As Donald Trump’s tumultuous second term unfolds in the White House in early 2026, the United States finds itself at a peculiar historical juncture. The nation that once styled itself as a “shining city upon a hill” – a phrase borrowed from Puritan settler John Winthrop and repurposed across centuries to justify US global leadership – now appears to many observers as something far darker. Something that goes against the US grain. But Trump does not represent a break from US exceptionalism; rather, he embodies its long-repressed shadow side: the unvarnished assertion of supremacy, entitlement, and unilateral power that has always lurked beneath and within the liberal, democratic veneer.He is the hangman previously veiled by the priest’s cassock.US exceptionalism is diverseUS exceptionalism has never been a monolithic doctrine. In its benign form, it posits the US as a unique force for good – a beacon of liberty, democracy, and innovation destined to lead by example and, when necessary, by force. This narrative sustained the postwar liberal international order, with institutions like the United Nations, NATO, and the Bretton Woods system framed as extensions of US values rather than instruments of dominance. Foundations such as Rockefeller and Ford, along with think tanks like the Council on Foreign Relations, played key roles in normalising this vision, often through transnational elite networks that insulated US power from domestic and international critique.Yet exceptionalism has always carried a darker twin: the belief that America, as an exceptional nation, is exempt from the rules that bind others. This “exemptionalism” has justified interventions from the Monroe Doctrine to the Iraq War, racial hierarchies at home and abroad, and an economic order that privileges US interests above global equity. Trump’s rise exposes and amplifies this shadow. His “America First” slogan strips away the multilateral gloss, revealing raw plutocratic self-interest cloaked in populist rhetoric.Exceptionalism without hypocrisy, mostlyTrump’s rhetoric and policies revel in what critics call the “id” of exceptionalism. Where previous administrations cloaked power in moral universalism – think Wilson’s “make the world safe for democracy” or Reagan’s “evil empire” – Trump dispenses with pretence. He mocks allies as freeloaders, withdraws from climate accords and trade pacts, and treats international law as optional.Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty.His administration’s approach to Gaza, Ukraine, and trade wars with China underscores a view of the world where might makes right, and America’s might is unquestionable. This is not anti-exceptionalism; it is exceptionalism without the hypocrisy that once made it palatable to global audiences.The shadow manifests domestically too. Trump’s attacks on “woke” history, his downplaying of systemic racism, and his celebration of a triumphalist narrative echo longstanding efforts to preserve a sanitised version of American greatness. Exceptionalism has historically required amnesia about slavery, indigenous dispossession, and imperial adventures. Trump accelerates this by framing critique as disloyalty, turning exceptionalism into a weapon against internal dissent. His base embraces this unapologetic version, seeing it as a restoration of unfiltered US primacy against liberal elites who, they argue, diluted it with globalism and political correctness.Exceptionalism is simultaneously aspirational liberalism and predatory realismScholars have long noted these dualities. In works on US foreign policy elites, the tension between aspirational liberalism and predatory realism recurs. Postwar planners envisioned a world order under US auspices yet built it on hierarchies that disadvantaged the Global South. Trump’s movement draws from a counter-elite – Straussian intellectuals, Catholic integralists, tech oligarchs, and online provocateurs – who reject the old establishment’s soft power playbook while doubling down and foregrounding its iron fist. They champion an unapologetic, muscular, civilisational nationalism that frames America not as universal liberator but as a besieged civilisation defending its supremacy.Trump raw power fracturing US hegemonyThis shift fractures hegemony. The old liberal order rested on consent as much as coercion; allies bought into US leadership because it promised mutual benefit and moral high ground. Trump’s transactional style erodes that consent. European partners hedge with strategic autonomy; China and Russia exploit the vacuum to build multipolar alternatives. Ironically, Trump’s overreach may hasten the very decline of US primacy that exceptionalism was meant to forestall.Yet the shadow is not aberration – it is continuity. From Manifest Destiny to the Bush doctrine of preemption, US leaders have invoked exceptional status to justify expansion and exemption. Trump merely discards the liberal packaging. His “madman” diplomacy – unpredictable threats paired with demands for tribute – recalls Nixon’s but lacks even the veneer of ideological purpose. The result is a more naked imperialism, one that alienates even traditional supporters abroad while energising a domestic base weary of endless wars and elite condescension.Exceptionalism masks empireCritics from the left and Global South have long argued that exceptionalism masks empire. Trump confirms their diagnosis by making the mask unnecessary. His administration’s embrace of strongman politics abroad – praising authoritarians while demonising democratic critics – exposes the hollowness of claims to moral superiority. The Epstein networks, Bannon’s transnational far-right alliances, and donor webs reveal how elite power persists across ideological lines, mutating to serve new configurations of dominance.In 2026, as Trump tries to consolidate power amid domestic resistance and global multipolarity, the US confronts a legitimacy crisis. Mass protests against forever wars, economic alienation in rural MAGA heartlands, and elite fractures suggest the old exceptionalist consensus is crumbling. Yet glimmers of hope emerge: renewed activism, intellectual challenges to New Right narratives, and a multipolar world that forces America to confront its limits.Trump as the dark shadow of exceptionalism is not the end of the story but a chapter in a longer reckoning. The US was never purely the shining city; it was always also the empire that built and defended it through coercion and exclusion. Recognising this duality – light and shadow intertwined – is the first step toward a more honest reckoning with power, both at home and abroad.Under Trump, US exceptionalism’s shadow has stepped into the light. Can Americans actually confront what so many have long refused to see?Inderjeet Parmar is a professor of international politics and associate dean of research in the School of Policy and Global Affairs at City, St George’s, University of London, a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, and writes the American Imperium column at The Wire. Author of several books including Foundations of the American Century, he is currently writing a book on the history, politics, and crises of the US foreign policy establishment, and another on Trump and American Empire: Ten Years That Shook the World.