Mamdani: There is a term so often used to describe our nation and those who have shaped it: American exceptionalism.
American exceptionalism, the conventional wisdom tells us, makes our freedom a little more free, is how we dug the Erie Canal and irrigated the West, is why children in far away lands grow up dreaming of one day moving here.
And yet the irony is that the story of America has so often been written by those who were told by others with power and influence and wealth that they were anything but exceptional.
For generation after generation, we have been told that when the world has sent its people to our shores, it has not sent its best. It sent Puritans and Sikhs and Quakers and Muslims and Jewish people who were banished for praying the wrong way, worshipping the wrong Gods, angering the wrong people. It sent peasants and serfs from who were treated as less because they hardly owned clothes, let alone land. It sent immigrants for whom power was something someone else had.
We are told that America is exceptional because we are richer, stronger, more powerful than everyone else.
The truth, my friends, is that America is exceptional because here, nothing is fixed into place. The frontier may be closed, we may have walked on the moon, but the work of fulfilling the values first enshrined in the Declaration of Independence-that work endures, my friends, and it belongs to us all.
It belongs too to our newest Americans, those standing here with me today, all of whom were recently naturalized. Nearly a decade ago, I too felt what you feel— the joy of no longer being just a New Yorker, but an American too.
@KingBeauregard@Wilson__Valdez@WajahatAli It was a prison, Israel controlled entry and exit, imports and exports, and shot Palestinians who peacefully protested by marching toward the fence surrounding Gaza.
Also you’re the antisemite, most Jews in the US don’t support your evil regime. Assuming they do is anti-Semitic
@KingBeauregard@Wilson__Valdez@WajahatAli Israel put Palestinians in an open air prison, didn’t let them leave, shot them during peaceful protests, funded hamas, killed anti Hamas opp leaders, starved Palestinians. Illegal settlers were and are killing and raping in the West Bank. Israel was genocidal long before oct 7
@KingBeauregard@Wilson__Valdez@WajahatAli Wait shouldn’t you support Fetterman then? That’s your guy?! He supports all the same things you do.
LMAO oh you’re a genocide denier too? Damn, no wonder you support Susan Collins. Don’t try to act better than Platner when you stand on a mountain on Palestinian corpses
@KingBeauregard@Wilson__Valdez@WajahatAli Cool I love arguing with republicans
Fetterman only proves that you need to have brain damage to be a conservative. But I concede I overlooked one red flag: his Zionism
Votes in the senate can do much more evil than a stupid tattoo ever could
@KingBeauregard@Wilson__Valdez@WajahatAli Against one candidate is for another in a 2 person race LOL just own it and start saying you’d vote for Collins with your chest. I’d respect you more for it. Rn you sound like the stupid leftists who didn’t vote for Kamala
@KingBeauregard@Wilson__Valdez@WajahatAli NPC dialogue again
You’re advocating for the republican to win
Who:
Supports genocide
Killed women through abortion bans
Pro-money in politics
In favor of our current healthcare system
Anti housing
Protecting the Fat Orange Pedophile who hid the Epstein files
Voted for Iraq
@KingBeauregard@Wilson__Valdez@WajahatAli Back to NPC dialogue. You can’t defend your position of supporting the Republican Party to spite true progressives who dare to challenge the establishment, so you go back to your dialogue tree arguments that have voters in Maine clearly don’t care about
@KingBeauregard@Wilson__Valdez@WajahatAli So your idea is
(1) fuck the voters preference and just throwing a random “progressive” (who?) in the race. Killing enthusiasm for voting generally
(2) the progressive builds a campaign team, policy platform, name id, ground game from now to Nov?
you want Collins to win
@KingBeauregard@Wilson__Valdez@WajahatAli So we should continue to vote for her? You realize how stupid that sounds? Or are you so low iq that you only have NPC dialogue responses?
@KingBeauregard@Wilson__Valdez@WajahatAli Yeah no, There is no comparison between planter and Susan Collins of all people. The woman who constantly is “concerned” with the evil shit trump is doing but actively enables it, supports Israel, and appointed kevanaugh. The worst democrat is 100x better than the best republican
@Wilson__Valdez@WajahatAli Yeah sure a “progressive” who is actively trying to help the republican win. The same republican who is responsible for Roe v. Wade being overturned. Very good ally to women I’m sure