Sublime

Upon Wilson’s election, some twenty thousand Filipinos gathered in Manila to celebrate—the paper called him “a modern Moses.” They had reason for optimism. The 1912 Democratic Party platform condemned imperialism as “an inexcusable blunder, which has involved us in enormous expense, brought us weakness instead of strength, and laid our nation open

As an adult, Wilson shared none of Roosevelt’s lust for violent conquest. For his secretary of state he chose William Jennings…

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American power should be used to protect and spread American principles. At the root of this position is the view that the United States has an obligation to itself and the world to advocate and defend the moral principles on which it was founded, and the belief that behaving like any other country and defending its economic and strategic interests

a state managed by experts dedicated to solutions without an ideology would do for the country what it did for the war: it would breed success. But of course, this became a principle, the principle became a belief, and the belief became an ideology. The ideology created a class who felt entitled to govern and who were believed to be suitable to gov

The United States, as the global leader between 1950 and 2000, had a complex and ambiguous attitude toward decolonization, convergence, and the rising voice of developing countries in world affairs. In the early post–World War II period, the United States championed decolonization. This fit well with the U.S. aim of replacing Britain and France at

Bill and Hillary Clinton were policy wonks who mashed together idealism with business-friendly ideas for economic growth. Instead of speaking for the working class, the Clintons spoke about equipping workers to rise into the professional class through education and training. Their assumption was that all Americans could do what they did and be like