Suppose you checked your newsfeed one morning to see that a group of Syrian militia members had kidnapped democratically-elected Bashar al-Assad (who received 89% of the vote in his country), or that North Korean rebels has kidnapped democratically-elected Kim Jong-un (who received 100% of the vote in his country).
Related: High Court Declares Gov. Whitmer’s Emergency Powers Un-Constitutional.
A lot of people would be pretty happy about that. You might even be happy about it. Why? Because those guys are totalitarian thugs, who believe that no aspect of the lives of their subjects should be beyond their complete control, who believe their whims should have the force of law, and who use their power to benefit people they like or care about at the expense of people they don’t, all while claiming to be ‘doing what’s best’ for the people whose lives they’re wrecking.
But isn’t that also a pretty accurate description of Michigan’s democratically elected governor, Gretchen Whitmer (who received only 53% of the vote in her state)?
Or, for that matter, of our own governor, Chris Sununu (who also received only 53% of the vote here)?
To be clear, I’m not advocating that anyone be kidnapped anywhere, for any reason. But it strikes me as odd that an action that would be cheered so heartily if it happened somewhere else would be condemned so harshly if it happened here; that whether it would seen as heroic or heinous would depend on only where it occurs, rather than on why.
Perhaps this is what people mean when they talk about ‘American exceptionalism’ — that it’s okay for certain kinds of things to happen (with our blessing, and often with our assistance) anywhere except in America.
