Chapter 3
Note by James R. Martin, Ph.D., CMA
Professor Emeritus, University of South Florida
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Chapter 3: "America First": Nationalism, Nativism, and the Fascism Question 1880-2020 by Matthew Specter and Varsha Venkatasubramanian
The fact that the term "America First" reemerges frequently in American history indicates that it is more than a foreign policy slogan. The term has a history that began in the late nineteenth-century when it was used as a slogan to insure that recent immigrants affirmed that they were Americans first and immigrants second. This was followed by the Second Ku Klux Klan's use of the term as a slogan in the 1920s, and the America First Committee (AFC) and movement in 1940 to prevent the U.S. from intervening in World War II. The AFC's relationship with American fascist groups led some to view it as fascist, although currently the America First movement is viewed as more of a populism. However, the fascist dimensions of the concept of America First run deep and it provides a way to understand America's home grown fascist tradition.
This chapter provides an examination of the terms fascist, nativist, populist, or isolationist and provides an argument that fascist and nativist are the most useful. America First provides a window into the past and the present of American fascist politics. The first section examines the history of immigration policy, nativism and the Ku Klux Klan to 1924. Section two provides an argument that the focus on isolationism in the AFC's foreign policy ignores the role of race and ethnicity in describing American nationalism. Section three examines the appropriate use of the labels fascist and populist for the AFC. Section four provides an analysis of how intellectuals like John Flynn and Patrick Buchanan reformulated the concept of America First for the Cold War, and section five provides an analysis of how Donald Trump combined the fascist politics of identity with nationalist unilateralism rooted in American exceptionalism. Trump's foreign policy record does not warrant the use of the term fascist because he did not pursue the expansionist policy that is a characteristic of classical fascisms, or statism, but instead was friendly to economic liberalism, and kleptocratic behavior. Trump's America First policy summoned a loss of sovereignty to the world community, a reduction of whiteness in a multicultural society, and activated the nativist xenophobic and racist history of the concept. In other words, technically Trump might not be a fascist, but his political behavior is an iteration of the living tradition of fascist politics.
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Related summaries:
Anonymous. 2019. A Warning: A Senior Trump Administration Official. Twelve: Hachette Book Group. (Summary).
Martin, J. R. Not dated. Policies of a Second Trump Presidency.
Martin, J. R. Not dated. Shepard Fairey Political Posters.
Martin, J. R. Not dated. Summary of Trump's Seven Part Plan to Overturn the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election.
Martin, J. R. Not dated. Summary of what Trump is and what he is not.
Martin, J. R. Not dated. Why I vote for Democrats.
Oser, J. 1963. The Evolution of Economic Thought. Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc. See Chapter 5 for Adam Smith's invisible hand. (Summary).
Stanley, J. 2018. How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them. Random House. (Summary).
Unger, C. 2018. House of Trump, House of Putin: The Untold Story of Donald Trump and the Russian Mafia. Dutton. (Note).