Peter Lavelle: Hillary Clinton as Stalinist

Hillary Clinton’s address to the American Legion – a veteran’s organization – was anything but exceptional. She repeated the tired and endless platitudes about how America must lead the world, while never once mentioning the countless number of disasters suffered by people in far away places because of Washington arrogance, greed, and ineptitude.

Hillary Clinton said, “We are an exceptional nation because we are an indispensable nation. In fact, we are the indispensable nation.” This sophomoric binary and empty polemic in reality means every other country in the world is dispensable. A more honest, though completely immoral, rendition of Clinton’s words would be “we rule because we rule, we rule because we are not held to any standard beyond our own self-defined interests.” There is a long and tragic history of countries that were deemed dispensable and disposed of by Washington’s “American exceptionalism.”

Of course I am not saying anything new. The exceptional cruelty of American foreign policy is well known and documented (though don’t expect the west’s incredibly unexceptionable corporate mainstream media to inform you about this). What is of interest is the origin of the term “American exceptionalism.” It doesn’t have an American pedigree – it is Joseph Stalin who coined the phrase. Hillary Clinton and Stalin have a lot in common.

Stalin invented the phrase in 1927 after the American communist leader Jay Lovestone tried to convince him American capitalism was somehow different, so different that it simply didn’t apply to Marxist analysis and (probably) to Stalin’s own philosophical “mastery.” Not a wise move. Anyway, Lovestone would later spend his later days collaborating with American intelligence against the Soviet Union. Nonetheless, the phrase “American exceptionalism” came into being. Decades later a small cabal of American neoconservatives (many ex-communists) would revive what would be the canon of Washington’s worldview.

Stalin would admire Hillary: she is secretive (though she can’t keep a secret if her life depended on it), she is an ideologue with little time or interest in morality, she ruthlessly destroys anyone or any idea that gets in her way, she believes in machine politics, she applies whatever means necessary to promote herself, friendship is an alien concept, and she is indifferent to the judgment of history.

Stalin would also appreciate Hillary’s words: “Defending American exceptionalism should always be above politics.” Indeed! There can be no debate. Once the leader or establishment decides, all must follow! Or face the consequences. This is the sad reality of American political discourse today.

Russia shed its Soviet exceptionalism mentality and ideology a quarter of a century ago. It has recovered from this messianic malaise. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, has employed McCarthy-like tactics at home to ensure American exceptionalism will continue to ravage the world. The Russian people survived Stalin – I fear for the cost people near and far will have to endure and exceptional Hillary presidency.

Peter Lavelle is host of RT’s political debate program CrossTalk. His views may or may not reflect those of his employer.