America First’ means America first, not diminished

 

America First’ means America first, not diminished

My vote for the most misunderstood, misused phrase in American history is America First.

 Prime example is Brookings Institute pundit John Austin’s Chicago Tribune op-ed ‘America First’ means an America diminished’.

The term came into being on September 4, 1940 as the name for the America First Committee formed to keep America out of the European war raging for a year.  Over 800,000 strong, it was non-partisan, consisting of Republicans, Democrats as well as a cross section of America: farmers, laborers, industrialists, communists, anti-communists, students, journalists and yes, a smattering of pro Nazi sympathizers. But Austin puts the emphasis on the Committee “voicing sympathy and even admiration for Adolf Hitler and the emerging Nazi Party in Germany.” Good way to demonize America First.

After the Pearl Harbor attack, the America First Committee dissolved in 4 days. In the 84 years since, the term America First has become negatively connected to another misunderstood term, isolationism, used to demean any person or group seeking to keep America unencumbered by senseless foreign entanglements.

Austin laments the decline of US world leadership, epitomized by President Trump’s planned withdrawal from primary supporter of European security. For Austin, Trump calling this his America First policy signals US abandonment of leadership worldwide.

The opposite is true. For Trump, defunding European security frees up US defense treasure to support the Israeli genocide of 2,300,000 Palestinians in Gaza with tens of billions in weaponry. It frees up tens of billions to pour weaponry into Taiwan, possibly instigating catastrophic war with China. It frees up resources to prepare for war on Iran’s nonexistent nuclear weapons program. It frees up defense resources to prepare for military intervention to acquire Greenland s Denmark and seize the Panama Canal from Panama. Except for the long overdue need to cut Europe loose to manage its own defense, everything in Trump’s foreign policy is not just America diminished, it’s America last.

John Austin acknowledges none of this self destructive Trump policy that will complete the death and removal of Gaza’s Palestinians and possibly entangle America in one or two catastrophic wars. If that’s the global leadership Austin cherishes, he’s closer to Trump’s foreign policy than he realizes.

Nothing wrong with championing America First. The other 192 countries, if they are wise, put their country first as well. Best way for America to do that is start with the wise counsel of President/statesman John Quincy Adams 204 years ago that America should not “go abroad in search to monsters to destroy.”

Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL