Scrabble?! DECLINISTS

Definitions of DECLINISTS in various dictionaries:

American exceptionalism is an ideology holding the United States as unique among nations in positive or negative connotations, with respect to its ideas of democracy and personal freedom.Though the concept has no formal definition, there are some themes common to various conceptions of the idea. One is the history of the United States is different from other nations. In this view, American exceptionalism stems from the American Revolution, becoming what political scientist Seymour Martin Lipset called "the first new nation" and developing the American ideology of "Americanism", based on liberty, egalitarianism, individualism, republicanism, democracy, and laissez-faire economics. This ideology itself is often referred to as "American exceptionalism." Another theme is the idea that the U.S. has a unique mission to transform the world. Abraham Lincoln stated in the Gettysburg address (1863), Americans have a duty to ensure "government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." Another theme is the sense the United States' history and mission give it a superiority over other nations. The theory of the exceptionalism of the U.S. has developed over time and can be traced to many sources. French political scientist and historian Alexis de Tocqueville was the first writer to describe the country as "exceptional" in 1831 and 1840. The actual phrase "American Exceptionalism" was originally coined by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin as a critique of a revisionist faction of American Communists who argued that the American political climate was unique, making it an 'exception' to certain elements of Marxist theory. U.S. President Ronald Reagan is often credited with having crystallized this ideology in recent decades. Political scientist Eldon Eisenach argues in the twenty-first century American exceptionalism has come under attack from the postmodern left as a reactionary myth: "The absence of a shared purposes ratified in the larger sphere of liberal-progressive public policy....beginning with the assumption of American exceptionalism as a reactionary myth."