Running parallel to Trump's belief in American exceptionalism is a sort of personal exceptionalism: the rules, even if he makes them, don't apply to him.
Still, there's a broader resonance to the turn toward personal exceptionalism within basketball's team concept: jump-shot innovators, literally rising above everyone else, took the risk of doing things differently, bringing individuality to what was already one of the most distinctly American games.
Other cognitive biases -- risk aversion, irrational overconfidence, personal or group exceptionalism -- also mitigate against taking painful steps.
Candidates for the next president enter the fray like bull frogs, croaking personal stories of Exceptionalism; of how they rose from nothing to CEO of a Fortune 500 Company; of how their parents arrived as dish-washing immigrants to give a son a chance to one day strive to be president.
For all my personal reservations about black exceptionalism, I admit that it did instill this insane discipline in me.
Themes of American exceptionalism and traditional concepts of personal achievement, self-reliance, and the overcoming of odds lost great currency.
The gist of the launch focused on the "American Dream" and "American Exceptionalism" as relayed through his personal story with an emphasis on maintaining this dream into a new century.
His theme song could have been "Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?" On Nov. 2, voters across every spectrum loudly stated their preference for a return to American exceptionalism, self-reliance, limited government and personal freedoms.
American Exceptionalism is associated with our libertarian tradition of personal freedom, egalitarianism, individualism, populism and laissez-faire.
If there is an American exceptionalism, it is in our namelessness and rejection of personal detail, in the belief, if inconstant practice, that where we come from has no bearing on who we can become.
In the book, Romney writes of his belief in American exceptionalism, and presents his economic and geopolitical views rather than anecdotes about his personal or political life.
