The new isolationism is a lot like the old one: xenophobia wrapped in layers of racism, antisemitism, admiration for fascists, and selfishness fronted by a charismatic figure.
The captivating hero of the 1930s has been replaced by reality television grifter. One man was an aviation pioneer, the other a convicted felon. Both were admirers of dictators who posed the leading threat to world peace in their day. Their message then as now: What’s going on in the rest of the world isn’t our problem.
Charles A. Lindbergh opposed helping Britain fight Hitler, insisting England was as responsible for the war as Germany and he doubted it could win anyway. He questioned the loyalty of “the Jewish,” accusing them of pushing America into war.
Donald Trump, who also has questioned the loyalty of Jews, is an admirer of authoritarians with the ambition to be one (and not just for a day). He is prepared to surrender Ukraine and Europe to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is determined to reestablish the lost Soviet empire. Others could be on his chopping block as well.
America First is a transactional foreign policy. Trump has warned members of NATO, which he has threatened to leave, that if they don’t pay enough for their own defense, Russia could “do whatever the hell they want” to them, and the United States, if he is president, wouldn’t come to their defense. In Trump’s view, countries like South Korea, where US forces are stationed, should be paying us more or we’ll leave.
Trump has shown a disdain for leaders of democratic allies and an admiration for strongman rulers like Putin, Victor Orban of Hungary, Xi Jinping of China, and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.
His running mate, Senator JD Vance (R-Ohio), once called Trump “America’s Hitler” and “an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs,” but now says he’s changed his mind. Trump has said he could end the Ukraine-Russia war in a day, apparently by cutting off all US assistance to Kyiv and letting Putin keep everything he’s taken so far. As for Vance, “I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or the other.”
Does Trump oppose helping Ukraine because he wants to appease Putin, because his attempt to blackmail that country’s president resulted in his first impeachment or, as New Hampshire’s Republican governor Chris Sununu suggests, simply because Biden supports it? In any case, Sununu said, “That is not a viable foreign policy.”
There is an old and valid fear in Poland and the Baltics that Putin will go after them if he succeeds in Ukraine.
BY PICKING Vance as the presumed heir to his MAGA movement, Trump has solidified the Republican Party’s embrace of isolation, Roll Call observed. The message to friend and foe is one of America in retreat. The GOP of the Eisenhower-Reagan-Bush era, with its internationalist tradition shaped by the Cold War, has been replaced by a cult of personality loyal to a grievance-laden isolationist with 34 felony convictions, dozens of criminal indictments, and court judgments for civil fraud, sexual assault, and defamation.
'It’s not our problem'
The isolationists’ argument boils down to “It’s not our problem.” That was the line in the 1930s when two great oceans separated us from the rest of the world and gave us false complacency. It was wrong then and more so now when ballistic missiles can cross the planet in minutes.
It is no coincidence that Trump and his allies are using the same slogans and arguments as the pro-fascist isolationists of the ’30s. Paul Gigot wrote in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece that “some on the Right want to abdicate” American global leadership. “History shows it is a political loser for whichever party adopts it.”
A core element of MAGA isolationism is the Great Replacement Theory, aka Keep America White, which contends masses of Third World migrants are coming to take over their nice white, Christian country. The American Jewish Committee said, “A similar conspiracy theory was prevalent in Nazi Germany” and is today promoted by white nationalists. Trump, echoing Hitler, calls them “vermin” who are “poisoning the blood of our country.”
Trump has said if elected he would roundup and deport millions of illegal immigrants. MAGA’s favorite boogeyman, Jewish philanthropist George Soros, has been accused by Trump and others of financing migrant “caravans” into the United States.
NOTWITHSTANDING the antisemitic strain that permeates isolationism, there is a kind of exemption for Israel. That’s because it is viewed as a potent domestic political issue for voting and fundraising for both parties and has successfully cultivated alliances across the political and religious spectrums. Nonetheless, an American global retreat into isolationism will eventually impact Israel.
Israel is the only country singled out in the GOP campaign platform, which contains two sentences on the Middle East and North Africa compared to the Democrats’ nearly three pages, including a section blaming Hamas for the Gaza war, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports.
Trump claims to be a great friend of Israel, but not so much of the Jews. He has a long history of trafficking in antisemitic tropes, has repeatedly accused American Jews of dual loyalty, and has tightly embraced Christian nationalism.
He carries grievances against the Jewish community for consistently voting three-to-one against him. He is unable or unwilling to understand that Jews are not single-issue voters and that he is on the opposite side of the issues most important to them.
He accused Vice President Kamala Harris of “insulting“ Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by not attending his speech to Congress but was silent about his own running mate also being absent and for the same reason (scheduled campaign events). Trump said Jews who support Harris or other Democrats should “have their head examined.”
Harris is “totally against the Jewish people,” he said. “She doesn’t like Jewish people. She doesn’t like Israel,” he charged, choosing to ignore that her husband and stepchildren are Jewish and has placed a mezuzah on the doorpost of the vice president’s official residence.
With two white guys on the Republican ticket, and the Democrats about to nominate a woman of color and the daughter of immigrants, look for Trump to resuscitate his old birther lies as well as nasty attacks on race and gender.
Harris has become the GOP scapegoat for immigration and the border crisis.
MAGA xenophobia is permeated with false statistics blaming undocumented immigrants for a growth in crime, when the reality is they are less likely to commit crimes than native-born Americans, The New York Times reported, and the nation’s overall crime rate actually has been dropping. `
In his convention acceptance speech, the disgraced former president summed up his concept of diplomacy by declaring none of today’s wars would have happened “if I were president” and all he needs to do to solve crises could be done from his desk: “I could stop wars with a telephone call.”
Conservative columnist George F. Will contends: “Surging GOP isolationism is a dreadful development in a dangerous time.” Under Trump and Vance, the party is “more isolationist” than either party at the peak of America First in the 1930s, he said.
This is an election that will shape America’s role in the world for years to come. The stakes couldn’t be higher.
The writer is a Washington-based journalist, consultant, lobbyist, and former American Israel Public Affairs Committee legislative director.