My latest in PJ Media:
Today is the day we ostensibly remember the American presidents, and as it comes around this year we all know that to say “America First” is racist, anti-Semitic, and evil in all kinds of other ways, and that the best U.S. presidents have been those who were most respected around the world, in places such as Communist China, the socialist European Union, and the Islamic Republic of Iran. Don’t we?
Well, there are still a few dissenters among us. While roughly half of the American population today thinks that the current occupant of the White House is one of the worst presidents in history, an active danger to the nation, there is still that pesky other half, which refuses to bow to our socialist, internationalist moral superiors and regards president Trump as an unparalleled champion of the American people, a true defender of the common man in a way that has not been seen in Washington for many, many decades.
On this President’s Day, it’s worthwhile to ask the question: what exactly is wrong with being America First? If the president of the United States doesn’t put America first, exactly which country should he put first? Or should he put some nebulous idea of “global interests” first, with those interests being defined not by Americans, but by the likes of China, the EU, and Iran?
In Donald Trump’s Inaugural Address on January 20, 2017, he declared: “From this day forward, a new vision will govern our land. From this moment on, it’s going to be America First…. We will seek friendship and goodwill with the nations of the world — but we do so with the understanding that it is the right of all nations to put their own interests first.” In response, neoconservative (and now Democrat) elitist William Kristol tweeted: “I’ll be unembarrassedly old-fashioned here: It is profoundly depressing and vulgar to hear an American president proclaim ‘America First.’”
Profoundly depressing and vulgar for the chief executive of a nation to put the interests of that nation before other considerations? Really? Throughout the history of the United States, most Americans would have found Kristol’s statement somewhere between baffling and treasonous. Yet Trump’s statement that “it is the right of all nations to put their own interests first” primarily, rather than those of the world at large, has been out of fashion since World War II, and in many ways since World War I. It has been mislabeled, derided, and dismissed as “Isolationism,” a fear or unwillingness to engage with the wider world, even as it is becoming increasingly interconnected and interdependent.
But to be America First does not necessarily mean that America will withdraw from the world; it only means that in dealing with the world, American presidents will be looking out primarily for the good of Americans. The term America First has also been associated, quite unfairly, with racism and anti-Semitism. The founding principles of the Republic, notably the proposition that, as the Declaration of Independence puts it, “all men are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights,” shows that putting America First has nothing to do with such petty and irrational hatreds.
In fact, the Founding Fathers and every president up until Woodrow Wilson took for granted that the president of the United States should put his nation first and would have thought it strange in the extreme that this idea should even be controversial.
Indeed, this is the oldest criterion of all for judging the success and failure of various presidents: were they good for America and Americans, or were they not? This should still be the primary way that the success or failure of presidents is judged. It is the guiding criterion that George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Founding Fathers who were not presidents such as Alexander Hamilton would likely use when judging the occupants of the White House up to the present day.
The president’s most important job is clear from the oath that every president recites in order to assume office, and it isn’t to provide health care for illegal aliens, or to make sure that Somalia isn’t riven by civil war, or to make sure America is “diverse.” It is simply this: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of president of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
So what makes a great president? One who preserved, protected, and defended the Constitution of the United States. Or to put it even more simply, a great president is one who puts America first. That’s the criterion I used in my forthcoming book, Rating America’s Presidents: An America-First Look at Who Is Best, Who Is Overrated, and Who Was An Absolute Disaster.
There is much more. Read the rest here.
Kimiko Komatsu says
Easy to answer. It’s all a matter of perspective. From the standpoint of Americans there’s nothing wrong with it. From the standpoint of the Globalists it’s an atrocious idea. None of these tough questions are all that difficult.
Robert Porter says
I am South African and don’t find Trump’s ‘America First’ position in the least bit offensive, but disgusting liberals will find any port in the storm reasons to take issue with anything he says. From the outset he stated that all nations should be putting themselves first. Muslims, unrepentant supremacists and haters of anything not Islam and anyone not Muslim, put Islam first and I don’t these liberal morons condemning this.
JHL says
I voted for Trump because he will fight creeping sharia Law and put America first.
Bob Thompson says
Good reasons!
Trish says
Very good reasons. I wish he could ship out all the Muslims that Obama illegally smuggled into America.
roberta says
What other world leaders are putting the USA first? Is it the job of other countries to put us first? Why is it the job of USA presidents to put the rest of the world first? How well has the stupid idea of a global community worked out for the USA?
The more we give’em the worse off they are, and the worse off we are. Im not a fan of equality like that.
gravenimage says
What Exactly Is Wrong with a President Putting America First?
………………..
Damn good question.
Yogi says
People in Germany and all over Western Europe, should shout loudly, : Germany first , France First , Sweden first and on and on …kick out this traitors!!
James Lincoln says
According to the feature article:
“What Exactly Is Wrong with a President Putting America First?”
The answer is: N O T H I N G !!!
Pres. Trump has no problem making fair win-win deals with other countries. He just doesn’t want the United States to continue to be taken advantage of…
Bob Thompson says
I have come to adopt the Crossfield online rule which states that if you post like an enemy of America you can be treated as an enemy of America.
Anytime I see people who remain unmoved by the President’s accomplishments for America and Americans, I conclude they dont care about America or Americans.
When someone shows they dont care about America or Americans, I ask myself ‘WHY?”
The most obvious answer is because they:
DONT LIVE IN AMERICA
AND THAT THEY DONT LIKE WHAT AMERICA STANDS FOR.
AND THAT THEY PREFER THAT AMERICA BE DEFEATED
OR THAT THEY WOULD PREFER THEIR SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT BE INSTALLED TO REPLACE OUR CONSTITUTION AND OUR FORM OF GOVERNMENT.
In short, I conclude that they are enemies of America.
And what if I am wrong?
They will have to prove they love America to get me to stop treating them as hostile enemies.
Or else they will have to stop posting in opposition to America.
And if they post in opposition to the President, I soon present them with evidence showing how much good he is doing for the MAJORITY OF US and for the country as a whole.
If they are not chastened by the evidence I post, then they are most likely a Communist or an Islamist or a hostile ideologue of some type and that gives me a green light to engage them as often as I can.
It gets me banned at some forums, but I want to believe that I leave an impression on those patriots who remain.
Manuele Lui says
There’s nothing wrong with what the President is doing,saying & thinking. To be honest with the Globalist/leftist/Communist Feeble & Oh look at me mindset, “IT’S CALL CLEANING YOUR OWN BACK YARD FIRST BEFORE YOU TRY TO WIPE ANOTHER COUNTRY’S PEOPLE BACKSIDE. This the mindset of the Globalist/leftis. The thing is they don’t question why some of these countries are in the shit. The know very well, because of the corruption of their leaders. “I WOULD DO THE SAME IF I WAS IN HIS POSITION. GOOD ON THE PRESIDENT. MAY GOD BLESS HIM, BLESS HIS ADMINISTRATION
Stephen Hiller says
A while back, God separated the people into individual nations. Satan wants a ONE world. Take your choice/
Trish says
I agree.
KBO says
There is nothing wrong, on its face, with the phrase “America first.” But as you well know, that was the name of the “committee” which, in 1940, lobbied to prevent the United States from allying with England, Canada and other friends against the Third Reich. Charles Lindbergh, the dashing leader of the America First movement, was an admirer of Hitler and the Nazis much in the way Edward XIII was. Lindbergh warned against “Jewish interests” and so forth in his speeches. Edward XIII fawned over Hitler. Is it really possible to absolve such people of anti-Semitism? Was it really necessary for President Trump to use that particular moniker for his own campaign? So in answer to your question, there’s nothing wrong with a US president “putting America first.” It is merely alarming that he would choose “America First” as the name for doing so.
Rarely says
FYI. Not that it matters but it was Edward the Eighth and not the thirteenth. Edward VIII.
KBO says
True. I meant VIII. My Latin’s not up to scratch even if my history’s not bad.
gravenimage says
Of course, the idea that putting your own nation first means not opposing Fascism is pretty iffy–obviously many patriotic Americans disagreed.
WithPurpleAbandon says
It’s very astute to reference the Founding Fathers of your nation to prove this point, I think.
Critics of Trump’s administration simply look the other way. To them, it makes absolutely no sense at all, whereas in my opinion it’s a pivotal point. Any president of the US will indeed be judged favorably by Americans because he puts the Nation first, that’s just the way it is and how it needs to be. The European MSM outlets and politicians in particular view the whole issue through the ahistorical lense of ill-conceived internationalism. And they have no business criticizing the head of State of another nation in this way. If only our politicians would put their own nation first, we wouldn’t be in this mess.
Americans need a president that puts America first. German / French /…politicians can’t think straight on such a matter. America is for Americans, Germany should be for Germans, France should be for the French people,..etc. Criticizing Trump in Europe is just childplay, a diversionary tactic to make European nations forget that we created a dysfunctional aberration on internationalist “principles”, which we baptized the European Union.
Lorensacho says
To Trump, America First means we win you lose. That will lead to weakened economies around the world which will negatively affect the US.
gravenimage says
This is silly. Caring about America does not mean harming other nations.
Infidel says
Precisely! Putting America first means just that! The reason other economies around the world are weak is the same reason the US economy was before Trump: they allowed China to steal all their manufacturing jobs.
If anything, the coronavirus has shown us why an excessively interconnected world has its problems: it also enables the easy spread of disease. Plus the other twist is that most of the antibiotics and other drugs originate in China (even if India manufactures a huge percentage of it), so if something happens in the US, good luck getting Beijing to prioritize Americans over Chinese. (And I wouldn’t hold it against them: no country should be expected to prioritize another country over their own)
Rarely says
Invariably EVERY American President puts “America First”. Of course they all should. But they do. There is, however, a difference of opinion on what it means exactly and how to do it. Short term and long term interests are often very different and conflict. The World is shrinking rapidly and 19th Century policies are mainly obsolete in a 21st Century World. That one shot in Sarajevo echoed around the world over a hundred years ago and emphasizes that a pebble dropped in a pond half a world away can have major consequences everywhere else, including the USA, obviously.
Suffice it to say that we don’t always know what’s best for us. Only history can tell us but it comes too late to be of much use.
gravenimage says
Why yes–maybe the best thing for us is to just supinely roll over for Islamic conquest–ya never know! Good grief…
Infidel says
No, presidents like Clinton, Bush XLIII and Obama didn’t. Clinton allowed China into the WTO and enabled them to suck out all manufacturing jobs: Ross Perot’s famous ‘giant sucking sound’ came not from Mexico, but from China, and it’s only recently w/ the USMCA and the China Phase 1 agreement as well as the coronavirus that things are getting fixed. Bush put a higher priority into nationbuilding Afghanistan and Iraq, even while the US economy continued to shrink. And Obama w/ his Obamacare policies made it prohibitive for companies to grow, w/o being stuck w/ a huge healthcare bill.
Your comment about 19th century policies being obsolete in a 21st century world is interesting, given that that’s precisely what the bipartisan consensus is on Russia. The Cold War ended in 1991, but we still follow Cold War era policies, substituting ‘Russia’ for the ‘USSR’. Never mind that Islam has replaced Communism as the biggest threat to the world, at least after 9/11 if not before, and never mind that China became both a big economic as well as a military power strong enough to economically colonize the world w/ their belt/road initiative. In the 21st century, the 2 biggest threats that we need to combat is Islam and China, but the establishment elitists in both parties are both hung up on Russia.
Which is why putting America first is the right approach
Walter Sieruk says
Yes, it’s fitting, proper and very appropriate for the President of the United State of America to put the USA first.
Furthermore, one of the many ways this is to be achieved is by having a very strong US military.
To reveal the wisdom of the first Constitutional President of the United States of America, George Washington, who had, so well explained “To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace.”
Moreover President Washington stated that “However pacific the general policy of the nation may be, it ought never to be without an adequate stock of military knowledge for emergencies.”
In addition. with this post- 9/11 USA it should likewise be remembered that one very good way to defeat the jihadists who compose the many brutal and deadly Islamic terror entities ,such as al Qaeda, ISIS, the Taliban, is by the means of a very strong power of US military might. As Thomas Jefferson had declared “With every barbarous people …force is law.”
Brenda says
The same can be said for Congress. “Congress’s most important job is clear from the oath that every congressperson recites in order to assume office and it isn’t to provide health care for illegal aliens or to make sure that Somalia isn’t riven by civil war or to make sure America is “diverse.” It is simply this: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.”
But of course, they have forgot all about their oath.
Matthieu Baudin says
As a foreigner ‘looking in’ at the U.S. over the course of my life I’d say that very few other nations have been able to match Americans regard and respect for Universal Humanity.
In the American context the ‘Putting America First’ slogan is more of a timely corrective to decades of debilitating self criticism, largely (but not wholly) unwarranted, something that has been actively encouraged by intellectual fashions and the various enemies of freedom around the world, taking the form of political and religious ideologies which sometimes morph into nation states.
gravenimage says
Thank you, Matthieu.
OLD GUY says
Proud to be an American and a Christian, and will fight to protect the rights and laws of all American citizens.