Americanism: A Theoretical Analysis

In understanding anti-Americanism we must first clarify the ideals articulating quintessential Americanism. Culturally, Americanism calls for individual civil rights and liberties protected by a secular federal government that operates under the absolute rule of law as interpreted from The Constitution by a supreme judicial enterprise whose power is checked and balanced by an executive branch and a legislature. Politically, however, Americanism lacks such consistency, especially with regard to its foreign affairs. From George Washington explicitly warning against geopolitical entanglements in his 1796 farewell address to the CIA of the 1980s supporting Afghan Mujahideen fighters to combat communist expansion, to billions of dollars in funding

to the Palestinian state of occupation called Israel since World War II. How and why did our international stance become so hands-on?
Americanism can be discussed from different perspectives. One approach to the issue is to look to the reformulation of international policy by the United States after the Cold War, gradually constructed during the 1990s. Professors Magubane and Ignacio, in their study American Revolution: From the Electoral Gap to the Banana Republic, argue that the conduct of the 43rd presidential election exposed this emerging American ideology for the American state and American leaders’ efforts to ideologically justify the still newly existing world order. They show that the US mainstream media helped to re-stabilize the unstable equilibrium and that mainstream media accounts can be used to understand this “changing nature of the order of things” (2002: 223). The US media can also be understood as attempting to simultaneously revive US dominance and hegemony while reassuring the public (both at home and abroad) of the stability of the nation and the ideological values upon which America’s global dominance has traditionally rested. Magubane and Ignacio noted that “almost 30 years ago, musician Gil Scott-Heron (1971) warned against the consolidation of media and advertising power and its effect on American politics, arguing that ‘the revolution will not be televised’(2002: 227).” In the 2000 election, a new kind of “American Revolution” directed at full global hegemony, was initiated by the US mainstream media.
Generally speaking, the American media plays an important role in maintaining America’s “unstable equilibrium.” It attempts to show America as belonging to the world’s most powerful and enduring democracy. In 2000’s presidential election campaign, the mainstream American media made efforts to “other” parts of the Florida population, by attacking or criticizing African American voters in Florida. US media pundits seized on familiar images about culture, climate, sexuality and rationality that have traditionally been used to render so-called “Third World” peoples as less intelligent, less evolved and therefore ultimately less human than their Western counterparts. Rhetorical language was employed to render the “Third World” as “other” and used to preserve the notion that these events were unusual and not a national problem (Magubane and Ignacio, 2002: 226). Magubane and Ignacio (2002) throughout their article attempt to clarify how American ideologies of democracy, equality, and freedom are not just core American values but the principal ideological weapons whereby America has authorized its efforts at disciplining, punishing and passing judgement on the “other” – both within and outside the USA. America’s claims to rationality, civilization, enlightenment and modernity rest on its normalization of “othered” countries as chaotic, irrational and illogical. In particular, its claimed adherence to these virtues has provided ideological cover for America’s efforts to “enforce capitalist interests worldwide” (McChesney, 2000: 8).
The principle of the American dream works to equate images of consumerism with democracy, despite the wealth of social scientific evidence that calls into serious question the equation of free markets and democracy.

Because democracy is defined by the American elite as the ability to “maximize profit” in a nation, it is not wholly unfair to suggest that freedom has come to mean the freedom to shop 24 hours a day. Equality boils down to the availability of similar products in similar department stores, and democracy becomes conflated with “consumer choice.” It is now more than three centuries since US policy-makers during the American Revolution in 1776 used slogans urging Americans either to “join or die.” This slogan has only slightly changed into “either you are with us or against us” in the time of George W. Bush. This policy was even clearly stated at the time of the presidency of George Bush Sr, when launching “the new world order” argument in 1989. The Clinton campaign in 1993 started with Al Gore’s geographical policy, reflected in his book Earth in Balance, which gives grounds for global interference in local issues in the name of preventing global environmental destabilization due to unregulated levels of pollution. So, American global policy has been based on unilateral leadership for the last three hundred years. Recent examples of the resulting preparedness to extend political interference in other territories include Panama (1989), Iraq and Kuwait (1990),

Afghanistan (2002) and again Iraq (2002).
The consequences have manifested themselves acutely in many forms of anti-Americanism. A decade ago anti-Americanism appeared clearly to be a problem of utmost national urgency. Opinion surveys overseas revealed increasing rates of hostility toward the United States, especially in the Arab world -- a sentiment expressed all too dramatically by the growing prominence of Muslim extremists and terrorist groups as well as immense crowds scorching American flags in protest. Unsurprisingly, many Americans saw these developments as serious threats. In a 2008 survey conducted by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, when U.S. citizens were asked to rank the importance of Washington's goals, most placed a higher priority on restoring the country's standing in the world than on protecting jobs, preventing the spread of nuclear weapons, or combating terrorism.
However, later that year when Barack Obama replaced George W. Bush as president, the perceived crisis of anti-Americanism began to fade away. Obama pledged to engage with foreign publics and repair the United States' image abroad, an effort illustrated most significantly with his June 2009 Cairo address to the Muslim world. Opinion surveys in the Arab world recorded a surge of more positive attitudes toward the United States early in Obama’s first term, mostly in response to the popular new president. But this did not last long. Obama's relatively conventional approach to foreign policy, especially in regard to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, proved a disappointment to Arab publics, and sharp criticisms quickly resurfaced.
The Arab Spring in 2011 ignited expectations that a restructuring in domestic politics would help the region move past its reflexive anti-Americanism and stop blaming others for its hardships. Pundits marveled at the absence of burning American flags and anti-American chants among the masses demonstrating in Cairo's Tahrir Square; for once, it seemed, the anger was not about the United States. But like Obama's appeal in the Middle East, this hope also proved temporary, as Islamist parties swept elections in Egypt and Tunisia, violent protests targeted U.S. embassies across the Middle East after an anti-Islamic video was posted on YouTube, and four American diplomats were murdered by jihadists in Libya.
It is now clear that even major changes, such as Bush's departure, Obama's support for some of the Arab revolts of 2011, the death of Osama bin Laden, and the U.S.

withdrawal from Iraq, have had appallingly little effect on Arab attitudes toward the United States. Anti-Americanism might have died down momentarily, but it is once again flowering fiercely. Militant Islamism is on the rise (most emphatically in the inception of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS), and jihadist subcultures are expanding; and the liberal and secular factions that might have seemed like natural American allies are now voicing some of the loudest complaints: they are angry at the United States when its military intervenes in the region (in Libya) and when it does not (in Syria), and they are outraged when Washington supports democratic elections (in Egypt, where Islamists won) and when it does not (in Bahrain, for

example).
After decades (or in some cases more than a century) of European political and economic dominance, Middle Eastern publics came to see national independence and cultural authenticity (often coded as Islamic law and practice) as inseparable components of what they call "democracy." Polls show that although they strongly support free elections as the best system, if they had a choice between elections held under conditions of foreign occupation or an indigenous dictatorship, a substantial number would choose the latter hands down. After World War II, the United States gradually supplanted France and Britain as the major power in the region. Fairly or not, many Middle Easterners transferred their grievances toward and distrust of Paris and London to Washington. Initially, under FDR and Eisenhower, the U.S. showed substantial sympathy for local nationalist aspirations and urged the end of colonialism, lest local populations turn to communism as a means of throwing off the foreigners. Roosevelt met with the Moroccan sultan in 1943 and encouraged Morocco's independence from France. Eisenhower intervened against the conspiracy by Britain, France, and Israel to take down Egyptian nationalist leader Gamal Abdul Nasser in 1956, proclaiming that their war of aggression endangered the ideals of the United Nations. Eisenhower also twisted the arms of the French to decolonize in Algeria, threatening to call in Paris's substantial postwar debt to the U.S; but where Eisenhower feared an onslaught by the left, he did not scruple to intervene in a neo-imperialist way himself, as he did in overthrowing the elected government of Iran in 1953 over the oil nationalization issue—something for which Iranians have never forgiven the U.S. He also invaded Lebanon in 1958 to forestall a mostly imaginary demarche by Arab nationalists or communists.
When asked, Middle Eastern publics are not shy in saying precisely what they mind about the United States. Before 2003, it was what they considered to be a foreign policy criminally slanted against Palestinian victims of Israeli expansionism. After 2003, it was the Palestinian issue plus what they see as the brutal American occupation of Iraq. Linzer writes of 2004, "Those polled said their opinions were shaped by U.S. policies, rather than by values or culture. When asked, 'What is the first thought when you hear ‘America’? respondents overwhelmingly said: 'Unfair foreign policy.' And when asked what the United States could do to improve its image in the Arab world, the most frequently provided answers were 'Stop supporting Israel' and 'Change your Middle East policy.'

Works Cited
Cole, Juan. “Anti-Americanism: It's the Policies.” American Historical Review. Religion and Philosophy Collection.
Corstange, Daniel. “Anti-American Behavior in the Middle East: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Lebanon.” The Journal of Politics, vol. 78, no. 1, 2016, pp. 311–325.
Lynch, M. The Persistence of Arab Anti-Americanism: In the Middle East, Haters Gonna Hate. Council on Foreign Relation, 2013.
Magubane, Z. and Ignacio, Noelle (2002) From the Electoral Gap to the Banana Republic, Cultural Studies Critical Methodology 2(2): 222–44.
McChesney, R.W. (2000) Rich Media, Poor Democracy: Communication in Dubious Times. New York: New Press.