The American people are good people? What are they good for? The American people are good people is a claim we hear from conservatives and liberals alike as if it’s an a priori truth written in stone. I’m not willing to support that claim, or even take it seriously; and my question here is what is the historical basis for the claim that the American people are good people?

But before we can even attempt to answer that question, we need to define “the American people”. Just who are the American people, anyway? What’s the definition of the American people? Do we use the White conservative Republican’s definition of the American people, or the White liberal Democrat’s definition of the American people, or a Black man’s or Black woman’s definition of the American people, or a Native American’s definition of the American people, or an Asian American’s or Hispanic American’s definition of the American people? Each of the above groups have a singular definition of the American people. For example, when a MAGA type envisions the American people, he or she sees a sea of white faces. And when a liberal Democrat type envisions the American people, he or she sees a lowering tide of white faces and a rising tide of brown and black faces. And when a progressive envisions the American people, he or she sees beyond White, Black, and Brown.

There’s no historical evidence to suggest that the American people are any better than any other people throughout the world and there’s substantial evidence to suggest that they’re among the most callous, cruel, apathetic, self-absorbed people in the modern world. Indeed the claims that America is the best hope for mankind, a shining city on the hill, and so on, are absurd.