In class today guest lecturer, Dr. Jeff Roche, spoke about the history of the United States in the late 19th century through the 20th century and the ideological changes that occurred during that time period.  

In the late 19th century, The United States was a second-rate foreign power with no standing army. There was little interest from the public in being involved in colonialism. Then this idea of American exceptionalism came to fruition employing the idea that America is a guiding light. That it is a place which every other country in the world should aspire to be like. From American exceptionalism came the idea of Manifest Destiny which stated that the expansion of the United States throughout the American continents was an order from God and was both justified and inevitable. 

Teddy Roosevelt was majorly interested in the expansion of American power. He feared that the American frontier was gone and the way to replace that was with the military. He believed that America should act as police officers of the World. There was major Anti-Imperialist backlash to Teddy Roosevelt’s mindset. Many Americans did not even want to get involved in World War II until Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. To persuade a shift in the public’s mindset the United States government released a lot of propaganda that fueled hate and fear for certain groups.  

By the beginning of the Cold War ideology within the United States had taken a drastic shift. 4/5 Americans would have preferred a nuclear war to living under Communist rule. People started to believe that the United States had the responsibility to protect other countries from falling into darkness and considered themselves the leader of the “free world”. By the end of the 20th century the United States had built the largest military the world has ever seen and now spends over $700 billion yearly to fund it. That is the price of American exceptionalism.