American exceptionalism gets a new name in a recent New York Times column ^[1] from Roger Cohen: Palinism. This is a bizarre form of compliment from a detractor of Mrs. Palin — using her name to label a tradition in American ideology that’s been “around since the Founding Fathers,” which he admits is an “inspirational notion, however flawed in execution, that has buttressed the global spread of liberty.” But where Cohen sees antagonism between universalism, embodied by Barack Obama, and the American exceptionalism of Sarah Palin, in reality there is not much.

In Cohen’s assessment, exceptionalism has gone awry and the only antidote is universalism. Indeed, Palin and Obama do so define themselves. Palin plays upon her down-home pride in the specialness of America the way Obama milks his multicultural pedigree to liberal hurrahs. But the deeper problem rests with Cohen’s initial false premise, an error he seems to borrow from Palin and Obama themselves: that universalism and exceptionalism are mutually exclusive and that we must choose one or the other. Comprehending the close relationship between the two will be essential to the governing philosophy of any future administration. It is also key to our own understanding of what it means to be Americans.

The American Revolution (still underway) is unarguably an Enlightenment project. It would be nearly impossible to give a single coherent definition of the Enlightenment, though the German philosopher Immanuel Kant ^[2] probably said it best when he designated Sapere Aude, or “Dare to Know” as its primary slogan.  It assumes, as does our Constitution, that everyone is endowed by nature with the ability to observe and judge a reality which we all share. This ability to reason became the basis for a new notion of human dignity that effectively replaced the old system of aristocratic honor. In this respect, our nation is founded on universalist principles.

Nationalism and nation-states are also products of roughly the same period. But where, say, French notions of the nation were  culture-specific (Frenchness mattered more than Gallic blood), and German notions were more rigorously bound to ethnicity, American nationalism derived from a civic ideal that was not a matter of blood, soil, or culture.

America is exceptional because of its universalistic DNA. It is a brilliant paradox — a nation which has built into its identity the transcendence of all those prejudices that recommend unthinking loyalty to the tribe. It was intended as such by the founders, as indicated by the words of Thomas Jefferson: “May it be to the world what I believe it will be (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all), the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government.”

Barack Obama and Sarah Palin each take only half of this whole picture and are therefore forcing an unreal choice on the American people.

There is an undeniable tension between Jefferson’s global aspiration and the slogan “Country First.” Country can all too often become it’s own kind of myth. Even though Palin and McCain want to keep growing the U.S. economic pie across the globe, their conflation of one particular American culture into the Country they want to put First is deeply problematic. The war hero John and the hockey mom Sarah are as familiar as any Norman Rockwell portrait of Main St. USA can be. The problem is, because of that global economic pie and the migration and mixing of cultures it requires, such an image is as selective as it is deceptive. As America enters the 21st century and comes closer to realizing the global potentials imagined by Jefferson, it seems bizarre that any major party should be running a campaign that looks so, well, un-global. In this era, visuals count for a lot. Hometown in-grouping is visually exalted to the point of spectacle by the McCain campaign’s constant evocation of its “I’m one of you” quality. The problem here isn’t with being American, it’s a problem with the definition of “you.”  Even more, it’s a problem of who “you” is not.

Obama may be more open to portraying himself as the man of the world, but it is odd that he should see the American project as exceptional enough to be the only country on Earth where his story is even possible, yet not an idea worthy of export. This would be more understandable in a world with feasible alternatives for the advance the cosmopolitan ideals he and his supporters hold dear. If the UN were a functioning agency for perpetual peace instead of a cover for thugs and autocracies, or if NGOs had the force of military might to bring to bear on the adversaries of social justice — then American exceptionalism might deserve to recede. As it stands, neither condition is met. Instead, Obama continues to offer a populist brand of economic protectionism that implicitly devalues the notion of job creation by American corporations in India or Yemen. He proclaims that he will “end the tax giveaways to companies that ship our jobs overseas,” while proudly wearing his global citizenship on his sleeve. He gives eloquent and moving descriptions of the American ideal, all the while acting as if he can avoid the unavoidable stance America must take against those who wish his story were impossible.

Obama believes that the only exceptionalism worth anything is “based on our Constitution, our principles, our values and our ideals.” He might do well to ask himself: How, when there are those who would rejoice in seeing those ideals destroyed, can we secure the blessings of liberty without the understanding that America is exceptional both in it’s conception of those values and in its capacity to promote and defend those ideas in a globalized world? Palin believes that “America is an exceptional country” and McCain believes ^[3] that we are the only nation “that really is deeply concerned about adhering to the principle that all of us are created equal.” The two might ask themselves whether they can claim the mantle of advancing those American values while simultaneously thumbing their noses at what the new world America is supposed to steward is really made up of. It certainly isn’t all Johns and Sarahs.

There is, of course, no such thing as “Palinism.” There is, for lack of a better term, such a thing as Americanism. Revolutionary liberalism is both exceptional and universalist. Those who would seek to advance only one thread of such an intimately knotted fabric shouldn’t hope to be able to unite this country in the difficult years to come.