On the shining or not so shining city - Carlos Lozada in NYT (thanks to my friend P):

‘If America were a painting, it would almost certainly be a self-portrait.
Ours is a nation obsessed with depicting and interpreting itself, usually with the boldest of brushstrokes. We’ve claimed an American way, an American creed, an American idea, an American experiment, an American dream, even an American century. Our political battles do not center only on who is right or wrong but on whose positions best reflect the nation’s professed values. “That’s not who we are” is our harshest burn.
In our most back-patting moments, that self-portrait has a one-word caption: exceptional. We tell ourselves that we are the world’s last and best hope, unique among nations, chosen by God, exempt from history, on a mission befitting a “shining city upon a hill,” as Ronald Reagan put it in his 1989 Oval Office farewell.’

(…)

‘Discussions of exceptionalism may seem obligatory among today’s candidates and yesterday’s presidents, but it was Reagan who cemented “exceptionalism” in the political vernacular. Throughout his two terms, the 40th president invoked “A Model of Christian Charity,” a sermon by John Winthrop, the Puritan lawyer and governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, who declared in 1630 that “we shall be as a city upon a hill; the eyes of all people are upon us.” Winthrop drew on the Gospel of Matthew, in which Jesus told his followers, “You are the light of the world; a city set on a hill cannot be hidden.” Reagan channeled Winthrop’s formulation, forever burnishing it with one memorable adjective.’

(…)

‘From a nation on the precipice to a city on a hill — funny what winning an election or two will do.’

(…)

‘A false prophet is one who claims, deceptively, to speak for God. An American exceptionalist, apparently, is one blessed with certainty about the designs of providence for our shining city.’

(…)

‘Yet the Trumpian alternative does not reaffirm exceptionalism; it undercuts exceptionalism. It assumes that all countries, including ours, are much the same, struggling to beat one another out, to be bigger and stronger — to win.’

Read the article here.

Perhaps all kinds of exceptionalism require prophets and most prophets are false.

And who knows, maybe exceptionalism is just the conviction that you are entitled to win. Call it privilege, or selfconfidence.

By the way, American decline is a much a myth as American exceptionalism. But as Lozada states, win an election or two, and the decline becomes exceptionalism. Victory is known for opening many doors.