I love the people of the United States; our shared values; our shared culture. I view the United States as more than just an ideology as outlined in our constitution but also a distinct group of people with a distinct culture with a shared past and a shared future.
This is why I bristle when people get upset by terms like American exceptionalism. Yes, America has a unique culture. America is also objectively superlative, whether it's our wealth, military capability, longevity as a democracy, etc. Uniqueness + superlative = exceptional. When people disagree, I'm left wondering what they disagree with. Either they disagree with the superlatives, in which case, I question their grasp on reality. Or they question the uniqueness of American culture, at which point my social monkey brain tells me to shun them.
I assume nearly every culture believes that they are uniquely superlative in some way though; ironically this seems like a highly conserved quality of human psychology.
If anything, a lot of the praise of America seems to be the federation of culture; I’ve heard it said the that it is not one country, but fifty different ones.
This is why I bristle when people get upset by terms like American exceptionalism. Yes, America has a unique culture. America is also objectively superlative, whether it's our wealth, military capability, longevity as a democracy, etc. Uniqueness + superlative = exceptional. When people disagree, I'm left wondering what they disagree with. Either they disagree with the superlatives, in which case, I question their grasp on reality. Or they question the uniqueness of American culture, at which point my social monkey brain tells me to shun them.