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> Are we going to allow Trump to co-opt the anti-war position that’s traditionally been a tent pole for the progressive left? Okay I’m gonna quibble with this.

> Are we going to allow Trump to co-opt the anti-war position that’s traditionally been a tent pole for the progressive left? Okay I’m gonna quibble with this. If I had to compare Trump to any previous political figure, it would be Pat Buchanan, who was and is a paleoconservative. Paleoconservatives are anti-war in the old isolationist sense. Ron Paul popularized a more libertarian spin on paleoconservatism but Trump is steeped in it—to whatever degree he’s steeped in anything beyond his own narcissism—and the American right has a rich legacy of anti-war paleoconservatives who once thought maybe FDR was doing too much to provoke Germany and Japan. That just got set aside for about a half century after Pearl Harbor, but they’ve been there this whole time and after the controversies of GWB and his “neocon” advisors, paleocon ideas had a resurgence.

notahacker 6y ago
It's also the case that the anti-war right has had much more consistent anti-war positions than Trump, who might have used isolationist arguments to justify reducing US presence in the Middle East overall, but has also defended the notion of keeping troops there to secure oil, escalated with Iran and mooted military intervention in Latin America. The anti-war right wouldn't have appointed the likes of John Bolton to advise them on security.
- philwelch 6y ago
  This is true.
zozbot234 6y ago
Well, the old "isolationist" case for non-interventionism has always been in the service of "commerce with all nations", avoiding "entangling alliances" as far as practicable - so it's a bit difficult to differentiate it from either a "progressive left" or a "libertarian" POV. Intervention in WWI and WWII (in both instances, on the side of democracies) was rather broadly supported because the prospect of a world ruled by the philosophy of totalitarianism and military aggression was hardly attractive, even to quite a few "paleo" conservatives.
throwaway0a5e 6y ago
Pat basically ran on Trump's platform (albeit with vastly different style and rhetoric) but 20yr before anyone wanted to vote for it. It was the 90s. The world was a happy fun place free of the USSR. Why wouldn't the US want to be involved in the world? Why wouldn't the US want to do the maximal amount of trade with everyone. Optimism abounded. Isolationism and pragmatic "we'll serve ourselves fist" policy doesn't do well when everyone is feeling optimistic. I expect to see a resurgence in isolationist policy in the near future because the world is seen as a crappy place now. China and Russia are widely viewed as threats we need to hedge against and the middle east is widely viewed as a source of inextricable quagmires and nothing good. People are not happy about how things are at home. Regardless of the balance of power between the parties and which parties own which branches there is a lot more looking inward in the near future.

notahacker 6y ago

It's also the case that the anti-war right has had much more consistent anti-war positions than Trump, who might have used isolationist arguments to justify reducing US presence in the Middle East overall, but has also defended the notion of keeping troops there to secure oil, escalated with Iran and mooted military intervention in Latin America. The anti-war right wouldn't have appointed the likes of John Bolton to advise them on security.

philwelch 6y ago
This is true.

zozbot234 6y ago

Well, the old "isolationist" case for non-interventionism has always been in the service of "commerce with all nations", avoiding "entangling alliances" as far as practicable - so it's a bit difficult to differentiate it from either a "progressive left" or a "libertarian" POV. Intervention in WWI and WWII (in both instances, on the side of democracies) was rather broadly supported because the prospect of a world ruled by the philosophy of totalitarianism and military aggression was hardly attractive, even to quite a few "paleo" conservatives.

throwaway0a5e 6y ago

Pat basically ran on Trump's platform (albeit with vastly different style and rhetoric) but 20yr before anyone wanted to vote for it. It was the 90s. The world was a happy fun place free of the USSR. Why wouldn't the US want to be involved in the world? Why wouldn't the US want to do the maximal amount of trade with everyone. Optimism abounded. Isolationism and pragmatic "we'll serve ourselves fist" policy doesn't do well when everyone is feeling optimistic. I expect to see a resurgence in isolationist policy in the near future because the world is seen as a crappy place now. China and Russia are widely viewed as threats we need to hedge against and the middle east is widely viewed as a source of inextricable quagmires and nothing good. People are not happy about how things are at home. Regardless of the balance of power between the parties and which parties own which branches there is a lot more looking inward in the near future.