American Exceptionalism? We’ve Been Comparing the US to the Wrong Countries
We now correlate with the form of presidentialism found in Latin America, the Philippines, and Africa — hyper-presidentialism
The United States is often defined by its exceptionalism. There are two dimensions of American exceptionalism, how Americans themselves view the United States in the world, and its idiosyncratic political characteristics that makes it stand apart. The first dimension sees Americans believing that the United States has a special purpose and a unique destiny. Even as late as 2018, a Gallup Poll found that 78% of Americans agreed with the statement “the U.S. has a unique character that makes it the greatest country in the world”.
The second dimension of exceptionalism is the belief that the US is so distinct in its political development and institutions that it is difficult to compare to other advanced democracies. While contrasting the US to Sweden, France, the UK, Germany, Canada, and Australia has highlighted the “exceptionalness” of American political institutions and culture, perhaps that has been the wrong set of peers.
The last five years have illuminated numerous trends that further differentiate the US from the usual comparable suspects in Western Europe. In that police lineup, it is hard to mistake the US for Germany, Sweden, or Canada. The emergence of the Trump brand of populism, growing use of political violence and intimidation, erosion of governing norms, and increasing executive nepotism and cronyism are notable. The wide-ranging and consistent attacks on the press, state and local powers, the bureaucracy, the election system, the postal service, science, civil society, and checks and balances are inconsistent with most political trends in Western Europe, Canada, Australia, and Japan.
Yet these features of the American political system seem less novel if we consider a different pool of cases for comparison. President Trump’s habitual efforts to grab power at the expense of Congress and the judiciary, along with increasing partisan support to do so, point to a troubling trend in American politics. Rather than comparison with advanced democracies, these trends puts the United States more politically comparable to regimes in Latin America, Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia, Subsaharan Africa, and the former Soviet Union. Trump and his followers’ support of a hyper-presidential model of executive power denotes a significant change in the political culture and norms of the American political system.
Presidentialism has always been one of the primary constitutional characteristics the United States does not share with other advanced democracies. The vast majority of advanced democracies have parliamentary/prime ministerial systems. Only Cyprus stands out as another purely presidential system among the advanced democracies. The French president is fairly powerful and has wide latitude but is in reality a semi-presidential system with both a president and prime minister where the French president’s political power and influence over domestic affairs typically comes from their own political party’s operational majority in the National Assembly. Presidentialism is found in Latin America, Africa, and Asia rather than in advanced democracies. Nonetheless, US presidentialism has typically been distinct from the other presidential systems by possessing a strong system of checks and balances where the legislature, judiciary, and state governments restrained executive power.
One of the most notable features of American political development since the late 19th century has been increasing presidential and executive power in both foreign and domestic policy. By the 1960s, this had become an “imperial presidency” whose power had growth exponentially due to World Wars, the Great Depression, and the emergence of the national security state of the Cold War. While presidential power and latitude had increased, it was generally with the legislative support or acquiescence of Congress. Fundamentally, the US still maintained, with large public support, the idea of separation of powers and checks and balances. The Trump era has demonstrated the erosion of such public support. The willingness of partisans to openly spurn separation of powers in favor of presidential authority is a remarkable change. A 2019 Pew poll showed 43% of Republicans open to the idea of more presidential authority at the expense of Congress and the courts. Only 16% of Democrats favored such changes. It should be noted that under Obama in 2016, 29% of democrats were in favor of such reforms. Partisanship and the current office holder are clearly is linked to such preferences, but the overall trend is disturbing and much stronger under Trump.
This trend correlates far more appropriately with the form of presidentialism found in Latin America, the Philippines, and Africa — hyper-presidentialism where presidents, once elected, are mostly free of legislative and judicial constraints and have almost autocratic authority over the state. President Trump has more brazenly and frequently suggested much broader power for himself and the presidency more than any previous executive even going as far to say “I have the right to do whatever I want as president”. Trump’s assertion of his power falls afoul of not only the constitution but most presidential norms of behavior. There has also been increasing partisan support of Trump’s attacks against Democratic state governors and public health agencies. Trump supporters have used these attacks to discredit and even ignore public health directives under the threat of COVID-19.
Hyper-presidentialism and the erosion of checks and balances between the branches of the federal government and between the federal and state governments is perhaps the most defining feature of the Trump presidency and its impact on political norms and institutions. The increasingly polarized portion of the public that supports such centralization fundamentally challenges longstanding norms and institutions of American governance. It also importantly illustrates that the United States looks less and less like other advanced democracies. Hyper-presidentalism, higher levels of economic inequality, erosion of rule of law, and other phenomena occurring in the US are found more notably in Eastern Europe, Latin America, Africa, and Asia than our normal peers. When the Republicans issued no platform at their 2020 convention and instead adopted the statement that “the Republican Party has and will continue to enthusiastically support the President’s America-first agenda”, they were capitulating to a personalist model of party politics more in tune with what is seen in political parties and presidential campaigns in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. As Tom Wheeler suggests, the Republican Party has adopted a mantra of “L’etat, c’est moi” with Trump as the new Sun King. Rather than Germany or Canada, perhaps Brazil, the Philippines, Russia, and Hungary are more apt peers for comparison after all.
Paul Simon Adams, Ph.D. is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg and specializes in Comparative Politics, US Foreign Policy, and International Relations.
