Is American Exceptionalism Coming Back into Fashion?

A second streaming documentary suggests a new Hollywood commitment to giving the audience what it wants

Almost exactly one year ago I wrote a piece about the JJ Abrams produced Amazon documentary on The Blue Angels. What struck me about the film at the time was its warm embrace of American patriotism and of concepts like the pursuit of excellence, the value of hard work, and of a dedication to high standards… but also how all of those things seemed so at odds with much of what we have been hearing from the media and seeing in the culture over the last two decades.

And now, one year later, we have Netflix’s answer to “The Blue Angels”… the Barack and Michelle Obama-produced documentary “Air Force Elite: Thunderbirds”, a piece which treads on much of the same warmly patriotic ground as “The Blue Angels”… surely unfamiliar Hollywood territory here in 2025, but which can be summed up rather simply as an unexpected celebration of American Exceptionalism.

The primary theme of “Thunderbirds” the film, is the team’s motto “Blind Trust.” Much is made of the fact that the entire team is dependent on every other team member doing exactly what they are supposed to do exactly when they are supposed to do it… failure to do so can be, and often is, fatal.

During one particular maneuver in the team’s air show, Thunderbird #1 (aka the “Boss”) must fly his jet on a vector that, if unaltered, will ultimately drive his aircraft directly into the ground. The reason why the Boss doesn’t actually fly straight into the ground during a performance is that at a critical moment, Thunderbird #2 moves in directly underneath the Boss, and his aircraft adds just enough lift to subtly alter the trajectory of the lead jet so that the Boss doesn’t actually crash.

Critically, for the purposes of drama, there is no way for the Boss to know if #2 has done his job until it’s too late for him to correct his vector. #2 is below and slightly behind him and the Boss cannot see his #2. The Boss must fly his deadly vector with nothing but “Blind Trust” that #2 will move into the correct position and quite literally save his life at the last second.

This story highlights one of the most important similarities between Amazon’s “Blue Angels” and Netflix’s “Thunderbirds”, namely that in a business where the difference between life and death is measured in fractions of inches, there is no room for any hiring consideration beyond which candidate is the best for the job. Which is to say that both shows celebrate merit-based professional cultures by taking indirect aim at “Affirmative Action”… or, what we now euphemistically refer to as “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” (DEI) as a way of camouflaging what’s actually being done… the lowering of standards in order to achieve some politically fashionable demographic result.

Both shows, on Amazon and Netflix, portray a world where DEI does not exist precisely because it cannot exist. Every single person on both teams, Blue Angels and Thunderbirds, from the pilots to the mechanics to the team doctors to the spotters must be the best of the best… the one percent of the one percent. They have to be, or people die. If even a single member of the team were hired for any reason other than being the best at what they do, no sane person would ever climb into a Blue Angel or Thunderbird cockpit… it’s that simple.

And while this is certainly a good and valuable point to make here in 2025, I don’t even think it’s the most interesting takeaway from the show when it comes to the controversial political football that is DEI. What’s more interesting to me is this… given that the Thunderbirds, like the Blue Angels, is a community where DEI cannot and does not exist, it is interesting to note that both teams are nevertheless quite diverse.

Why is that?

Well, it turns out that when you hold everyone to a high standard, you often get better results… from everyone. Human beings are natural strivers… we want to be the best we can be, and this is true across the entire spectrum of race, creed and gender. When you challenge people to over perform, all people, many will do so. It’s hard to believe that this position is controversial in modern America, and yet here we are.

To build on that concept even further, “Thunderbirds” features a vitally important interview with a former commanding officer of the team. On a whim this Commader, callsign “Brick”, began paging through decades of performance data and noticed something very interesting… he noted that after past fatal accidents, the powers that be always reacted by increasing the minimum altitudes at which maneuvers were performed, as well as increasing the required distance between the jets when flying in formation. The idea was that more altitude and distance would make the performances safer.

But paradoxically, that is not what happened. Rather, over time the number of accidents actually increased.

Brick theorized that the relaxation of standards created complacency… a sense that perfection was no longer necessary because plenty of safety margin had been added to the equation. Pilots and their support team members had relaxed and begun to lose their edge.

So Brick returned all the minimums to where they had been before the changes and increased the level of difficulty, adding even more complex maneuvers to what was already an incredibly dangerous show. With no margin for error, the pilots now seem more focused, and mishaps have become less frequent.

Once again, we see that when you demand more of people rather than less, many will outperform their own expectations for themselves and achieve at a much higher level than they do when the bar is lowered in order to make it easier for them to clear it.

These twin themes, of bars that must be met or exceeded, but never lowered… and the idea that raising standards increases performance results… these concepts run contrary to almost everything our modern culture tells us about the best ways to motivate human beings to achieve excellence. And indeed, for much of the last twenty years in America the side which argues for the lowering of standards, for embracing concepts like “safe spaces”, “trigger warnings” and “participation trophies” has been ascendant… a side for which this documentary’s producer Barack Obama has always been a prominent voice.

But I wonder now if that may be changing.

The Obamas are a lot of things… but they are not stupid, and they very much enjoy making money. So if the Obamas, who as much as anyone in America are avatars for the Institutional Progressive Left, have realized that the best way to make money in Hollywood is to produce content that celebrates American Exceptionalism… movies and TV shows which suggest that the best way to motivate people is to encourage them to achieve more than they think they are capable of achieving… that the best way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race… or that the best way to end a TV show is to have an Air Force Colonel tell his team that they “fly for a big idea” before turning and pointing at the enormous American Flag hanging on the wall behind him… then things in Hollywood may truly be changing for the better.

And that is something to celebrate… a small thing, perhaps, but something nevertheless.

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