Argues that our contemporary political crisis is marked by the prevalence of "disinformation," where the political mythologies that people use to make sense of the world are no longer tied to the reality that they seek to explain. Cheyfitz asserts that foundational national myths like the American Dream and American Exceptionalism only ever held true for a privileged few, and that today those myths are coming apart completely. In a historical analysis that moves from indigenous genocide through the war on terror, and from the writing of the U.S. Constitution through the speeches of Barack Obama, the author traces the contradiction between the reality of American imperialism and the ideology of American innocence and exceptionalism. Cheyfitz contends that a way out of our political crisis would require a fundamental re-thinking of the world and thus a political horizon beyond capitalism. --Adapted from publisher description.

"Originally published in hardcover and in slightly different form by Taylor & Francis in 2017"--Title page verso.

Disinformation: the end of ideology -- Narratives of the nation -- The palimpsest of history: William Apess's anti-Jeremiad Jeremiad -- The end of innocence: Jeremiah Wright's anti-Jeremiad Jeremiad -- Barack Obama and the erasure of race -- The confidence state: the limits of capitalism's imagination -- Melville's The confidence-man: his masquerade -- Thinking from a different place: what is a just society? A brief manifesto.