Here, in a nutshell, is the narrative that props up American Exceptionalism: the conviction that a succession of victories, engineered by the United States, had “created the free world,” thereby weaving past, present, and future into a single seamless garment. That this narrative cannot withstand even minimally critical scrutiny is beside the point. (Does the outcome of World War I qualify as a victory or did it pave the way for something worse? And didn’t Soviet leader Josef Stalin, neither democratic nor liberal, somehow figure in defeating fascism in World War II?) Biden’s framing of
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