American Exceptionalism: Rooted in Appreciative Power?

Fareed Zakaria makes a great point in his last GPS program on CNN.

“American exceptionalism is not based on race, ethnicity or religion but on ideas and, crucially, those ideas were open to all.  This openness to ideas, cultures and religions created a new person, the American….  No other country from its outset believed in the idea of openness and the mixture of people as central to its founding.”      

In politics openness, liberalism and diversity are most associated with the Democratic party while closedness, conservatism and conformity are associated with the Republican party. In these posts I have associated openness and diversity with appreciative power and closedness and conformity with control power. Politics itself is the epitome of influence power. It provides the essential function of mediating the flow (in-fluence) between the open appreciative field and the conservative control field in the interests of the whole community.  

Wouldn’t it be great if our politicians, in managing our affairs in Congress and the Senate, actually did that? Wouldn’t it be great if the current stable of presidential candidates promised us to do that? They would actually take into account their own, their party’s and their country’s interests equally.

In looking to the past and honoring our Constitution we are conservative but in honoring the openness of its message we are equally liberal. Now that sounds like a good basis for real politics.

Why is that so difficult?