Like Everyone Else

So, with the general election for President of the United States (among other things) being tomorrow, there has been quite a bit of rhetoric about how this is the "make or break" election that will forever define the nation going forward. Partisans on both sides seek to rally their supporters with the threat that if they don't make the one correct choice, their nation, as they knew it or as they want it to be, will be forever lost.

I don't know that there is any problem with the concept of "America," writ large, that cannot be solved by simply accepting that Americans aren't in any way intrinsically superior to anyone else on the planet. The population is not naturally smarter, more ethical, harder working et cetera, than anyone else. Americans are absolutely average specimens of humanity, and that's okay. The history of the United States may be full of exceptions to the rules as otherwise laid down by history, but the nation is not unique in this. There are many places around the world that are exceptions to some or another otherwise consistent rule. The degree to which there is a desire in the United States to predicate national worth on being genuinely exceptional people seems to produce more anxiety than actual good.