But my reaction to Mamdani's choice to use American exceptionalism, I found a little curious.

Like, I think I'm pretty open about being someone who is pretty sympathetic to a certain

kind of left-wing patriotism. And even me, I was like, I tend not to think of America in those

terms, and I tend not to argue in those

terms, and I kind of think the argument Zoran didn't make, didn't need to be framed in those terms,

in this particular case either. Well, I mean, I think the scandal of this speech is to say

America is exceptional, just not in the way that our enemies say that it is.

I think there actually is a very strong argument for this. If you take the tradition we're

describing, the tradition of contestation, and the tradition of a nation of asylum seekers,

there isn't another country that's founded on that principle. That's true, you know.

If you believe that that's true, and if you are, as Zohran is doing, trying to resituate

that principle as the core principle of this country, not just that everyone is created equal,

but that this is a country that's founded by people who didn't have a place

elsewhere. That is exceptional. That's not the nature of any European country. It's not the

nature of any post-colonial country. It's really not the nature of any other country. I think it is

a scandalous assurgeon for the left because we have an instinctive aversion to American

exceptionalism as such, but to the right because it's articulating what is exceptional about

this country in a way that offends their principles and offends their priors. But I do think

there's an argument to be made for it. And I think that this

speech does a pretty good job of articulating what that exceptionalism might be. I do love this

country, but I love it in a very strange way. I accept its flaws. I see them. I have a lot of

contempt for the people who try to wield love for this country for exclusionary ends, for persecutory ends. But I nonetheless, there's something about it that I can't, like I can't rid myself of. I think sometimes about how European intellectuals of the 20th century, for the most part, they couldn't possibly be

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