They purposely equate it with "we're best" instead of how it is meant - that our country was founded with the acknowledgment that our freedom and liberty is given to us by God.
Of course such an idea must be torn down in order for the Left to "give us" what they choose to give us (or take away from us).
In reality, the question whether America is exceptional is the question of whether whether the American Revolution, the American Constitution, and American tradition were/are "worth it.” If America is not exceptional, it should not have rebelled against the British crown. You either accept that America is exceptional, or you reject the premise of its founding. The big question is, who judges and by what criteria? If it is the people who want to come here, and the people who are here and appreciate the blessings to be found here, the question is answered in the affirmative. If it people who are here and take their blessings for granted and their dissatisfactions as noteworthy, or if it is people who come in the sprit of invaders, the answer is no.The other way to separate the sheep from the goats is to ask whether they subscribe to the notion, expressed by Theodore Roosevelt, that “It is not the critic who counts . . . the credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena . . . who does actually try to do the deeds.” The sheep will say, “Of course;” the goats will take any occasion to promote the critic and denigrate “the man in the arena.”
The sheep will identify with I, Pencil as an expression of the complexity of an efficient economy, the goats will presume that someone is smart enough to quantify the value of all inputs diffused throughout society which go into making a pencil. The goats cannot tell you the difference between “society” and government; the sheep will subscribe to
SOME writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil - Thomas Paine, Common Sense