AMERICA FIRST, LAST, AND ALWAYS:

Old Allies (Lawrence F. Kaplan, 11.03.03, New Republic)

It was George W. Bush's finest moment. Only a few days after September 11, the president stood amid the smoldering ruins of the World Trade Center, surrounded by hundreds of firefighters and policemen chanting "USA! USA!" The moment recalled an event that took place in the same spot three decades earlier. For two weeks in May 1970, lower Manhattan was convulsed by what The New York Times described as an eruption of "jingoistic joy." In a show of support for the war in Vietnam, which quickly became a show of contempt for nearby antiwar demonstrators, thousands of construction workers took to the streets, waving U.S. flags and banners that read We Support Nixon and Agnew.

This was the moment Richard Nixon's "silent majority" finally spoke up. It was a harbinger of the 1972 election, in which Nixon successfully portrayed antiwar candidate George McGovern as "Mr. Radical Chic." More importantly, it offered a preview of the next two decades of U.S. political history, in which the GOP convinced traditionally Democratic voters that their security could not be entrusted to the likes of Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis. Along with crime, drugs, and affirmative action, foreign policy became a cultural issue, one that would cost Democrats five of six presidential elections between 1968 and 1988. Next year, it may well cost them another. [...]

[T]he brand of isolationism that the likes of Howard Dean peddle isn't the blue-collar, America-first isolationism of, say, Pat Buchanan. It is the dovish worldview of what Los Angeles Times reporter Ronald Brownstein has called Dean's "Starbucks ghetto"--the highly educated, socially conscious voters who once turned out in droves for McGovern. (Among Democrats without a college degree, according to the latest Democracy Corps poll, Dean trails badly in both Iowa and New Hampshire.) Unlike the Buchananites, Dean's antiwar constituents view U.S. power as tainted, marred by its involvement in too many unsavory conflicts; along with Dean's support for gay marriage and other signature positions of elite liberalism, the GOP will have a field day with this.

Even Pat Buchanan seems not to have comprehended that the brand of isolationalism he wants to lead is of the Jacksonian sort, Braced for Jacksonian Ruthlessness (Walter Russell Mead, September 17, 2001, NY Times)

Bush's first and perhaps most dangerous problem is that Jacksonians don't like limited wars. We should fight a war with everything we've got, Jacksonians feel. No weapons and no enemy sanctuaries should be off limits. [...]

Second, Jacksonians don't like diplomatic niceties. No fine points of international law should deter the United States from hunting down and exterminating these rats. If international law doesn't allow the United States to protect itself against this kind of enemy, then what good is it? The same thing applies to alliances. Allies are okay, say Jacksonians, but alliance politics cannot impose crippling limits on America's war-fighting strategies. The clash between this strong popular feeling and the limits Bush will face as he works with Western and Middle Eastern allies to combat a non-state enemy based, perhaps, in more than one foreign country, may cause great trouble for the administration.

Third, Jacksonians believe with Douglas MacArthur that there is no substitute for victory. "Unconditional surrender" is what Jacksonians want from an enemy, and unconditional surrender -- or extermination -- are the only outcomes they will accept. The elder Bush failed to end the Gulf War in this way, and he lost the popularity he'd gained from Desert Storm.

Fourth, Jacksonians fear fifth columns. The 1942 internment of Japanese Americans and the Cold War red scares show just how powerful this fear can be. We shall see how the American people and George Bush rise to this challenge. [...]

"It is a fearful thing to lead this people into war," said Woodrow Wilson in 1917.

If the post-war situation has not quieted down by late next Spring the pressure from the Starbucks ghetto may be to cut and run, but from the Red States it will be to kill more ruthlessly. And if there's another major terrorist incident, no extremity of reaction will be off-limits.

Posted by Orrin Judd at November 7, 2003 8:27 PM