While the United States' meltdown continues apace, it has become something of a challenge to maintain focus on affairs going on outside of the immediate national context. But rest assured the globe continues to revolve, upwards of twenty Indian soldiers killed in clashes with the Chinese military, the legal philosophy formerly known as "originalism" committed suicide in a dramatic (if not totally unexpected) display of self-debasement when a Trump appointed justice sided with progressive sentiment in advancing LGBTQ "rights" and defending sanctuary cities, oh, and America is withdrawing half of its German garrison.
The move was something of a shock to those paying attention (though it really shouldn't be). It probably helps that not many people are paying attention at the moment, given the multiplicity of concurrent global crises, but it is a profoundly significant decision, not simply because it tells us something of this administration's true intentions nor because of the acceleration of weakening transatlantic ties, but also because it is a present day instantiation of historical forces that still act upon the psyche of this country, because it is an action born of pure emotion, carried out emotionally towards ends that are at once substantive while also doubling as a vindictive display of will. It is, in short, the starkest demonstration of irrationalism's capacity to satiate itself while also producing results conducive to the common good.
I should preface all of this by asserting that isolationism is not, in itself, irrational. Many states practiced isolationism and its attraction was once such that it would not be a total exaggeration to call it the default foreign policy for those states which could afford to maintain it. Europe, with its hodgepodge of competing and fragmented polities, as well as perennial concerns over such nebulous notions as the "balance of power", was not able to avail itself of the same luxuries available to China, Japan, and the United States in its infancy. It was a perfectly rational disposition born of immense wealth, security, and geographical unassailability. This attitude is perfectly summed up by the Qing emperor's response to Her Majesty's ambassador when said ambassador arrived bearing gifts: We possess all things. A state that possesses all things has little positive interest in games played outside of its borders. The difference between then and now is that the interdependency of the world in the 18th century was far less than that of the world today. Today, the United States has inexplicably decided that it does have positive interests outside of its borders. In fact, it has decided that it has positive interests everywhere. Even more inexplicably, it has decided to hitch its economic fortunes to other countries (even adversaries!) in the hopes of actively facilitating this interdependency. In the minds of those conspirators who have formulated this policy, the net result is an increase in influence over events in the world outside of its borders. Even events that are as far removed from the immediate national context as a border clash between India and China, or an autocrat rattling his saber in the Levant.
You see where I'm going with this? Such a policy may have its benefits when a country must grapple with insuperable military, political, or geographical necessities, such as the kind that necessitated the Pax Britannica, Pax Mongolica and so on, but for a country separated from the world by two oceans, from a country founded on ideas of self-sufficiency and autarky, this seems self-defeating. One would also be remiss to avoid acknowledging that even in Europe increasing insecurity has often powered a drive towards autarky. Both Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia found itself beset by enemies, real and imagined, and such internal instability energized broad-based national economic programs to lessen reliance on outside economic and political factors. Interdependency, quite apart from reducing power disparities, exacerbates them, and such disparities drive states to lash out in unpredictable ways if conditions do not exist to enable the kind of self-sufficiency enjoyed by those lucky states which inherit them. In layman's terms: you stick with your own people, and this is how most units of analysis, whether it is the individual or the state, seem to prefer it.
So to isolate is perhaps a completely rational desire, and to pursue a foreign policy with this ultimate aim in mind is evidently reasonable. For a country that has already gone so far down the path towards encouraging interdependency to suddenly get cold feet may appear to be capricious and imprudent when in reality it is a perfectly natural course correction. There may be painful, even wrenching consequences to such a correction, but the blame should lie at the feet of those "liberal hegemonists" who thought they were building a better world (and they certainly did not), and not with the status quo they smashed. But the deceptively simple act of moving to overturn one status quo in favor of another should not escape our notice, for oftentimes it is the means by which such overturning occurs that matters.
The liberal hegemonists did believe they were building a better world. They were moved to act in service of lofty ideals, pacifistic universality combined with enough firepower to enforce it. Those old wry refrains - peace and democracy at the point of a gun - ring true. They were guided by the light of reason, by the dream of a shining city on a hill, by the promise of internationalism and globalism. They have failed because they weren't strong enough to push against the tide of American history, founded on those aforementioned ideals of self-sufficiency, which has so often ruled against interest in overseas affairs. When their efforts floundered, they did not course correct, but stayed the course. It is hard to deprogram people who believe themselves to have thought up one good idea, particularly if they don't have many to begin with. Their procedure is eminently rational, but they have inculcated an irrational mindset, a "fanatical center", a "paranoid establishment".
If rational means can be deployed to irrational ends. Might the inverse be true? And if such a thing is possible, might it produce better results? Believe it or not, there is a literature on this topic as it pertains to this specific national context. We will have to trace the linkages of meaning in order to answer our question.
My interest in this subject was first roused by a curious little footnote buried deep in Richard Hofstadter's essay on what he called the "pseudo-conservative revolt". Writing in the time of Joseph McCarthy, Barry Goldwater, and Robert Welch Jr., Hofstadter had much to be paranoid about. He saw the rising of what would become movement conservatism as inherently unconservative in its disposition towards the world (he was right, but not for the reasons he thinks). He saw it as fundamentally characteristic of that paranoid style for which he has become so well known, and as representative of the triumph of status politics over interest politics (as a self-proclaimed chronicler of historico-political "moods" and "culture", he displayed much interest in psychologizing his subjects). It is also lesser remarked upon that the paranoid "style" of which he spoke could be used, in his words, to convey ideas that are eminently rational. There were plenty of intelligent men, in his estimation, who could fall victim, or use deliberately, the thrilling power of paranoia and deploy it in service of ends quite distinct from the mood of its adherents. Hence, Goldwater, who in reality was a quite conventional laissez-faire acolyte and prone to frequent flip flops, cobbled together a movement of millions in service of ideas that I think many today would see as "rational" (constitutionalism, rule of law, etc.) conveyed in an "irrational" or "paranoid" style by framing the political conflict (in Hofstadter's words) as a simple Manichean struggle between good and evil, against forces wishing to smother the American experiment, against the power of those above to squash the ordinary man.
But the distinction between intent and outcome is a glaring disparity that must be addressed. Goldwater, you see, was a liar, and while his failure to understand his voters was not what cost him the election, it is an embarrassment that should sweep from history any claim on his part to that of "standard bearer". The fact that the states that voted for Barry went for George Wallace four years later should clue us in to the fact that certain core aspects of Goldwater's platform was, at best, a nonissue for his voters. Hofstadter gets it right when he says that those voting for the new conservative movement were doing so in part because they had become aware that they were shouldering the burden of global responsibility and found it not to their liking. For them, Goldwater was a useful vessel, or idiot, that could project their frustration and anger. He was able to channel vague intent and assemble it into a coherent message and policy program that promised certain outcomes (with the aid of some fiery if impotent rhetoric), but only because there was no one else playing even close to the same ballpark. Sounds familiar, doesn't it?
This leads me to the footnote. In his discussion of this new unconservative sentiment, he endorses a political tract by one Sam Lubell and gestures vaguely at the structure of isolationism as Sam sees it - as "a vengeful memory". This is a profound assertion. Mr. Lubell is apparently not content to have isolationism be the mere product of "a vengeful memory". Isolationism is a vengeful memory. What ever could this mean? Indeed, further inquiry into Mr. Lubell's work finds an interesting thesis spread out over a number of books and papers. It is his contention that isolationism is the product of ethnic attitudes derived from historical experience. Analysis of voting patterns in the 1940 election, which pitted the interventionist FDR against Wendell Wilkie, exposed an interesting shift: Democratic vote shares declined considerably in areas populated by German and Irish-Americans. In his telling, what pushed these groups against FDR was "First, the existence of pro-German and anti-British ethnic prejudices. Second, the exploiting of these prejudices by an opposition party" and that the genesis of isolationist sentiment in the United States was ultimately "ethnic and emotional".
It is not hard to see why this might be. Germany and the United Kingdom had spent the previous three decades at bitter odds, while the Irish had an even lengthier catalogue of grievances against the British. It is important to note that the ultimate question of the wisdom of intervention was set aside by these groups. If these groups did not have the historical encounters with Britain that they did, perhaps their response to the question would be different, or perhaps there would be other reasons to feel the same. Rational consideration of the issue was hardly at play. This was a simple matter of revenge, and it overrode all else. The geographical relationship to isolationist sentiment is merely incidental. The American interior, particularly the Middle West, is where most German-Americans ended up settling. It is hardly a coincidence that La Follette's third-party insurgency in the election of 1924 was built on similar isolationist sentiment, that a large share of his vote came from this region (he was a veteran of Wisconsin machine politics), and that many of them were temporary defectors from the Republican Party.
So it is certainly possible to imagine that what is essentially an irrational sentiment might have led to rational policy outcomes. Was Wendell Wilkie a raging sentimentalist? I can hardly imagine that he would have conceived of himself this way. He simply believed himself to be defending the American traditions of virtuosity, self-sufficiency, and benign neglect. But he did channel similar sentiments to those tapped by Goldwater three decades later, sentiments that ended up bearing little resemblance to those mythic attributes of the American tradition. Rather, it appears that many of these political figures are borne aloft the tide. Sometimes they manage to swim with it, but most of the time they drown, if only because they are incapable of fully committing or because foreign policy issues are just not salient in certain contexts. Whatever the case, it's irrelevant. What matters is that isolationism is a weapon that can be wielded by the discontented and aggrieved, that for many it is not a means to an end, but merely means to hurt. It is historical vengeance personified in a single position, it is grievance emblazoned in a platform. The difference between intent and outcome turns out to be meaningful after all. For quite a few of us isolationism is a cathartic act, consequences be damned.
But the world of objective analysis, separate from emotion, still exists, which is where this recent decision to pull troops from Germany comes in. Ironic that it would be them, isn't it? In contrast to Wendell, Donald Trump is a raging sentimentalist. He sees Germany as derelict and delinquent, and he means to hurt. The intent is perhaps little more than punishment, but that should not stop us from considering the positive outcomes that may be achieved. Whatever the ultimate motive, the outcome seems clear. The burden of military responsibility is being redistributed, the world is doing more, America is doing less, the global policeman is retreating from his domain, hegemony is being surrendered, the state has found it not to its liking, the troops are coming home, the taxpayer is getting his due, outdated modes of thinking are coming under scrutiny, the delusions masquerading as dreams are being revealed for what they always were.
Does any of this matter? Do people think in these terms? Probably not. But it is the practical result of a wrecking ball made to swing freely. For those of us with revenge on our individual mind, this is one way of seeing those dreams realized on an international scale. To paraphrase grossly out of context: Life and world are one.
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