America First // 2 May 2024

??????????? There have been numerous periods during American history when isolationist instincts have driven our politics.? We are in the midst of one right now.

??????????? After World War I, the nation quickly turned inward following the first significant loss of American life on the battlefield since the Civil War.? Many Americans could not understand from reading their morning newspaper why we were sending “our” boys to fight “their” wars.

Not unlike the political climate in the United Kingdom which saw Neville Chamberlain capitulate to Hitler at Munich, in the United States, Roosevelt had extraordinary difficulties getting through most any program to help Britain and our other allies.

Leading the charge for “America First” was Charles A. Lindbergh who in 1927 had flown the Spirit of St. Louis and landed it in France. He was a national hero (a celebrity before Taylor Swift was born).? Mountains were named after him; skyscrapers were named after him.? A Philip Roth novel even suggested that Lindbergh might have run for president.

That all changed after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December?7, 1941. Even Lindbergh stepped up, saying he would perform whatever job the Air Force and the President wanted him to do.? His reputation never really recovered, especially given he had traveled to Germany to receive a medal from Adolf Hitler.? Many wondered which side he was really on! [It was revealed long after he died that he had fathered a second family with a young German woman which explained his frequent travels to Europe.]

America stepped up and, because the U.S. mainland was isolated from war, was able to become the arsenal of democracy.? At the end of World War?II, America controlled approximately 50% of the industrial capacity of the entire world.? In order to keep the peace, now that we had won the peace, large numbers of senators and other elected officials from both parties supported America’s exercising our role as the world’s leading nation.

There were exceptions, one of whom was “Mr. Republican”, Senator Robert Taft of Ohio, the son of William Howard Taft who served as President from 1909 until 1913.? Senator Taft came very close to being the Republican nominee for President on more than one occasion.? He and his supporters blamed the “Eastern establishment” which at that time was as Republican as it was Protestant, white and male for preventing him from securing the nomination.

History tells us that Robert Taft voted against the United States joining NATO, which may have been a majority position in the Republican Party and in Ohio, then, as it may be now.?

Our nation’s ugly isolationist past surfaces from time to time.? Do the American people have the courage as they did after World War II, to support our friends and not coddle our enemies or will we abandon our role as the world’s most powerful nation?