Partisan Patriotism in the American Presidency: American Exceptionalism, Issue Ownership, and the Age of Trump

Abstract

This study employs issue ownership theory to examine the partisan dynamics surrounding the idea of American exceptionalism in presidential discourse. We conducted a content analysis of invocations of American exceptionalism in all major U.S. presidential addresses—domestic and foreign—from the end of World War II through Trump’s 1st year in office. We find that even though Republicans have traditionally claimed ownership of American exceptionalism, patterns in presidential discourse tell a very different story. Specifically, our results show (a) in domestic contexts, Republican and Democratic presidents were very similar in their invocations of American exceptionalism during the Cold War but that Democrats have held a substantial advantage over Republicans throughout the post–Cold War era, including on issue areas that Republicans are perceived to “own” (e.g. national security); (b) in foreign contexts, Democrats have been much more outspoken in their embrace of American exceptionalism throughout both the Cold War and post–Cold War; and (c) President Trump has diverged significantly, both in substance and frequency, from his Democratic and Republican predecessors in his invocation of American exceptionalism. We reflect on the implications of these findings on our broader understanding of issue—and trait—ownership, presidential discourse, and American exceptionalism in American politics.

Notes

¹ Similarly, former New York City mayor Rudolph Guiliani emphasized in 2015, “I do not believe, and I know this is a horrible thing to say, but I do not believe that the president loves America” (Bever, 2015, para. 8). Likewise, former vice president Dick Cheney stated during an interview in 2015, “If you go back 70 years … you’ll find presidents of both parties from FDR and Harry Truman and Jack Kennedy to Nixon and Reagan and the Bushes and forward … shared a basic fundamental proposition … that the U.S. did have a role to play in the world as the exceptional nation. Barack Obama clearly doesn’t believe that” (Hensch, 2015, para. 4).

² Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton had also made American exceptionalism a central theme in her campaign, emphasizing during one of her campaign rallies in 2016, “I talk a lot about how America is an exceptional nation. We’re not exceptional just because of the size of our military or the size of our economy. We’re exceptional because of the generosity and ingenuity of our people” (Clinton, 1996, p. 24).

³ For examples of each type of American exceptionalism, see the appendix.

⁴ Although we examined a census of speeches during this aggregated period, we did run statistical tests as predictors of potential future and past speeches by U.S. presidents. In the case of domestic speeches, there was no statistical difference in the breadth of invocations (i.e., percentage of speeches), χ²(1, N = 350) = .17, p = .68, but there was a marginal difference in depth of invocations (i.e., average invocations per speech) with Democrats invoking American exceptionalism (M = 3.67, SD = 4.69) more than Republicans (M = 2.87, SD = 3.71), t(348) = 1.80, p = .07.

⁵ No inferential statistics were run within the two geopolitical periods, because we examined a census of speeches within each period.

⁶ Again, we ran statistical tests within this aggregated period as predictors of potential future and past speeches by U.S. presidents. In the case of foreign speeches, we found a significant statistical difference in breadth of invocations: χ²(1, N = 553) = 29.45, p < .001. Similarly, we found a statistical difference in depth of invocation with Democratic presidents invoking American exceptionalism (M = 1.13, SD = 1.84) significantly more than Republicans (M = .48, SD = 1.11), t(551) = 4.98, p < .001.

⁷ In the case of foreign speeches, we compared only Donald Trump’s 1st year of speeches to his four most recent predecessors because such speeches were far less common in the Cold War era and the numbers far too low—and in many cases nonexistent—for an accurate comparison. It wasn’t until George H. W. Bush took office that joint press conferences became commonplace in a president’s speech repertoire.

⁸ In the cases of Gerald Ford, Lyndon Johnson, and Harry Truman, who took over the office from presidents who either died or left office, we sampled their 1st full year of speeches starting on the date they took office.

⁹ We did not include mutual themes of American exceptionalism in this figure, because they are very uncommonly invoked in domestic speeches.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jason Gilmore

Jason Gilmore (Ph.D., University of Washington, 2013) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Languages, Philosophy, and Communication Studies at Utah State University. His research interests include presidential discourse; strategic political communication and public diplomacy; media effects; and global communication.

Charles M. Rowling

Charles M. Rowling (Ph.D., University of Washington, 2012) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Nebraska at Kearney. His research interests include strategic political communication; media and U.S. foreign policy; framing and public opinion; and national identity and international conflict.