Conversations in American Politics: The City on the Hill

Read Wikipedi: "City upon a Hill"

And it's interesting...

I happened to notice:

See also in Wikipedia: American Exceptionalism



The backstory on John Winthrop via Boston History




Professor Bernstein on Winthrop:




Historical Context via John Green: Crash Course




If you search John Winthrop's "City on a Hill," you will discover videos of past Presidents evoking the metaphor (as well as some other interesting videos by various groups).

JFK

From WBUR.org:

       Kennedy was a keen student of history, and this address hinted at his own preoccupation with how posterity would size him up.

"I have been guided by the standard John Winthrop set before his shipmates on the flagship Arabella 331 years ago, as they, too, faced the task of building a new government on a perilous frontier. 'We must always consider,' he said. 'That we shall be as a city upon a hill — the eyes of all people are upon us.' Today the eyes of all people are truly upon us.”

REAGAN

Election Eve Address "A Vision for America" November 3, 1980 - EXCERPT:

Our people always have held fast to this belief, this vision, since our first days as a nation.
I know I have told before of the moment in 1630 when the tiny ship Arabella bearing settlers to the New World lay off the Massachusetts coast. To the little bank of settlers gathered on the deck John Winthrop said: "we shall be a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us, so that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken and so cause him to withdraw his present help from us, we shall be made a story and a byword through the world."

Well, America became more than "a story," or a "byword"—more than a sterile footnote in history. I have quoted John Winthrop's words more than once on the campaign trail this year—for I believe that Americans in 1980 are every bit as committed to that vision of a shining "city on a hill," as were those long ago settlers.

We celebrated our 200th anniversary as a nation a short time ago. Fireworks exploded over Boston harbor, Arthur Fiedler conducted, thousands cheered and waved Old Glory.

Farewell Address to the Nation 
January 11, 1989 - EXCERPT:

And that's about all I have to say tonight, except for one thing. The past few days when I've been at that window upstairs, I've thought a bit of the ``shining city upon a hill.'' The phrase comes from John Winthrop, who wrote it to describe the America he imagined. What he imagined was important because he was an early Pilgrim, an early freedom man. He journeyed here on what today we'd call a little wooden boat; and like the other Pilgrims, he was looking for a home that would be free. 

I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That's how I saw it, and see it still. 

And how stands the city on this winter night? More prosperous, more secure, and happier than it was 8 years ago. But more than that: After 200 years, two centuries, she still stands strong and true on the granite ridge, and her glow has held steady no matter what storm. And she's still a beacon, still a magnet for all who must have freedom, for all the pilgrims from all the lost places who are hurtling through the darkness, toward home. 

  Full Address - Abridged:

OBAMA

Excerpt from 2016 DNC (Full Address):

In fact, it doesn’t depend on any one person. And that, in the end, may be the biggest difference in this election – the meaning of our democracy.

Ronald Reagan called America “a shining city on a hill.” Donald Trump calls it “a divided crime scene” that only he can fix. It doesn’t matter to him that illegal immigration and the crime rate are as low as they’ve been in decades, because he’s not offering any real solutions to those issues. He’s just offering slogans, and he’s offering fear. He’s betting that if he scares enough people, he might score just enough votes to win this election.

From The Guardian - on the US elections 2016:

"Obama flips the script on Republicans with Reagan-esque DNC speech" 

"The president borrowed themes of American exceptionalism as a window opens for Democrats to appeal to Republicans unsatisfied with Trump"

And most recently, former FBI Director James Comey:

The reason this is such a big deal is, we have this big messy wonderful country where we fight with each other all the time. But nobody tells us what to think, what to fight about, what to vote for except other Americans. And that’s wonderful and often painful. 

But we’re talking about a foreign government that, using technical intrusion and lots of other methods, tried to shape the way we think, we vote, we act.

That is a big deal. And people need to recognize it. It’s not about Republicans or Democrats. They’re coming after America, which I hope we all love equally. They want to undermine our credibility in the face of the world. They think that this great experiment of ours is a threat to them. So they’re going to try to run it down and dirty it up as much as possible. 

That’s what this is about, and they will be back. Because we remain — as difficult as we can be with each other, we remain that shining city on the hill. And they don’t like it.