The assembled cast of MSNBC's Morning Joe joined former Obama State Department official and former managing editor of Time magazine, Richard Stengel, on Thursday in hailing Vice President Kamala Harris for supposedly taking back the mantle of American exceptionalism from Republicans.
The basis for the segment was an article Stengel wrote for Time where he claimed that Harris’s DNC acceptance speech was “the most full-throated and sincere expression of American exceptionalism since the presidency of George W. Bush, and the most direct and unambiguous expression of that idea by a Democratic presidential candidate since John F. Kennedy.”
Co-host Jonathan Lemire claimed, “It was so striking last week in Chicago, I was there, just the flag was everywhere. The red, white, and blue was everywhere. Chants of USA were everywhere. It did really feel like Democrats who, to your point, for so long avoided that, not just reembracing it, but trying to take it back from Republicans.”
Stengel naturally agreed, “I think it never should have been taken away, but, I mean, I'm old enough to remember when, you know, Democrats didn't fly the flag, didn’t put it up, didn’t chant USA and I think it's great there's a younger generation of Democrats who are re-embracing that.”
In proof that the thesis may need some revisions, elsewhere in the segment, Stengel would dance around counterexamples, such as the anti-American, anti-Israel demonstrators.
As it was, after Stengel claimed the Iraq War alienated many Democrats from the idea of American exceptionalism, he turned his attention to Donald Trump, “I mean, the other thing, the flip side, the fact that Republicans are embracing American exceptionalism, when their own candidate has basically derogated the term when he said the American dream is dead and has run as a declinist, as political scientists call him, someone who thinks America is in decline.”
He added, “I mean, there's never been a president before who was elected who, you know, who was saying that, and I think people are beginning to realize, well, really, he's not USA, USA. He actually says that we're a country that is a failed state. I mean, that's not very inspiring to voters.”
Neither is the idea the country is still infected with systemic racism, but Democrats are desperately trying people to forget what they have said about America, not during the Iraq War, but in the last few years.
Here is a transcript for the August 29 show:
MSNBC Morning Joe
8/29/2024
6:41 AM ET
JONATHAN LEMIRE: It was so striking last week in Chicago, I was there, just the flag was everywhere. The red, white, and blue was everywhere. Chants of USA were everywhere. It did really feel like Democrats who, to your point, for so long avoided that.
RICHARD STENGEL: Yeah.
LEMIRE: Not just reembracing it, but trying to take it back from Republicans.
STENGEL: Yes. I think it never should have been taken away, but, I mean, I'm old enough to remember when, you know, Democrats didn't fly the flag, didn’t put it up, didn’t chant USA and I think it's great there's a younger generation of Democrats who are re-embracing that.
LEMIRE: Yeah, there was at least, there was a video the Trump campaign put out, maybe a month or so back, where they had staffers walking around even saying, “Well, if you see an American flag, you know who that person is voting for,” suggesting it is Donald Trump and that is, just simply, not the case.”
…
STENGEL: I do think part of the, sort of, blemished record of American exceptionalism was the invasion of Iraq that was justified using these kind of grand terms, providential terms and I think that’s one reason it went into hibernation among Democrats. I mean, you know, Obama ran opposed to the invasion of Iraq, but I just want to pick up on what you were saying. I mean, the other thing, the flip side, the fact that Republicans are embracing American exceptionalism, when their own candidate has basically derogated the term when he said the American dream is dead and has run as a declinist, as political scientists call him, someone who thinks America is in decline.
I mean, there's never been a president before who was elected who, you know, who was saying that, and I think people are beginning to realize, well, really, he's not USA, USA. He actually says that we're a country that is a failed state. I mean, that's not very inspiring to voters.
