I've written a piece for the London School of Economics' blog on U.S. politics, here is the intro:
"According to the Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump, “we’re not a strong country anymore.”
It is a little unclear what Trump means by this, but it seems to be
connected to purportedly leaky borders as well as a loss of American
stature around the world. The solution to this malaise is electing Trump
to the White House, because “we will have so much winning if I get elected, that you may get bored with winning.” In other words, if you want America to be exceptional again, definitely vote Trump.
This is all entirely unfair to Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who was
supposed to be the candidate of American exceptionalism in this election
cycle. Rubio, apparently not having read the times correctly, started
his campaign for president with a traditional, optimistic Ronald
Reagan-esque formulation of American exceptionalism. Foreign observers
were probably confused, he offered, by the fact that the son of an
immigrant bartender could run for president (apparently, Rubio is not
familiar with Nicolas Sarkozy, although granted; Sarkozy’s father was a
Hungarian aristocrat, not a Cuban bartender). But Rubio was simply
trying to repay his debt to the greatest country on earth, he said.
Rubio talked about a “new American century” for a while, but in the last
weeks of 2015, he changed his tone dramatically. As Trump’s rise in the
polls continued, Rubio’s brand of exceptionalism turned negative, warning potential voters of how a weakened America will be attacked by terrorists Obama has released from the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba."
Read the rest here!
