The Skin of Our Teeth

American Exceptionalism is the belief that the United States and its citizens are fundamentally unique and special compared to every other country in the world. The notion is based on the glorification of the country’s founding documents and the idealism embedded in grand terms, such as liberty and freedom. In the years after World War I, the country was divided in terms of how this exceptionalism should play out in America’s foreign policy, and this was heightened with the start of World War II overseas in 1939. Isolationists believed that the country should stay out of foreign affairs and wars to focus on its own development and security. Interventionists believed that because America was exceptional, it had a duty to fight international enemies and spread American values around the globe. When the war began, Franklin D. Roosevelt gave a statement of neutrality. However, Japan’s surprise bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941 shook even the isolationists into supporting US intervention in Europe, and the country declared war the following day. Roosevelt couched his rhetoric about the war in American Exceptionalism, professing that fighting was necessary to stop evil, that even in using force, “Americans are not destroyers – we are builders” and winning the war would be a “victory for freedom.