a nation is an inherently exclusive phenomena and defines itself in opposition to what it is

• what counts as American in the US is often defined by what it is not. black people were not properly American until relatively recently, for example

A socialist nation is therefore a contradiction

most nations in Europe are younger than the US

• although "France" or "Germany" pre-date the existence of the US, their governments and nationalisms do not

it’s hard to blame the Russian or German social democrats for participating in the state when both countries were autocracies where even nominal representation in government was a novelty

A lot of US leftists believe in what amounts to an inverted American exceptionalism