American exceptionalism has been the backbone of the American system for centuries. The concept has its roots in the writings of Alexis de Tocqueville and holds that the U.S. is an inherently benevolent and unique power. But any sort of objective look at the U.S. would tell you this is absolutely not true.

U.S. history is rife with moral atrocities: slavery, genocide of indigenous people, government supported lynching, segregation, and imperialist domination of Puerto Rico and the Philippines. The C.I.A. even overthrew democratic governments during the Cold War. These are only to name a few of the extensive list.

America is not great today either. The U.S. is one of the most unequal countries in the world, has barely any class mobility, and has one of the most violent and racist police forces in the world. It's also home to about 22 percent of the world's prisoners, despite only being five percent of the world's population. It seems that if we are indeed exceptional, it is not for things we should be proud of.

But American exceptionalism isn't only wrong, it is dangerous. American exceptionalism is designed in such a way to justify American expansion and empire. If the U.S. is inherently good, that means the expansion of its power, no matter how immoral it may seem on the surface, must be good as well. For instance, Manifest Destiny was articulated often as the benevolent U.S. empire taming a savage and wild land. This, of course, lead way to numerous monstrosities, including expansionist wars and the slaughter of Native people.

We can see this in the present day with The War on Terror. The War on Terror is often framed by the U.S. as evil terrorists targeting the Americans because they hate our freedom. Not only is this incorrect, a lot of extremism in the Middle East is in fact due to Western imperialism, it also helps justify horrors committed by the U.S.

During The War on Terror the U.S., lied about civilian casualties, brutalized prisoners, supported repressive regimes and put diplomatic pressure on nations to ignore the illegal actions of the C.I.A. There is also the infamous drone warfare policy which allows the U.S. to kill anyone it deems necessary, including American citizens. As if that wasn't horrifying enough, it has come out that 90 percent of the victims of drone strikes are innocent civilians. And again, the U.S. is able to justify all this by claiming a moral imperative to defeat the forces of evil that hate liberty.

Domestically, American exceptionalism justifies neoliberal austerity policies that increase inequality and hurt the working class. One of the most common justifications of neoliberalism is "there is no other way." In the U.S., people have justified neoliberalism by claiming that our country's apparent uniqueness would mean social programs that exist in other countries simply would not work on our soil.

For instance, in a Democratic primary debate last February, Hillary Clinton, a prominent neoliberal, rejected Bernie Sanders' proposed social programs by claiming,"We are not Denmark. We are the United States of America." As this article points out, what Hillary Clinton was doing in that moment was claiming that the United States' uniqueness meant that nothing other than neoliberalism was possible.

The problem with her answer is, there is no actual substance behind it. Yes, every country is different, but there is no reason to expect that social programs that have worked in multiple countries around the world would simply just not work in the U.S. Yet, because of American exceptionalism, we view this as a good enough justification for policies that continuously marginalize the working class.

American exceptionalism is a flawed and dangerous ideology that has justified all kinds of oppression. Its idealogical power ironically holds the U.S. back from actual progress. If the U.S. is to become the great country so many clearly want it to be, we all need to unequivocally reject its myth.