The reality is that the USA is a truly special nation. This is coming from an anarchist.
It should be cliche to say that we're a nation of immigrants. The right doesn't like to say that because they're anti-immigration. The left doesn't like to say that because they want to characterize our entire history as that of white colonization. Being anti-foreigner isn't anything new in human history -- that's not an exception. Colonization isn't new -- that's not an exception.
What is an exception is that much of the history of this country, really the spirit of the foundation of this nation, was built on the ideas of people who left Europe with an understanding of enlightenment values and their descendents who decided, "Let's make this shit happen."
The ideas of John Stuart Mill on free speech, who was born and ultimately died in Europe, were codified by these united States in the First Amendment. The best any European nation has come to embracing those values has been to slightly move the needle toward free speech; but, the UK is still jailing people over jokes and memes. France, where Mill died, imprisoned a comedian for joking about the Charlie Hebdo shooting -- I opposed both the comedian's comments and his jailing. Here, he could have spoken freely.
Nobody should deny that these united States have done horrible things. Also, nobody should deny that these united States have stood for beautiful truths.
Slavery is an indelible blemish on our credibility as a free nation. We shouldn't forget it nor ignore it. Despite a lot of rhetoric, I don't think that we are ignoring it.
What blemish in the history of these united States isn't shared by every nation that's more than two hundred years old?
What we have is a rule of law built by people who deemed it necessary to risk their lives to relocate.
It's hilarious that the majority of people who push against American Exceptionalism are white, well-off people who were born here. It's disturbing that slavish Trump supporters (not voters) are vocally American exceptionalists while missing the point. It's hard to be an American exceptionalist while being against immigration and free, international trade.
This is a nation that respects human rights better than most. Her flaws are plentiful -- that's why I never shut up about bad actors in government. The principles are still there. Things are different here. I'm glad that this nation exists.