Barton (2001)

I would go further than the author Barton (2001) in regards to discussing American centrism in American schools by emphasizing just how essential self-mythologizing is to American political culture in selling the legitimacy of party platforms that often evade intellectual debate about policy in the public domain and resort to an almost sports spectacle like attitude where voters become cheerleaders for a side rather than objective and insightful observers and responsible voters who make their decisions on a person by person, situational rubric rather than one in which an R or a D by the candidate's name is the sole determinating factor in their elect-ability. Since Newt Gingrich brought the "no-compromise" attitude to DC and the GOP with his Contract with America in the mid 1990's and his contentious attitude with the opposite party, even in bi-partisan committees, the pace of partisan militancy and the lack of room for moderates (who were discredited during the debate over the war in Iraq in the early 2000's and opposed by the GOP top brass and the rise of fabricated news agencies like Fox News that seek to undermine intellectual discourse by selling a top-down "Murdochian" agenda, often fabricated or at the very least embellished with exaggerated claims or manufactured data, to manipulate the average conservative viewer and promote discord and partisan vitriol. It reminds me of the early years of Justinian's reign in Byzantium in the early 7th century and the way the hippodrome racing culture was transferred over into political and neighborhood identities that were deliberately polarizing and divisive and almost took the entire patriarchal society down with their civil war over chariot and horse races. The "exceptionality clause" pushed by Reagan era conservatives was a huge counter-reaction to social history of the 1960's and 1970's and simply can't be ignored as a major trigger for the new kind of nationalism and cultural elitism that defines many Americans abroad and limits their ability to integrate into foreign cultures and provide more effective means of international intelligence for the State Department. American intelligence communities have relied more and more thoroughly on 1st and 2nd generation immigrants to do much of the work infiltrating foriegn cultures and providing intelligence on counter-terrorism and diplomacy with Russia, China and the Middle East. The general population is resting on its laurels (entertained and distracted to death by prosperity and escapist passive activities like ever increasing consumption of mass media and video games) at a very time when "republican forms" of government are being undermined and discredited by Donald J. Trump in unprecedented ways and the GOP remains silent on a plan of action to curb the President's major issues of character and stability and seems unwilling to commit to any checks and balances beyond protecting the party's integrity first and the country's second. Thus, patriotism is in some respects being abducted and monopolized by the very people who tend to have little regard for American traditions of representative republican precedent and wish to let their party rule like a monarch with power that shouldn't be countered unless they happen to be the minority party. The GOP's silence on Trump and complicit acceptance of his incompetence in regards to trade wars is just the latest in a growing number of unprecedented executive overreach that the GOP top-brass was so vehemently opposed to when Obama and Clinton were in office. In regards to histories being taught based on international circumstance and political contexts, Barton makes an interesting point about the avoidance of discussing the past in contentious regions where national identity itself is still in the act of being contested and religious strife continues to be a menacing background element of identity politics. Northern Ireland has been overburdened with religious militants on both sides of the aisle who have seen the territory as a battleground in which lives lost