greed, thinking that getting rid of the "free-loaders" will make them richer. I remember the TPP trade deal. It took eight years to negotiate and the US strong-armed everyone else into accepting its provisions on IP, which would have allowed the US to maintain its position at the top of the value chain, countering the ascendancy of China. All gone, in the trash, because the people who are once again in power fundamentally do not understand how it would have strengthened the US. So now we're back to some kind of mercantilistic trade-war, that the US will lose.

southernplaces7 1y ago
>there will always be a loud contingent of Americans spouting counter-arguments based in American Exceptionalism, claiming that everyone else somehow, magically, has the US to thank for its standard of living. The entire second part of your comment shores up exactly this notion that everyone else has the US to thank for its standard of living and that the country is exceptional. Underlying all the things you list: the post-WWII order, the Pax Americana, the military hegemony, the position of the dollar as the World's reserve currency and so forth all underscore exactly the fact that the US is or at least has been exceptional and that the rest of the world has been heavily benefited by it. That some of these people then took this and spun it into idiocy about cutting off "freeloaders" without being aware that this means having to take a hit to the country's exceptional position doesn't change the truth of the U.S being exceptional and many countries having many indirect benefits to thank it for
- henrikschroder 1y ago
  The post-WWII order was deliberately designed by clever American politicians who realised they could leverage the untouched industrial base and built-up military capability to become a world superpower, in an alliance with Western Europe. All of these policies were and are 100% America First, because the US has always been the primary benefactor of it all, but they've been marketed as some kind of benevolent altruistic goodwill-project that "leader of the free world" simply "has to do" because it's "the right thing". Bullshit. It's naked greed all the way down. Exceptional? Exceptionally greedy more like it.
  - southernplaces7 1y ago
    Greedy or not, somebody was going to become the dominant and even hegemonic world power after that colossal war and the nation state dynamics that followed it. Would you have preferred that it be something like the then still Stalinist USSR, or later perhaps the deeply authoritarian (and under Mao batshit crazy on its internal policies) China? Given the inevitable rise of at least one dominant power, I prefer that it was the United States with its generally benevolent democratic traditions to model off of (even if it itself often poorly applied them overseas)

southernplaces7 1y ago

>there will always be a loud contingent of Americans spouting counter-arguments based in American Exceptionalism, claiming that everyone else somehow, magically, has the US to thank for its standard of living. The entire second part of your comment shores up exactly this notion that everyone else has the US to thank for its standard of living and that the country is exceptional. Underlying all the things you list: the post-WWII order, the Pax Americana, the military hegemony, the position of the dollar as the World's reserve currency and so forth all underscore exactly the fact that the US is or at least has been exceptional and that the rest of the world has been heavily benefited by it. That some of these people then took this and spun it into idiocy about cutting off "freeloaders" without being aware that this means having to take a hit to the country's exceptional position doesn't change the truth of the U.S being exceptional and many countries having many indirect benefits to thank it for

henrikschroder 1y ago
The post-WWII order was deliberately designed by clever American politicians who realised they could leverage the untouched industrial base and built-up military capability to become a world superpower, in an alliance with Western Europe. All of these policies were and are 100% America First, because the US has always been the primary benefactor of it all, but they've been marketed as some kind of benevolent altruistic goodwill-project that "leader of the free world" simply "has to do" because it's "the right thing". Bullshit. It's naked greed all the way down. Exceptional? Exceptionally greedy more like it.
- southernplaces7 1y ago
  Greedy or not, somebody was going to become the dominant and even hegemonic world power after that colossal war and the nation state dynamics that followed it. Would you have preferred that it be something like the then still Stalinist USSR, or later perhaps the deeply authoritarian (and under Mao batshit crazy on its internal policies) China? Given the inevitable rise of at least one dominant power, I prefer that it was the United States with its generally benevolent democratic traditions to model off of (even if it itself often poorly applied them overseas)