Trump is putting ‘America First’ by ignoring the MAGA punditocracy

Political imbrioglios often take on the character of theological controversy. Back in the 6th century, the wise men of the Western Church, pondering the Trinity, decided to make an addition to the Nicene Creed. The Holy Spirit, they determined, proceeded not simply “ex Patre” (“from the Father”) but also “filioque,” “and from the son.” No big deal, right?

Wrong. For reasons I shall refrain from dilating on now, the Eastern Church repudiated the addition. Controversy raged for centuries. Indeed, what became known as the “filioque controversy” culminated, in AD 1054, in the Great Schism between the Eastern Church and the West.

For most of us mortals, the controversy now seems arcane, not to say bootless. But at the time it was a matter of life and death. In order to recapture a sense of the urgency then felt, consider the fate of the phrase “America First” in the age of Donald Trump.

Along with the phrase “Make America Great Again” (“MAGA” for short”) “America First” was a foundational mantra of the Trump movement.

From the moment in 2015 when Trump proceeded down the golden elevator in Trump Tower to announce his candidacy for the presidency, the idea that American politicians should put the interests of America first has been the central plank of his political platform.

“America First” did not mean “American Alone,” he and his spokesmen have often repeated. Moreover, the Trumpian idea of “America First” had nothing to do with Charles Lindbergh’s isolationist movement of the late 1930s. On the contrary, “America First” was simply a restatement of American sovereignty. The late Angelo Codevilla was right when he observed that the phrase “may be the most succinct description of George Washington’s statecraft.”

In telling his fellow citizens that “the name of American, which belongs to you, in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of Patriotism, more than any appellation,” Washington was presaging Trump’s slogan avant la lettre.

Over the years, Trump has expounded his idea of “America First” is a number of brilliant speeches. At the center of the Trump doctrine is the conviction that peace and international prosperity are more surely guaranteed by strong, sovereign nations honestly pursuing their own national self-interest. The ambition to dissolve national sovereignty in a hazy bath of world citizenship is both naÏve and counter-productive. Indeed, it is dangerous, as naïveté translated into the poltical realm always is.

On this view, complacency is the enemy of security. In the aftermath of America’s bloodless triumph in the Cold War, the United States emerged as the world’s sole superpower. But that status was not inevitable nor automatically sustainable. It depended on America’s determined prosecution of its own interests. “America First.” In recent years, America has more and more abandoned that pursuit as other countries sought to capitalize on our bureaucratic paralysis and regulatory suffocation. Welcome Barack Obama.

Trump’s gospel of “America First” has once again occupied center stage as the punditocracy, like a pack of excited chihuahuas, bark and scamper around Trump’s rhetoric regarding the murderous, Islamist state of Iran.

Trump as always insisted that Iran must not be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons. Why? Their repeated promise to obliterate Israel and America are clues for the obtuse. “Death to America,” “Death to the Zionist Entity” are not just slogans. They are marching orders, as demonstrated by Iran’s murderous activities since 1979 when the Mullahs took over. Now they control an abundance of near-weapons grade Uranium, enough, according to some estimates, for about nine bombs.

Israel is doing the United States and the world a great service by dismantling Iran’s nuclear capabilities. As I write, that labor is still incomplete, but I am confident it will be soon, possibly with America’s help, certainly with its connivance.

This brings me back to the theology of America First. Donald Trump reinvigorated the phrase and deployed it in pursuit of restoring America’s potency and prosperity. Securing our Southern border was part of that plan, as was deporting as many illegal aliens as possible. Bringing manufacturing back to the States was important, as was the assertion of reciprocity among our friends and allies. In many ways, the reassertion of national sovereignty is just the pursuit of what Trump called the triumph of “common sense” in his second inaugural address.

But now we see many commentators on the MAGA side of the aisle wringing their hands and moaning about whether Trump has abandoned or adulterated the doctrine of America First by talking tough about Iran and iterating his support for Israel’s battle for its own survival. Has Trump maintained the purity of his own doctrine? Has he made concessions to the globalist neoconservatives? Has he accommodated himself to the very forces that have conspired to destroy him?

I say No, he has not. In taking a hard line against the Mullahs and their nuclear ambitions, Trump is also asserting America’s own national security interests. Does America First proceed from a doctrine alone? Or does it proceed from a doctrine and a pragmatic, commonsensical recognition that our national interest sometimes requires international action? I think it’s the latter.