Politics Doesn’t Stop At the Water’s Edge

“You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.” – Leon Trotsky

The inspiration for today’s post comes from an unusual source: Marjorie Taylor Greene. The Ultra-Trumper from Georgia commented on hints from Senate leadership that more funds may be needed to support Ukraine (Washington Post).

“I cannot comprehend why any senator that serves the United States of America is upset over Ukraine funding,” Greene said. “I can’t even comprehend that because Ukraine is not the United States of America.”

The arguments over additional funding for Ukraine can wait until the Biden Administration actually asks for some (they heaven’t, yet). It will be no surprise to read that I disagree strongly with Greene (and, apparently, Kevin McCarthy). Instead, I want to examine the unfortunate mentality behind her comments. Greene’s isolationism is hardly new. However, large swathes of the country share it, and even more tend to view the rest of the world as something that can be safely ignored.

Or, as Ted Koppel once put it in the runner-up for this post’s intro quote: “Most Americans don’t give a damn about foreign policy.” History tells us that’s a mistake, and not merely because of what happens when the rest of the world demands our attention. In fact, foreign policy has had a tremendous and continuing impact on America’s domestic political history.

America’s first two-party system was arguably the result of a foreign policy dispute. While many Americans would like to believe that Thomas Jefferson began the Republican Party to stop Alexander Hamilton’s vision for “energetic government,” it was Hamilton and Washington’s refusal to support the French Revolution during the Reign of Terror that actually led Jefferson to resign from the cabinet and build a political opposition. Ironically, one of the foundational documents behind American isolationism (Washington’s Farewell Address) was written in part to defend the refusal to support France, as Jefferson had demanded.

Less than a decade later, Federalist opposition to Napoleon’s attempt to re-enslave Haiti led the anti-Jeffersons to become America’s first major anti-slavery party. Nearly every argument about slavery’s expansion was a result of territory acquired by treaty or seized by war. Our own Civil War might have ended very differently if Britain and France (under another Napoleon) had the desire or the opportunity to provide more help to the Confederacy. Tyrannical France in particular had the chance to install a pro-Confederate regime in Mexico, but the locals had other ideas.

That said, it’s the Haiti example that comes to the top of my mind today; for it best reveals the intersection between foreign policy and domestic politics, as well as the consequences.

There are few on Bearing Drift who have been harder on Trump-backers and anti-anti-Trumpers than I have. However, it has only recently occurred to me how much foreign policy impacted my decision to leave the GOP – and how a lack of concern for foreign policy would lead so many on political right and political left to miss what I saw.

Trump’s biggest departure from the Reagan Republican orthodoxy came in international affairs. He was the first out-right trade protectionist nominated by the party since Herbert Hoover. His isolationism was similarly something not seen in the party since Robert Taft. His preference for dictators was … unique. For those of us who came to the center-right on these issues, this was “three strikes, he’s out.” His nomination was thus a massive break, one we could not tolerate; so we left.

For those who are not “neoconservatives” (as we have been known for decades now), none of this would be immediately apparent. Noticing Trump’s departure from supply-side policy on tax issues requires both a large amount of education in economics and a possibly unhealthy obsession with the same. On social issues, Trump largely hewed to the evangelical agenda. So unless one pays close attention to foreign policy, the damage Trump did beyond our shores wouldn’t even be noticed, let alone be part of the discussion regarding the GOP’s transition to Trumpism.

Unfortunately, that also means far too many Americans don’t see the full picture of Trump’s disastrous record. As such, items like the first impeachment and January 6th become outliers (for the far right) rather than part of a larger anti-democratic pattern of the former president. Meanwhile, the rise of authoritarianism in the rest of the world ends of largely ignored by right and left until one of them started interfering in our elections.

Therefore, as much as I may disagree with Greene’s isolationism, I am glad she doesn’t keep it to herself. Foreign policy has always been a key part of the American democratic experiment. We ignore it at our peril.