Let’s talk a little about America First. Some people misunderstand what America First means. It is not feckless pacifism. It is the opposite – to put America First, our enemies must fear our righteous wrath. The America First agenda has always been present in American politics, and Donald Trump brilliantly rode the rising wave of concern over how American interests were becoming an afterthought to the presidency in 2016 and may well do again next year. The theme just didn’t have the America First title until 2016. Now, idiots like to try to tie it together with the America First movement of the late-30s, either being too stupid, or thinking you are too stupid, to know the difference. But in any case, America First is my agenda. It is also the GOP base’s agenda. It’s probably yours too, unless you like Nikki Haley, and no one should like that shrill 2004 throwback.
The America First agenda is pretty simple. Our priority in America must be the United States of America and the interests of its people. That sounds pretty sensible, but it has not been the governing philosophy of our garbage ruling class for quite some time. For many, many decades, our elite has become increasingly globalized, in the sense that it has forgotten that its duty is to the United States and its citizens. Instead, out elite decided that its duty was to a leftish transnational ideology that somehow trumps America’s interests. We were not consulted about this. We were not asked. We sure did not vote for it, at least not directly – no one running ever said “I want to put foreigners first over Americans” out loud, even when they did. This vision was just sort of imposed upon us by both parties.
It has led to a variety of terrible outcomes, from the outsourcing of America’s manufacturing capability to our repeated participation in poorly thought-through and executed foreign adventures that had nothing to do with America’s own national interest. I know this well, having participated in several.
But do not confuse America First with pacifism because it is not that, not at all. We American First folks are not against all war. We are against stupid wars, wars that do not serve out national interest and/or are not executed in such a way that victory is achieved quickly, followed by us getting the hell out. Our objection is not to fighting but to not fighting for a good reason, and then not fighting smart when we do. We are Jacksonian – not looking for a fight, but winning one when it is thrust upon us. The idea that we should somehow spend decades in Third World countries trying to teach the local savages who have been happily butchering each other for millennia not to butcher each other is ridiculous. It ends up draining our treasury and sending our people – because we America First folks are the kind of people who supply the American military, not the idiot to dream of these adventures – home in body bags.
Which brings us to Israel. There are apparently a number of people out there, judging from social media, who think America First means abandoning our actual allies. It doesn’t mean that, especially when America’s interest is affected. Israel is a valuable ally with a foothold in the Middle East, and it shares vital technology with us. We send it a lot of money, but the relationship is to our strategic advantage – and to our moral advantage as well. No one accuses Israel of siphoning off billions for oligarchs to buy yachts. A strong Israel is to our advantage – putting aside that it is morally right.
But there is another reason. There are about 350,000 American citizens there, and as of this writing at least 11 American citizens have been murdered with others possibly kidnapped by the Hamas semihumans. We must protect and avenge our own. If America First means anything, it means taking care of American citizens. If you don’t take care of your own citizens, you’re not a country.
Letting our people be butchered and our country be humiliated is America Last. The idea that America First requires that we somehow write off some unknown number of Americans and leave them in the captivity of Third World savages and unavenged is repulsive. If that’s America, First, count me out. But it isn’t America First. It’s a perversion of the ideology of morons promoted by morons on social media. They have latched onto America First and have somehow misconstrued the idea of not getting in unnecessary wars with not getting into any wars. Well, buddy, sometime wars are necessary. What would Andrew Jackson do if American citizens were being raped and kidnapped? Sometimes war is necessary. The animals out there need to understand that if they screw with us, they die, and everyone around them dies.
The Romans understood that. On the rare occasions that the barbarians messed with a Roman citizen, they did it once. Think Carthage (for the effect – the Punic Wars were a different animal than this, but the final result was the same). And you know what? People didn’t screw with the Romans that often. For generations thereafter, the few survivors of Roman wrath terrified their children by telling them that if they were bad, the Romans were going to come back.
That’s what we want from America. We want a cold finger of terror to run down their spines when they mention our name. But we need not act rashly. We need not allow our emotions to rule us. Our goal is righteous retribution. Here, we should not intervene militarily in Gaza – but only because more of the bad guys will die if we do not get in Israel’s way. The Israelis know how to do this, and we don’t need to screw up the chain of command trying to get a few licks in ourselves. We need to supply them with equipment and intelligence, and anything else they want, and let them go in and do the killing.
Again, I’m not against us doing the killing when appropriate. I think it would be highly edifying for US forces, taking a break from their trans awareness training obligations, to send a few more of these troglodytes to hell like the Trump administration sent Soleimani. But this isn’t about the satisfaction of killing barbarians, though don’t underestimate the satisfaction we would get from killing these barbarians. This is about victory. And that is what America First is. America First is about not suffering humiliation. It is about not suffering defeat. It is about victory for America – something our garbage elite has failed for far too long to deliver.
Follow Kurt on Twitter @KurtSchlichter. Get the newest volume in the Kelly Turnbull People's Republic series of conservative action novels set in America after a notional national divorce, the bestselling Amazon #1 Military Thriller, Overlord!
Look, you need to keep up the fight by joining Townhall VIP right now. You get access to a bunch of great stuff, not the least of which is my extra Wednesday column, my weekly Stream of Kurtiousness videos every Friday, and the Unredacted podcast every Monday! Plus, some stuff from Larry O’Connor – and a bunch of other stuff.
My super-secret email address is Kurt.Schlichter@townhall.com
