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I Am Now an Isolationist Republican
I was struck while reading Paul Gigot’s Opinion piece, “The Return of the Isolationist Republicans“, with the realization that I recognize myself and do not think I am wrong.
He lays out his premise with typical skill:
What is most striking is how much this isolationism of the right resembles the traditional isolationism of the left. Isolationists in the Vietnam era argued that America wasn’t good enough for the world. We were baby killers and imperialists. This is the view of today’s pro-Hamas left.
As Charles Krauthammer pointed out 20 years ago, the conservative isolationism that flourished in the 1930s argued the opposite—that America was too good for the world. Our republican values shouldn’t be tarnished by the bloody intrigues of Europe or Asia. But the new isolationists on the right now agree with the left that the U.S. doesn’t deserve to lead the world. They say we are too degraded culturally and too weak fiscally to play the role we did during the Cold War. They say we are too woke and too broke.
Yes, we are. My youthful enthusiasm for spreading the “American Way” to improve the world was based on my belief that our ideals as a nation and capitalist markets were better than the alternative. I am not a “my nation, right or wrong” kind of guy. When we are in the right, we should try to spread the wealth and principles to people less well off. When we are lost and looking for ways to right the ship, we should not be proselytizing our fads through the force of markets.
I have a few years to go before I will have lived half my life in this century, and it doesn’t seem much of an improvement. Cell phones are tiny and powerful, and I can use them to summon a bag of birdseed or a muffler to my doorstep. At the same time, we haven’t passed a federal budget this century and declarations of war have given way to a limit on how many days a President can attack a random country before he has to give a speech before Congress.
This “perfect war” in Ukraine is a sad harbinger of things to come. We now fight wars with other people’s lives, using accumulations of weapons long paid for (requiring new contracts to replenish!), financed by dilution of the global money supply. Everyone wins! Except for the Ukrainians, suckers relying on Social Security or 401(k)s, and any manufacturing companies remaining in Europe.
I am now an Isolationist Republican.
Published in General
Hear! Hear!
I particularly agree with:
When we coerce third world nations to adopt transgender ideology or pro-abortion policies on the threat of withholding aid, I do not want us exporting our culture.
I have some respect for an honest isolationist position of the old Republican type. But isn’t it rather arrogant to say Ukrainians are better off living under the Russian yoke? Whatever it is, it’s not an improvement over those who want to spread the “American Way” everywhere, and it’s not very isolationist.
I never adopt my opponent’s terms. Or at least I will acknowledge how the term’s opposite sounds. I’m a ‘nationalist’ then you must be a ‘globalist’. If I’m an ‘isolationist’ then you’re an interventionist.
Gigot, and others who employ these terms, will claim they do not want to intervene everywhere and that we must ‘pick our battles’ so he’s nuanced you see, but the opposition the ‘isolationists’ are somehow incapable of deviating from some strict dogma he applies to them.
Apparently there’s no possibility that these so-called isolationists might be for strong defense generally, but desire prudent use of military engagement- if only to preserve our forces, our ammunition and hardware- as well as our treasury and our credibility at home and abroad. Or, if you will, a more prudent use of military engagement. x
Gigot admits he was wrong about how he cheered for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan ( finally?) , and then conflates the Ukraine war with the current horrors in Israel and Gaza. One is a civilizational conflict that seems to have worldwide implications, the other is a political dispute.
Not so, Paul Gigot.
Ukraine preserving their “nascent democracy” they never had, while we are losing ours here at home ( which we did actually have at one time). It’s not only that our country has declined culturally, we have declined politically into a near fascist state. It’s not just that we have little to offer other countries, as he claims is the position, we are corrupt ourselves and are unable to help Ukraine become a democracy whilst actively participating in the existing corruption.
Here he shows us more of his ignorance:
Really?
Gigot takes a conveniently abstract approach to this issue and ignores things like protecting our southern border from hordes of invaders.
I guess he’s “isolationist” on that issue?
I could do more damage to this pathetic opinion piece, but this is just a comment.
Typical WSJ drivel.
We can ign0re the world outside our borders; not sure that the world will ignore us.
In Ukraine, the only Americans who die are volunteers. If Russia conquers Ukraine, I suspect a NATO Ally is next. I am happy to send American dollars to Ukraine to avoid American deaths in Europe. Russia intends us evil; anything that weakens them is a good thing.
In Israel, again it is other people willing to die for our freedom. A sweet deal if you can get it.
Taiwan is the source of most of our semi-conductors. Our economy is kind of f’d without them.
I am not recommending sending American soldiers, but if our enemies end up on our borders after conquering all our allies , it is really too late.
Isolationism works, until it doesn’t. I don’t want to deal with doesn’t.
We have borders?
I like the idea of promoting Americanism, where the ground is fertile for it. It does not have to be expensive and it does not exporting cultural Marxist ideas on innocent countries. It also means that expect Europeans to settles issues in Europe.
The Russian Yoke is looking better in Melitopol than that PMC regime squatting in Kiev.
It’s evil to use Ukrainian citizens as cannon fodder in our attempt to defeat Russia.
If the Regime seriously wants to defeat Russia, they should have some skin in the game. But they’re seeing that a lot of young men no longer want to play these games.
It doesn’t have to be, but currently it is. Until we get a better administration in charge, I certainly don’t want THIS administration making diktats to the world.
We should bring manufacturing home so we don’t have to be dependent on other nations.
If you think that, you aren’t an isolationist.
Yes!
Let me put it this way. If you loved the Soviet Union and hate the Russian Federation, you are wrong twice. If you hated the Soviet Union and hate the Russian Federation, you are wrong once.
Russia was a great friend of the United States, before the tragedy of communism. I hope and pray that we will be friends again some day.
See what I mean? An isolationist doesn’t need friends outside the U.S.
I think of isolationism as having friends without funding wars to take their stuff. I guess I’m a dreamer.
I don’t want to overlook or underestimate the value that assisting Ukraine has provided us by showing that we should have been producing a lot more ammunition and hardware for decades already. Getting so rapidly “depleted” with what amounts to a brush-fire compared to what we’d be facing if we actually had to respond to Russia ourselves directly, or to China, shows that we had totally inadequate stockpiles already.
It’s much better to find out this way than if we were to respond to China attacking Taiwan or Russia attacking NATO or something.
It really is a puzzle, isn’t it? where did all those years of overwhelming military spending go?
Do we have MREs for a thousand years and artillery shells for a thousand hours?
Some of it seems to be related to training needs as well. The stockpile is only built from what is produced, minus what is used for regular training etc.
E. Kent Golding (View Comment):
Taiwan is the source of most of our semi-conductors. Our economy is kind of f’d without them.
In Israel, again it is other people willing to die for our freedom. A sweet deal if you can get it.
Sick.
I don’t want ‘other people’ to die for ‘our’ freedom. That’s not any way to safeguard freedom.
Israel is fighting for its survival. It has nothing to to do with “freedom”.
A very strange and calloused calculation you’ve employed. Sweet deal, while conscripts die horrifically…
I would love to bring it home.
But it doesn’t want to come home. It doesn’t want to pay time and a half, lose money on OSHA and EPA rulings and regs, fund pensions, pay taxes to every conceivable level of government, and get sued from pretty much any person or entity with a beef and a lawyer.
Manufacturing wants to hang out in countries with educable people willing to work cheap and governments that won’t bleed them too much so they can put their goods on Chinese container ships for next to nothing and make profits.
’Struwth. It takes a lot of bullets to train a sniper and a lot of fuel to train a pilot.
True. Bring the semi conductors home first; abandon (or not) Taiwan second. The other order is disaster.
No amount of what Israel is doing is for the USA. That’s the absolute worst of geo-centric thinking where your country is the center of the universe. Israel is fighting for THEIR freedom and survival. Not for us. Not for the world.
So true.
As Trotsky supposedly said, “you might not be interested in war, but war is interested in you”. Too many on the “anti-American right” (the modern rightwing isolationists- we are too corrupt and evil/woke- ie the old mantra of the isolationist left)) think they can put their heads in the sand & ignore the rest of the world- but they are gravely mistaken. Yes, the world is grubby & it (and we are imperfect)-but failing to discern that what Niall Ferguson/Douglas Murray call the West is worth protecting is an act of sheer folly. Too many isolationists insist on perfection-and the perfect is the enemy of the good.
And after what now, 12 years at least, of China’s exspantionist plans for Taiwan being plain to see, how much of that semi-conductor manufacturing has been moved back? Zero. So “our betters” in DC and Wall Street think its a better risk to defend Taiwan, than it is to move even a portion, of that capability here.
Read article that application for manufacturing site was denied due to EPA concernes (I apologize, can’t recall publication or location of that proposed factory).
I think I’ll help my sons avoid the draft when the time comes. No sense in defending Stoopid.
If the only reason we care about Taiwan is semi-conductors, we’re not very good friends.
Did you see pictures of the demonstrations in London? Looks like they were, um, invaded. While Britain was diligently helping the US in foreign conflicts wars and interventions they let themselves be overtaken by throngs of committed Muslim warriors.
Do you know what’s happening on our southern border?
So until we deal with the existing invasion and infiltration of bad actors behind our own castle walls, the tunnels, the breached walls, the control of our leaders, all need to be dealt with before we foray o’er to France or wherever to “defend” ourselves, lest these adventurers return to find the castle in ruins.
Drew I was going to argue against that paragraph you quoted. “The U.S. doesn’t deserve to lead the world.” I was going to say that deserve has nothing to do with it: we are in perhaps the weakest position since I don’t know when. It’s putting it mildly to say that it would be imprudent to conduct Cold War type interventionism.
After reading your comment, though, I see I was missing an important element, although deserve still has nothing to do with it. There too, we do need to cure ourselves before we can hope to do any good for anyone else around the world, before faraway interventionism is a higher priority than the many holes in our domestic boat.
Good knows we need to fix the weeds in our front lawn before we worry about the forest fire raging next door….
The forest fire is raging here, my guy.
You want to spread the fire everywhere.