“I believe that when we teach our young people in the United States that America is exceptional, we are doing them a disservice.” Tim Naftali · Conversations with Coleman
Ideas & Essays · September 2026
Naftali, who grew up in Canada, later became an American citizen, and ran the Nixon Presidential Library, was asked what most separates the two countries' political cultures. He names the absence of a national exceptionalism story in Canadian schooling and calls it an advantage. Coleman Hughes puts the counterargument to him right after: that exceptionalist language gave reformers a standard to hold the country to.
Transcript
That's true.
What's the biggest difference between Canadians and Americans culturally? I mean, we're so similar in so many ways, but you might have a unique vantage point.
Oh, there are some subtle differences. And by the way, Canada is a diverse nation. It's far more diverse than it was when I was growing up, which is a good thing for Canada. And so, when one talks about Canadian culture, just as the same with American culture, let's try to avoid assuming that every single citizen has the same sense of it. But there are some subtle differences between sort of general Canadian political culture and American political culture that I think are worth pointing out. And I thank you for asking. One of the key ones is that Canadians don't grow up being taught that their country is exceptional. And that's really helpful. I believe, and I'm an American citizen now, and I'm very proud to my adopted country. And I partly chose to become an American because I teach American history. I teach international history, but through an American lens. And I wanted to be able to say we, because I thought it was important for students to understand that I understood the sort of the nature of America's role in the world, not simply as an outsider, but now as an insider. That said, I believe that when we teach our young people in the United States that America is exceptional, we are doing them a disservice. It is a burden. It is a burden because if you have a place that's exceptional, it's hard to argue that it can improve. And one of the joys of studying American history is to see this arc of change. Canadians, I think, have a sense that their country's flawed and they're proud of what it is, but they recognize that, you know, it has flaws and therefore you can tinker with it without really undermining its basic legitimacy. And I believe that having that sense of that there's a flaw in your political culture is healthy because it means you're working together to make it better. And so that's one thing about Canadians. The other is that in the era I grew up, it's changed a little bit thanks to Donald Trump. But the era I grew up, Canadians were not flag waivers. They were quietly proud of being Canadians, but they didn't have to wave the flag. And they didn't have to wear a flagpin to be loyal and patriotic. In fact, Canadians would say to each other, again, when I was growing up, and things have changed, I don't live there anymore, that flag waivers were Americans, that Canadians felt we're not insecure, that it's an insecure country that has to wave the flag all the time. Secure countries just know that they exist and are proud of it and they move forward. So there's these subtle differences. Now, of course, others would say that Canadians say they're sorry all the time. I'm not sure that that's true anymore. Canada's a more self-confident country than it was. But I think that the differences I pointed to are actually worthwhile considering, not to make America Canada. These are very different countries with different, though similar histories. But it's for, I think, for us, as we grapple with the fact that the country, our beloved country, is disappointing us at times. That maybe we should step back and say, you know, maybe we have higher expectations of any society because we have been told ours is exceptional. When in fact, we should think ahead about goals to reach that we may reach, but they aren't yet to be reached. I think Canadians have never had that problem. They know their country is flawed. They still like it a lot. In fact, I believe they love it.
Yeah, and it's interesting. I was talking to Matthew Iglesias, and he had a very different frame for understanding American exceptionalism. And the argument he made on our podcast was the version of American exceptionalism, which can strike the ear as naive, especially to a historian that is all too familiar with all the flaws and foibles of America, of American history. That nevertheless created a language and a standard which activists, reformers, and writers could point to in contrast with the actual practices on the ground. And as a result of enough Americans believing in that, in principle, exceptionalism could create an impetus for action on its basis. So under that framework, the idea, like believing that America is in principle, exceptional, that is to say, its principles were exceptional at the founding and have and are really worthy of flag waving about has been actually a spur to action or has made it easier to inspire political action to reform its actual flawed practices.
Well, Matt is a super smart guy, and I would just disaggregate a little bit of what he's saying. I absolutely agree that Jefferson's language and the language of the framers has been an impetus for change for activists on both sides of the aisle. Absolutely, totally agree with it. Jefferson didn't understand what he had unleashed with the language of the Declaration of Independence. But that, so yes, the founding principles of this country were absolutely exceptional in the 18th century. There's no question about it. We were the first in the modern era to think about how to elect a leader. You know, when they were designing the presidency, they didn't have any modern parallels to choose from. Every other leader of a major group in the world was either an emperor by divine right or conquest. And so sure, in the 18th century, those principles being put into action, because those principles existed in books, I mean, Montesquieu, the French philosopher, provided this sort of the idea of our constitutional system of checks and balances, for example. But putting it into practice was truly exceptional. But I would just say that the problem is that as it's been understood, American exceptionalism is not really the ideas, but the practice of the country. And we had a civil war, which sadly does not make us as exceptional. So the ideas I would say are exceptional. How they were put into practice has not. Been exceptional. And America is not the only democracy in the world. It was in the 18th century, but it isn't in the 21st century.
Let's get into your areas of research. You've written many books about the Cold War, about Khrushchev. You've been deeply involved in the study of presidential transcripts of Nixon, I believe, Kennedy, LBJ. So there's a lot of possible ways to start this interview. But one I want to ask you is: having spent an enormous amount of time in the archives and with the tapes of all of these presidents from the 60s, 70s, and onward, who would you say was the most intelligent? In other words, when you listen to their tapes or read their writing, you think, okay, this person had a level of horse, intellectual horsepower that is higher than most presidents. Yeah.