“We’re taking care of ourselves for a change, folks,” President Trump said at his Texas rally this week. He went on from there to contrast this “America First” ideal with the one that he believes much of America’s policymakers have embraced in its stead.
“A globalist is a person that wants the globe to do well, frankly, not caring about our country so much,” he said. “And you know what? We can’t have that. You know, they have a word. It sort of became old-fashioned. It’s called a ‘nationalist.’ And I say, really, we’re not supposed to use that word. You know what I am? I’m a nationalist, OK? I’m a nationalist.”
This set the media-Twitter bubble abuzz, even if it mostly went unnoticed elsewhere. After all, many of the worst leaders of the 20th century were nationalists. They divided and then destroyed their own countries and other countries to boot, and they killed millions in the process. And now Trump wants to join their ranks? Quick — to the barricades!
Well … just hang on a second there. Even if the voluntary adoption of discredited 20th-century ideologies (especially “socialism”) is becoming an annoying trend, maybe the reductio ad Hitlerum argument isn’t quite the right reaction to Trump’s use of a “nationalist” label.
First of all, after nearly two years of Trump’s presidency, it’s quite clear that whatever he might be, he definitely isn’t Hitler, nor Mussolini, nor anything close. Anyone who thinks he is Hitler, or nearly Hitler, or proto-Hitler, is not worth taking seriously in this or any other debate.
Second, the word “nationalism” applies to a variety of ideologically diverse political movements. Today, “nationalist” is used most often to describe Scottish and Catalan independence-seekers, and it could also be justly applied to some of the Spanish and British who oppose them. These all act from the same motives Trump outlined in the quotation above: They seek self-determination over broader, more global goals.
Third, nationalism has still another meaning that existed before both the Scottish National Party and Hitler. George Bernard Shaw, for example, had no difficulty in recognizing “nationalism” as the evolutionary successor to feudalism as the dominant system of government in Europe. And, as such, nationalism is also a necessary precondition for modern democracy.
Yes, that’s right: Without a concept defining and limiting the unit of human and territorial organization that we call a “nation,” there can be no such thing as a self-governing people. If you disagree with this, then go try to cast a ballot in the next Mexican, Canadian, Swedish, Nigerian, or Japanese election and see how the locals react.
And just as democracy cannot exist without nationalism, neither can the welfare state, whose beneficiaries are defined by nationality. This was a major argument in the U.S. against the Iraq War (“Rebuild America, not Iraq,” they said). In the U.K., it was a major argument in favor of Brexit — that money currently being sent to benefit foreigners in Belgium should be spent instead on Britain’s National Health Service.
In choosing Brexit, the British decided they wanted their laws written by the people in Westminster who they elected, and not by the people in Brussels who French and German and Polish and Spanish voters had elected. It is thus easy to see why Brexit, a nationalist idea, is also a democratic idea.
Thanks to America’s immigrant history, the U.S. has no national tradition of common blood. That helps make American nationalism more inclusive and benign than in other countries. But like all other nations, part of what defines it are the boundaries of its territory, the limits and qualifications of its citizenry, and the common interests of Americans that are, ideally, the sole driver of all decisions made by its government.
And this last is the key. For on the occasions when he has tried to articulate it, Trump has shown that this is what he means by “America First.” Every decision of the U.S. government should somehow promote the interests of American citizens, or else it should not be taken. And any act of government that promotes someone else’s interests without promoting the common American interest is not something government should be doing — not just counterproductive but potentially unconstitutional and either way worthy of punishment by the electorate.
Put another way, if you believe in a government by the people and for the people, you believe in nationalism.
