America First

America First is a political slogan and a paradigm under which an isolationist or anti- interventionist American, especially foreign and economic policy with strong protectionist influences is pursued or represented.

Origin of the term

In connection with the First World War , the incumbent American President Woodrow Wilson used the slogan as early as 1915 : Among other things, he called for the registration of naturalized persons and wanted to isolate those who preferred other countries to America.

According to Eric Rauchway, “America First” was a motto of American sympathizers of National Socialism in the 1930s: At the beginning of the 1930s, when the National Socialists consolidated their rule over Germany, the US media baron William Randolph Hearst began with the slogan to agitate against the then American President Franklin Roosevelt . Hearst saw it as a threat to "allowing the international bankers and the other great influences who have played with your wealth to play with your politics." Hearst judged Roosevelt's fundamental economic and social reforms against the Great Depression in the late 1920s and in the course of the 1930s (" New Deal ") as " essentially un-American" and "more communist than the communists " - in contrast to National Socialism, of which he believed, For “freedom-loving people” all over the world, he had won a great victory in the defense against communism. With the beginning of the Second World War in Europe and the rapid conquest of this continent by Hitler's Germany, Roosevelt began to focus his administration more on helping those who fought against the National Socialists. In doing so, he drew the wrath of various anti-interventionist groups, from committed religious or principled pacifists to American communists who supported the Hitler-Stalin pact and thus the idea that the United States should stay out of the European war .

The America First Committee (AFC) was the largest isolationist organization in the United States until December 1941 , and soon after it was founded in 1940, its spokesman was the famous aviator and, according to Rauchway, enthusiastic fascist Charles Lindbergh .

After Rauchway, the car manufacturer and prominent anti-Semite Henry Ford also approved of the motto "America First": "With many others they fought against groups which, according to Lindbergh, drove the USA to war: the English, the Jews and the Roosevelt government."

application

Conservative American television commentator, journalist and politician Pat Buchanan has repeatedly used America First as a slogan ; B. in an article for a post on theAmericanCause.org in October 2004. Following this, the slogan is now assigned to the “ paleoconservatives ” in the USA , but is also linked to the desire to return to a non-interventionist foreign policy.

In 1991, David Duke , Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan , explained an "America First Foreign Policy!" On the homepage of his failed Senate candidacy in Louisiana, supported by Pat Buchanan .

In 1992 the term was used by the libertarian thought leader Murray Rothbard to call for development aid to be stopped and for the money to be given to the American economy. Murray's catalog of demands is already similar to the theses of Trump's 2016 election campaign.

Play media file

"America first" at Donald Trump's inauguration

The 45th President of the United States, Donald Trump , who was elected in November 2016 , used this motto for his entire policy from the main election campaign in mid-2016. In his inaugural speech on the occasion of his inauguration on January 20, 2017, he said that from now on a new vision would rule the USA: It would only be called "America First". On the day after his inauguration on January 21, the White House homepage, for example, showed the basics of his “America first foreign policy” and an “America first energy plan”. Trump distanced himself to the New York Times from the earlier use of the slogan in the USA, he was "used as a brand-new, very modern term" ("It was used as a brand-new, very modern term") I want to "take care of this country first before we worry about everybody else in the world".

reception

The 2004 published novel The Plot Against America by Philip Roth is based on a process developed by Roth alternate history: fictional consists in America First through, and with Charles Lindbergh as president grows of anti-Semitism in the United States.

At the end of January 2017, the Dutch comedian, writer, TV presenter and music producer Arjen Lubach showed America First - The Netherlands second in his satirical TV show Zondag met Lubach ( Sunday with Lubach ) , in which he presented the Netherlands as the best country in Europe and thus the second best Country of the world nominated after the USA. Jan Böhmermann broadcast the Dutch version in his satirical late night show Neo Magazin Royale on February 2, 2017 in cooperation with around twelve other European late night shows and encouraged colleagues across Europe to use the everysecondcounts.eu website (“ Who wants to be the second? ”-“ Who wants to be second? ”) To produce their own national version; a few days later the action was copied worldwide, e. B. from Australia , Iran ("Iran before Iraq , for whatever reason."), Morocco or Namibia .

literature

Bill Kauffman: America First! Its History, Culture, and Politics . Prometheus Books, New York 1995, ISBN 0-87975-956-9
Claus Leggewie : America first? The case of a conservative revolution. Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1997, ISBN 3-596-13496-X

Individual evidence

↑ coloradohistoricnewspapers.org: Brandon Bell, October 15, 1915 (January 22, 2017)

↑ ^a ^b ^c Professor of History at the University of California at Davis ; Author of: The Money Makers: How Roosevelt and Keynes Ended the Depression, Defeated Fascism, and Secured a Prosperous Peace . In: washingtonpost.com , June 14, 2016: Donald Trump's new favorite slogan was invented for Nazi sympathizers (January 23, 2017)

↑ Patrick J. Buchanan: The Resurrection of 'America First! In: TheAmericanCause.org , October 13, 2004 (English).

^ ^A ^b Jessica Chia: The anti-Semitic past of America First: Trump criticized for reviving name of WW2 antiwar movement. In: The Daily Mail , January 21, 2017.

^ "Right-Wing Populism" by Murray N. Rothbard, The Rothbard-Rockwell Report, January 1992 - UNZ.org

↑ Eric Rauchway: Donald Trump's new favorite slogan was invented for Nazi sympathizers. In: The Washington Post , June 14, 2016.

↑ 5 quotes from Trump's inaugural address. In: Badische Zeitung , January 21, 2017; Hubert Wetzel: America's utility above all else. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , January 21, 2017; Veit Medick , Marc Pitzke, Gordon Repinski, Holger Stark: The Declaration of Indecency. In: Spiegel Online , January 20, 2017.

^ Whitehouse.gov: America First Foreign Policy (January 21, 2017)

↑ whitehouse.gov: An America First Energy Plan (January 21, 2017)