But it turns out that American exceptionalism is the belief that the USA does not have to abide by the moral, ethical, legal constraints which govern other nations in the international arena. Good grief, I’ve been unwittingly aligning myself with Dick Cheney!
“Exceptionism” would be a better term for a point of view that could have been lifted out of Mein Kampf.
Perhaps more apt to the current dysfunctional state of our state than my uniquely excellent “exceptional” or the neo-con’s above-it-all “exceptional,” would be Webster’s second definition of the word: “needing special attention or presenting a special problem.”