Amy fabbrini snopes

additional pr aise for exceptional america

“ Mugambi Jouet traveled from Paris, France, to Houston, Texas, as a college freshman and has been trying to make sense of the American experience ever since. Th e result is a richly textured account of the forces that make the United States unlike anywhere else in the world.”

— june carbone, Robina Chair in Law, Science, and Technology, University of Minnesota Law School, and coauthor of Red Families v. Blue Families

“ Using a comparative perspective, and seeking to place American values in a larger context, Mugambi Jouet provides perspectives on the pervasive culture war that divides Americans.”

— naomi cahn, Harold H. Greene Professor of Law, George Washington University Law School, and coauthor of Red Families v. Blue Families

“ Exceptional America is a seminal work written by a French author from a comparative framework. It is an eye-opening presentation of America’s contradictions, highly relevant in contemporary politics and a must-read for policy makers.”

— pashaur a singh, Chair, Department of Religious Studies, University of California, Riverside

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Exceptional America

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U N I V E R S I T Y O F C A L I F O R N I A P R E S S

Exceptional America

W H AT DI V IDES A MERIC A NS FROM T HE WORL D

A N D FROM E ACH OT HER

Mugambi Jouet

University of California Press, one of the most distinguished university presses in the United States, enriches lives around the world by advancing scholarship in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Its activities are supported by the UC Press Foundation and by philanthropic contributions from individuals and institutions. For more information, visit www.ucpress.edu.

University of California Press Oakland, California

© 2017 by Mugambi Jouet

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Jouet, Mugambi, 1981– author. Title: Exceptional America : what separates Americans from the world and from each other / Mugambi Jouet. Description: Oakland, California : University of California Press, [2017] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifi ers: lccn 2016046909 | isbn 9780520293298 (cloth : alk. paper) | isbn 9780520966468 (eBook) Subjects: LCSH: Exceptionalism—United States. | National characteristics, American. | United States—Social policy. | United States—Economic

policy. | United States—Politics and government—21st century. Classifi cation: lcc e169.12 .j68 2017 | ddc 973—dc23 lc record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016046909

Manufactured in the United States of America

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It is impossible to understand a country without seeing how it varies fr om others. Th ose who know only one country know no country.

Seymour Martin Lipset

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Preface ix

Introduction 1

1 • One Nation, Divisible 19

2 • From the American Enlightenment to Anti-Intellectualism 43

3 • Th e Exceptional Infl uence of Christian Fundamentalism 80

4 • Th e Culture Wars of Faith, Sex, and Gender 113

5 • Between Democracy and Plutocracy 143

6 • Millions Standing against Th eir Own Economic Interest 168

7 • Mass Incarceration, Executions, and Gun Violence in “the Land of the Free” 194

8 • America and the World 232

Conclusion 261

Acknowledgments 275 Notes 277 Index 343

C O N T E N T S

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ix

On November 9, 2016, a puzzled world woke up to a new face of America. How could Donald Trump follow Barack Obama into the White House? Experts were stunned.

I began writing this book several years before the election, and it went to press shortly aft erward. I also did not expect Trump to defeat Hillary Clinton, insofar as polls predicted her victory. I was nonetheless skeptical of the conventional wisdom that Trump hardly refl ected the views of the Republican Party or most ordinary American conservatives. My research instead suggested that the diff erence between Trump and the G.O.P. estab- lishment was oft en one of style, rhetoric, and temperament. While he built his platform on conspiracy theories about Obama’s forged U.S. birth certifi - cate and other spectacularly fact-free claims, scores of Americans were already convinced that climate change and the theory of evolution are myths. Some of Trump’s campaign promises, such as barring Muslims from entering America, surely went beyond what contemporary leaders had called for. But it was not as if he had suddenly brought bigotry back to America aft er the civil rights movement of the 1960s ended it once and for all. Yes, Trump’s incendiary declarations demonstrated reservations about democracy and the rule of law, yet many citizens and prominent politicians had come to embrace torture and indefi nite detention without trial at Guantánamo.