It’s our journey, not our perfection, that makes U.S. a role model

As America tries to make sense of the assault on the Capitol and its aftermath, we diplomats are struggling with how to represent America to the world.

I am reminded of the most remarkable speech I’ve heard in my diplomatic career. It was July 4, 2006, and it was the first Independence Day reception in our brand-new embassy in Cambodia, where I was a junior officer. Cambodia then – as now – had amazing and resilient people who were working to rebuild their society after genocide. Cambodia then – as now – faced grave challenges to its democracy. We wanted to the Cambodian people to work for democracy. We wanted to challenge Cambodian leaders to respect human rights and rule of law. But America was in the midst of its own crisis. The still-unfolding Abu Ghraib scandal had shown American servicemembers humiliating Iraqi prisoners. It demonstrated that we did not consistently uphold the values that we espoused. What could we say?

That day, Ambassador Joseph Mussomeli spoke about the fragility of democracy. He spoke about how, just 22 years after our country was founded with high ideals, the Alien and Sedition Acts cast suspicion on foreign residents and limited free speech. A hundred-odd later, the Espionage Act outlawed the criticism of U.S. involvement in World War I. During World War II, we shamefully interned Japanese Americans. Then, in a tone of humility and solidarity, Ambassador Mussomeli talked about how important it was for Cambodians to continue to work for democracy, speaking not because the U.S. had an unblemished record in preserving our own democracy, but precisely because we had battled against our own challenges so many times. This is hard, he said. We know. We are with you.

In the weeks after an armed mob stormed the Capitol and attempted to prevent Congress from certifying the election results, this must be our mesencourage sage too. For too long, we have viewed American exceptionalism as our birthright, thinking that somehow because we were born of a struggle for freedom and liberty those ideas would guide us, unchallenged, forever. Now we know that American exceptionalism is not a permanent inheritance but an ideal that must be renewed and pursued by each generation. We can no longer imply that other countries should listen to us because of our untarnished record of defending democracy. We cannot be John Winthrop’s City on the Hill unless, as Winthrop advised, we seek justice, love mercy, and show humility.

But we are still a country that strives to live up to those ideyears als. We are the country where members of Congress – just hours after being threatened by violent protesters – returned to the Capitol and stayed until

3:45 a.m. to certify the presidential election results. We are the country where the Georgia Secretary of State refused to

Jennifer Spande, a foreign service officer from Littleton, has served in Mexico, Cambodia, Chile, Malaysia, and Washington, D.C. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Department of State or the U.S. government

falsify election results, even though it meant that his own party would lose power. We are the country where voters danced in the street while standing in hours-long lines to vote, and Black sororities strolled to the polls. We are the country that just elected a Jewish American and a Black American to the Senate in a state that was once the heart of the Confederacy. We are the country where a Catholic president and a Black and Indian female vice president were just sworn into office.

We are not a country that has figured everything out and can speak to others from a position of supreme moral authority. We are a country that continues the struggle of becoming what we imagine ourselves to be. When we speak with foreign audiences around the globe, we can’t offer them the assurance of an easy path to perfect democracy. But we can offer them what we have learned along our own journey, and our commitment to get up every morning and continue the fight no matter the obstacles. It is hard, we can tell them. We know. We are with you.