Sometimes I think the most honest thing you can say about America is this:
It is a nation of people raised to mistake global supremacy for normal life.
That is why every challenge feels existential to them.
That is why every rival becomes a monster.
That is why every act of resistance anywhere in the world must be narrated as irrational, evil, or fanatical.
Because once you are trained to see domination as baseline, equality itself feels like persecution.
And that is the psychic core of exceptionalism.
Not confidence.
Fragility.