Trumps Era: From American Exceptionalism to America First

The Americans have, for a very long time, had an ethnocentric view of the world and this
research essay is aimed at this point. The theory that is perfectly fit to describe the nationalism
and identity of the Americans is Ethnocentrism. Fundamentally, American Exceptionalism
generally means that the ideas, concepts, and discourse related to the political, economic, and
socio-cultural paradigms originated from the United States was meant to be supreme and
therefore, followed all around the globe. Different author argues that this approach was the key
element for the indulgence of the United States in a “War without Exits”.

This exceptionalism was thus, the prime cause of the transformation of the aspirations of the
United States, from being a neutral state in the era of World War 1 and to becoming a world
leader after the conclusion of World War 2 and the establishment of the United Nations. This
aspiration led the United States to purse an expansive foreign policy based on the ideas and
pattern of exceptionalism.

There is a very specific issue central to the creation of the American foreign policy, even in the
Trump Era. Claiming the governmental system of the United States to be the core reason behind
this crisis, the many authors have stated that the congress as a legislative body in America has
lost its value and its worth. Hence, the United States does not have a two-party system and
according to scholars such as Andrew Bacevich, the term referred to the party system is the
“Incumbent Party System”[ CITATION Bac08 \l 1033 ] . This means that the people who are already
the congressman or in the senate are primarily that ones who are in the position of being re-
elected because they have the support of the big companies and agency that are responsible for
investing large capital into their election campaigns and these same lobbying or interest groups
lead the American foreign policy to be pursue profligacy.

Furthermore, in the Trump’s era, there is a political crisis facing the country. The domestic
politics is greatly linked with the international policy of the United states. This implies that all
the crisis and disastrous situations that the United States had to face all around the world was a
creation of its own badly-pursued flawed policies that were projected from a sense of
exceptionalism[ CITATION God09 \l 1033 ].
Adding to this, the president of the United States, Donald Trump, is acting like an emperor
leading a bunch of companions that have high stakes in the system and therefore, they are not
willing to give up their capacities in the Executive or Legislative branch of the government. This
emperor-like-figure of the president of the United States is traced back to the Presidency of
Franklin D. Roosevelt.

This was the first time when a president was implicitly crowned as the most powerful man on the
planet and thus in Washington, and generally in the entire public, the president is someone that
will serve as something parallel to a messiah. This means that they started believing that the head
of the United States can in effect solve almost every problem. For instance, the involvements of
the United states in the crisis taking place in Vietnam, the Middle-East, and in Afghanistan were
majorly a decision of the individual identifying himself as the in charge of the United States,
whereby he possesses exceptional authority to be a decisive factor in solving the other socio-
political issues of the entire world. This is referred to as the imperial presidency of the United
States and that it has been continued till the contemporary position of the United States and its
president in the United States.

Furthermore, another manifestation of this America first doctrine is the military crisis faced by
the United States as a result of this flawed legislative and executive structure that is designed to
look after the interests of the wealthy as appose to the entire public. Scholars points out the fact
that the institutions of the country have grown in size; and hence, become quite dysfunctional
and far from what they were actually meant to do. The pouring of billions of dollars as defense
spending is looking to be dangerous because the military as an institution has suffered a lot
because of certain expansive policies that have failed overtime. The fact of the matter is that the
United States is still spending the same amount of money on expanding and proliferating its
military.

According to Dr. Bacevich, the policies that the United States is pursuing in Afghanistan and in
other parts of the world are failed policies and the prime reason for doing so is that the whole
governmental system is determined by the collective will to serve the people of the United States
but to actually pursue a policy that serves the interests of those who have invested billions of
dollars on bring the incumbents back into office, and even a source of promoting the man at the
post of the President of the United States. Therefore, the United States itself is ruled by a
plethora of interest groups that are determining the course of actions and spending billions of
dollars on the military so that they can eventually be at a position to safeguard their
interests[ CITATION JEF18 \l 1033 ].

Lastly, we can conclude the American exceptionalism and foreign policy by summing up the
entire process of exceptionalism by stating the four prime convictions for the ideology of
National Security[ CITATION Bac08 \l 1033 ]. These are also known as the core elements of
American Foreign policy and are considered to be the underpinnings of all the crisis that the
United States has caused or has been indulged in. four convictions are given below:

1. “History’s abiding theme is Freedom, to which all humanity aspires.”

2. “The United States has always embodied, and continues to embody freedom.”
3. “Providence Summons America to ensure Freedom’s ultimate triumph”
4. “For the American way of life to endure, freedom must prevail everywhere”

These four points are of immense importance to U.S foreign policy but the author illustrates how
parsimonious these convictions actually are. The author brilliantly puts forth these aspirations of
the United States but the astonishing fact to consider is that, the polity of the United States itself
is not free and paused by the clutches of interests of the elites.

Thus, with an emphasis on the fact that all the issues faced by the United States in the world are
actually made by themselves and the foreign policy objectives of the country are greatly
determined by the American Exceptionalism, which itself is a flawed concept in the sense that it
is only shared by those in power and not by the ordinary American citizens. Therefore, we can
say that an examination of the American nationalism and exceptionalism through an ethnocentric
lense witnessed a profound triple crisis facing America: an economy in disarray that can no
longer be fixed by relying on expansion abroad; a government transformed by an imperial
presidency into a democracy in name only; and an engagement in endless wars that has severely
undermined the body politic[ CITATION Cha13 \l 1033 ].

Works Cited
Bacewich, A. J. (2008). The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism.

Hodgson, G. (2009). The myth of American exceptionalism.

Murray, C. A. (2013). American Exceptionalism: An Experiment in History.

SACHS, J. D. (2018). A new foriegn policy: Beyond American Exceptionalism.