Foreign policyTrump’s "America First": Echoes from 1940s
In his June 7 primary night victory speech, Donald Trump surprised pundits by reading from a teleprompter. He also spent a good few minutes talking about his signature slogan, “America First.” In July 1940 America First was chosen as a name by leading isolationists for an organization they created to lobby against American entry into the Second World War. What are we to make of Donald Trump’s decision, seventy-five years later, to revive such a controversial slogan as “America First”? One possibility is simply that Trump doesn’t know much about the history of the phrase and doesn’t intend for it to mean anything like what it did in 1940-41. But the fact is that whatever Trump’s intentions, the phrase “America First” has connotations that cannot be ignored. As in 1940, the upcoming presidential election seems likely to decide the fate of “America First.” If Trump wins, that phrase will likely acquire a new lease on life. If Hillary Clinton prevails, Trump’s “America First 2.0” seems likely to wind up as discredited as the first version ultimately was.
In his June 7 primary night victory speech, Donald Trump surprised pundits by reading from a teleprompter. He also spent a good few minutes talking about his signature slogan, “America First.”
We love our country. We love our country. But we can turn this all around. We’re going to do it by putting America first. That commitment is the foundation for change that’s been missing and has been missing for a long time. It’s important to understand what “America first” means. It means on foreign policy, we will never enter into any conflict unless it makes us safer as a nation. It has to make us safer as a nation.
Trump first used this phrase in April, in his only – to date – major foreign policy speech.
Whatever you think of Trump’s interpretation of America First, what interests me as a historian is his use of this particular phrase to summarize his views.
Like so many other Trump pronouncements, this one proved instantly controversial.
The main reason in this instance was because America First has a past as well as a present.
Chicago 1940
It was in July 1940 that America First was chosen as a name by leading isolationists for an organization they created to lobby against American entry into the Second World War.
Headquartered in Chicago, the unofficial capital of the isolationist-oriented Midwest, the America First Committee possessed from the start a diverse membership.
In addition to such prominent businessmen as Robert Wood of Sears Roebuck and the meat packer Jay Hormel, America First’s executive board included aviator and would-be Nazi appeaser Charles Lindbergh and anti-Semitic “radio priest” Charles Coughlin as well as Socialist Party leader Norman Thomas, Nobel prize-winning novelist Sinclair Lewis, and Washington socialite Alice Roosevelt Longworth.
What united these very different people was a strong sense that American entry into the First World War had been a mistake, and must not be repeated.
Instead they proposed the following four principles:
- The United States must build an impregnable defense for America;
- No foreign power, nor group of powers, can successfully attack a prepared America;
- American democracy can be preserved only by keeping out of the European war;
- “Aid short of war” weakens national defense at home and threatens to involve America in war abroad.
The principles proved persuasive. America First claimed 800,000 members, making it the largest antiwar organization in American history up to that point.
