TBF I don’t think the author is arguing for American exceptionalism, I think they’re saying the cult of American exceptionalism runs so deep that the ruling elites can’t see the rot right in front of their eyes.
I don’t think so. The writer, Jamelle Bouie, is a huge believer in American exceptionalism but I doubt he’d be so crass as to use that term for himself. But the article has a brand new tone for him though. Up until as recent as a about a couple weeks ago he wrote yet another article glorifying the constitution and he said that Trump is not a king.
He’s a turbolib so he’d never say he was wrong. But it seems to me this recent article is a tacit admission that maybe he was wrong. He even says something which is pretty funny considering everything he’s said before…
Somewhere, King Charles I is jealous.
You seem to be treating “American exceptionalism” literally, but even Wikipedia defines it as a belief in the lead sentence:—
Sure, the article could have said:—
Unfortunately, the sheer depth of belief in American exceptionalism is such that this country’s political, media and economic elites have a difficult time believing that anything can fundamentally change for the worse.
but that would be a clunky tautology.
You might be right about everything else, but it seems difficult to read this particular sentence in the way you suggest.
You’re being argumentative.
Well that’s perhaps a failure on my part because I really wasn’t trying to be: I was trying to ease your mind on this one particular point and offer something beyond what you’d received from the other commenters who appear to disagree with you, since they didn’t appear to have convinced you that it’s okay to let this one thing go and save your energy for other fights.
If it isn’t too upsetting, since “refrain[ing] from principled argument […] is one type of liberalism”, I will give one more explanation of my thinking and then leave it at that.
When describing things that are knowable and positive, scale is described upward and outward: “greatness”; “grandeur”; etc. By contrast, depth is typically used to describe attributes that are unknown or negative: “deep feelings/belief/faith/conviction”; “depth of their depravity”. And “sheer” is often coupled with “hubris”.
If America’s unusual greatness is intended, then “the sheer depth of American exceptionalism” is indeed striking, since its form implies the opposite. If the writer means the sheer depth of faith in American exceptionalism, though, then the form is instead quite mundane. I find that mundane usually explains more than striking.
However, I do agree with what you write about deniability: this construction does allow readers who genuinely believe in exceptionalism to carry on unchallenged. But regardless of what you or I think journalists should do, that is the actual job of The New York Times, isn’t it?
Hmmm, given the tone it might be an external vs internal distinction; he sees exceptionalism in internal affairs as folly but believes in American exceptionalism when it comes to America being the world’s cop.
It’s possible. He’s the sort of writer I hate. They force the reader to make assumptions about what the writer actually believes. The writer has deniability. And they avoid what I think is the job of a columnist - to provide context and reality checks. NYT columnists are typically like that. They might have many paragraphs in a row starting with “The Constitution provides for…”. Yet they don’t the reader the important stuff. Cnforcement of any of that shit for Trump has a near zero - if not zero - chance of happening. Such argumentation is a simple way of them always avoiding being proven wrong.
deleted by creator
correct
Seriously though - I’m stealing “the sheer depth of American exceptionalism”. What a fantastic phrase. I wish I had thought of it.
It isn’t, but people broadly believing it is prevents certain sorts of changes
