Peggy Noonan recently editorialized about the great American historian David McCullough. Her excellent piece quoted McCullough saying “(h)istory teaches, reinforces what we believe in, what we stand for, and what we ought to be willing to stand up for.” Noonan adds her insight to McCullough’s. She offers “when you see a decline in public standards that were once fairly high, when you see our public life become rougher and uglier, you can accept it, even go with it, or you can fight, you can push hard against what’s pushing you.”
This year, as we mark the 24th anniversary of 9/11/01 terror attacks, the advice of McCullough and Noonan are particularly timely.
For generations, “American exceptionalism” described a nation that defied precedent. The United States doubled average life expectancy in little more than a century, built the world’s most dynamic economy, and offered unparalleled personal freedom and widely shared prosperity. Yet today, we are losing the cultural narrative that once sustained this idea. Rising distrust, social fragmentation, and poorly-taught history obscure the extraordinary progress we have made. To reclaim confidence in America’s promise, we must confront the forces that are eroding our shared story.
At the dawn of the 20th century, global life expectancy hovered around 32 years, reflecting widespread infectious disease, poor sanitation, and limited medical knowledge (Roser, Ortiz-Ospina, & Ritchie, 2019). By 2019, that figure had more than doubled to over 72 years worldwide, a historic achievement rooted not only in medical breakthroughs such as vaccines and antibiotics but also in vast reductions in extreme poverty and dramatic improvements in nutrition. Over the past century, the share of the global population living in absolute poverty has plummeted from more than 80% to less than 10%, while access to more reliable food supplies and better diets has fueled healthier lives and stronger resilience against disease (World Bank, 2020; FAO, 2021).
Exceptionalism was never just material, it was civic. The United States was unique in uniting a people around shared constitutional principles. Yet civic literacy is collapsing. The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in 2022 showed only 22% of eighth-graders reached “Proficient” in civics, while just 13% met that threshold in U.S. history, the lowest recorded (NCES, 2023). But it’s not just eighth-graders whose civic literacy is poor. Just a few days ago, U.S. Senator Tim Kaine claimed our rights come from government rather than merely being recognized by government, in what historian and professor Jonathan Turley called “constitutional blasphemy.” If citizens do not understand their own founding ideals, how can they sustain a culture of liberty? When students (and Senators) fail to learn the story of self-government, we lose the ability to tell a unifying national narrative.
Confidence in American institutions, from Congress to the press to organized religion, hovers near record lows. Gallup polling shows only 28% of Americans say they have “a great deal or quite a lot” of confidence in major institutions, a four-year stretch below 30% unprecedented in modern history (Gallup, 2024). When people no longer trust referees of truth, partisanship fills the void. Without faith in shared institutions, our civic compact frays.
America’s future depends on its youth, but today’s young people report alarming levels of despair. A 2023 CDC survey found 30% of teen girls considered suicide, and 57% reported persistent sadness or hopelessness, the highest rates ever recorded (CDC, 2023). Though some measures have stabilized since the pandemic, a pervasive mental-health crisis fuels generational pessimism. For a nation built on optimism, this trend threatens our capacity to believe in tomorrow.
American universities bear significant responsibility for the collapse of civic literacy in the United States, as courses on constitutional principles, the Federalist Papers, and the responsibilities of citizenship have been crowded out in favor of ideological frameworks that frame society primarily through the lens of “oppressors versus oppressed.” A 2016 survey by the Annenberg Public Policy Center found that only 26% of Americans could name all three branches of government, and subsequent studies show civic knowledge among college students continues to decline despite higher levels of enrollment (Annenberg Public Policy Center, 2016; ACTA, 2021). According to one poll, nearly one in five Americans aged 18–29 hold a somewhat or completely positive view of Osama bin Laden, underscoring how such educational gaps can cultivate distorted sympathies rather than informed understanding of historical actors and civic values. Instead of equipping graduates with a grounding in civic institutions, universities increasingly promote critical theory and identity-based curricula that often portray American democracy as fundamentally flawed. This ideological shift erodes the shared civic knowledge essential for a functioning republic, replacing it with division and grievance rather than unity and responsibility.
Perhaps no challenge more starkly reveals cultural decay than the rise of antisemitism. In 2024, the Anti-Defamation League documented record-high incidents of harassment, vandalism, and assault targeting Jews (ADL, 2025). The FBI reports that a majority of religiously motivated hate crimes in the United States target Jewish communities (FBI, 2023). America’s exceptional promise has always rested on pluralism, people of every creed flourishing under one Constitution. The normalization of antisemitism corrodes that foundation.
Taken together, these trends explain why so many Americans no longer see their country as exceptional. We have achieved miracles, nearly doubling life expectancy, lifting hundreds of millions into the middle class, leading the world in innovation, but those triumphs are drowned out by headlines of despair, distrust, and division. We have allowed ourselves to forget that America’s story is not one of perfection, but of progress.
Exceptionalism was never about boasting superiority; it was about recognizing responsibility. A nation blessed with such abundance has a duty to educate its citizens, defend its pluralism, and invest in the next generation. The objective historical reality, despite our shortcomings, is America has been the greatest force for peace, progress, and shared prosperity ever known. If we do not tell this story clearly, others will rewrite it for us, and not in our favor.
The real danger is not that America has ceased to be exceptional, but that we have ceased to believe it. We must reclaim the narrative by speaking honestly: yes, we face crises of excess, civics, trust, safety, and pluralism. But these challenges are precisely the kind that Americans have historically overcome. If we tell the truth about both our achievements and our failings, we can rebuild confidence in the American idea. The world still looks to us, not because we are perfect, but because we are capable of renewal.
