Summary

The second essay in this collection is called “The American Exception.” Smith first summarizes her reaction to the American president’s rhetoric surrounding the coronavirus pandemic, though she does not name him directly. In wishing to have America’s old life back, Smith says, the president succeeded in catching his audience off guard and vulnerable, making them place more weight than was reasonable on the idea of a glorious time before the pandemic. Moreover, the president’s words seemed to imply that in America, there had not been death before this particular pandemic. Smith is, however, quick to call this claim “snake oil” (12), saying “the devil is consistent, if nothing else” (12).

Sure, Smith acknowledges, in America the prior dead had carried some “culpability” (13) in that they had been of a certain skin color, or certain class, etc. She slyly writes that America...