American Exceptionalism is well-known and beyond dispute, though, of course, it cuts both ways. We are the land of the free and the home of the brave. We lead the world in spending on health care, by a country mile. We lead the world in death by constitutionally guaranteed firearms. Military spending, we’re exceptional by a landslide, numero uno mundial. It’s not even a contest if you put our budget up against the total of the next five miltary big spenders. Though not among the very worst nations for infant mortality, our numbers are impressively high considering our great wealth. We have a deadly, ongoing partisan war over basic health precautions during a deadly plague, for fuck’s sake, and a raging debate over gathering, frequently devastating climate catastrophe we are all witnessing. We have Texas Justice.

Here’s a professor, a constitutional scholar, describing our remarkable, indeed, Exceptional, constitutional democracy. He lays out the unamended anti-democratic traditions enshrined in our original, elite-protecting constitution, blueprint for the most anti-majority democracy in the modern world, by design of the sainted Framers. The Electoral College and non-proportional apportionment of Senators, check it out, fascinating food for thought.