When Donald Trump unveils to navel-fondling right-wing American audiences his ideology of ‘America First’ – his mantra for Making America Great Again (MAGA) – it awakens a weary sense of deja vu. It portends the resuscitation of the good old shibboleth of European nationalism that plunged the world into two successive World Wars.
European thought oscillated, through the centuries since the Enlightenment, between nationalism and internationalism. While Kant argued for the transcendence of narrow national boundaries towards internationalism to the extent of forming a world government to govern world citizens so as to establish enduring peace in the world, others like Nietzsche and Dostoevsky romanticized national vitality and the fulfilment of ‘national destinies.’ Between Nietzsche and Dostoevsky, however, there was this difference that it was for the sake of the world that Dostoevsky wanted the destiny of Russia to be fulfilled.
Nationalism is a power cult. It is not as much about loving one’s country as about creating a hype of one’s own country dominating the world at all costs. It implied, nay mandated, a belligerent pursuit of national interests to the detriment of wider international concerns and responsibilities. So, when Trump tom-toms ‘America First’, he is will-nilly resuscitating the spirit of nationalism. Like in the case of Julius Caesar vis-a-vis Brutus, his body is dead, but his spirit, or Caesarism, is broad! The ascendancy of Trump could prove analogous to that of Hitler a century before him.
That brings us to the threshold of the irony that is sure to confront Trump sooner than later. In Trump’s version of America First, American interests be prioritized over all international concerns and responsibilities. Trump’s America must thrive, even if the rest of the world goes to dogs. Yet, America was envisioned as a city set on a hill, to give light to the world at large. It was this that gave wings to Kennedy’s memorable words, ‘My fellow Americans, do not ask what America can do for you. . . ask what you and America can do for the world.’ No one in his senses will associate such a sentiment with Trump.
Trump is seriously mistaken if he assumes that American interests can be enlarged and imposed on the world unilaterally. Such an agenda would imagine the rest of the world as teeming with enemies. It is similar to the insecurity of a rich man, who lives wholly for himself in the vicinity of the victims of his gains. To him, everyone is a source of potential peril. Likewise, aggressive collective selfishness -alias nationalism- necessarily activates the psychology of insecurity and protectionism. Already the signs are there for all to see. The foremost signal that Trump has emitted so far pertains to trade wars. The writing on the wall is clear: American interests cannot be idolized and pursued -Trump’s Political Prosperity Gospel– without ‘seeing enemies where none exists’ in the global backyard.
There is no model of nationalism which is free from this perverse streak. Domestically, national unity has to be secured with the help of a hate-object. Globally, Trump’s America will need a host of alien ‘enemies.’ While the ‘left-liberal-lunatics’ (aka Democrats) shall serve the Trumpian menu at home, he’d need overseas threats to American interests to sustain the nationalistic drumbeat. Additionally, he needs to insulate America from the various geo-political trouble spots so as to avoid expending American dollars and boots on the ground. In short, America will not be there for the world; but the world must be there for America, which is the essence of Colonialism. Nationalism and Colonialism are country cousins. In this perverse logic underlying the megalomaniacal vision of national glory there is a wholesale inversion of the Jesus principle: Treat others as you would like them to treat you.
The operative part of this logic for our present theme is that Russia has to attack Ukraine as well as dominate all other countries within the radius of its muscle power under the formula ‘Russia First’. Gaza and Ukraine must be obliterated so that Netanyahu and Putin may thrive in peace. Like Trump, Putin’s agenda too is to Make Russia Great Again; but at what blood-curdling cost is now chillingly clear. All of Europe feels seriously insecure. It is the homecoming with a vengeance of the old shibboleth of Nationalism, which is perforce imperialistic. You have to prove the greatness of your country, your people, by degrading whoever seems inconvenient.
The naked truth is that there is a scary price to be paid for the nationalistic agenda to work. What does national glory mean, as Shakespeare’s Falstaff would have wondered, to those who have fallen in the Russo-Ukrainian theatre of war? Does the apocalyptic devastation of Ukrainian cities add to the beauty or glory of Moscow? How much more blood will this demonic god of Russian nationalism quaff before it is satiated? Are the fears of European nations ill-founded that after Ukraine it will be their turn?
So, the ultimate irony of Trumpism will be that either America will fight more wars than it did under Biden, or America will retreat from the global stage and live like a patriarch in decline, re-living nostalgic memories of ‘Those were the days, my friend’. Trump’s ‘America First’ could well prove, in the ironic twist of history, the prelude to a China-centric world order that could dawn on us sooner, perhaps, than seems probable at present.
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