America First

You Do Not, Under Any Circumstances, Gotta Hand it To America Firsters

by Eric Rauchway

Critics of American aid to Ukraine have misconstrued the history of FDR's "Lend-Lease" aid to Britain and the USSR as a factor that pushed the world into total war. It's worth considering the political affiliations of people who made that argument in 1941. 

When Is a Nazi Salute Not a Nazi Salute?

by Matt Seaton

A controversy has unfolded about a stock image caption which suggests Senator Burton K. Wheeler gave a Nazi salute at a 1941 America First Rally.

The St. Louis roots of 'Make America Great Again'

by Steven P. Miller and Warren Rosenblum

In pronouncing this version of Americanism, the Legion drew upon the worst of the nation’s wartime tendencies: rising xenophobia.

Most Americans Reject Trump’s “America First” Policy

by Lawrence Wittner

The reaction of the American public to Trump’s withdrawal of the United States from key international agreements has been hostile.  

The Entangled History of “America First” and “The American Dream"

by James Thornton Harris

Sarah Churchwell unravels the complicated history behind “America First” in her new book Behold America. 

Whose Country is This? Trump, Coolidge, and Immigration

by Bruce W. Dearstyne

It was a central question a century ago, and still is today. President Coolidge and President Trump might have similar answers.

Loaded Phrases

by Kevin M. Kruse

The long, entwined history of America First and the American dream.

Historian says we’ve overlooked the fact that millions of Americans supported Hitler in the 1930s

Bradley Hart’s new book "Hitler’s American Friends: The Third Reich’s Supporters in the United States" argues that the threat of Nazism in the United States before World War II was greater than we generally remember.

Beijing’s Bid for Global Power in the Age of Trump

by Alfred W. McCoy

“America First” Versus China’s Strategy of the Four Continents

With 'America First,' Trump Challenges The World Constructed After World War II

With his policy of "America First," President Trump has a very different take on this complex web of treaties and alliances set up and shaped by the U.S. over the past seven decades.

End of the American dream? The dark history of 'America first'

by Sarah Churchwell

When he promised to put America first in his inaugural speech, Donald Trump drew on a slogan with a long and sinister history – a sign of what was to follow in his presidency.

Are We Changing Places with China?

by Paul S. Ropp

We're headed down as we withdraw from the world and China's going up as it embraces a global leadership role. 

What Lincoln Thought of “America First”

by Sidney Blumenthal

Though he never traveled outside the US, Lincoln embraced an international perspective, celebrating the spread of freedom in Europe. 

'America First,' a phrase with a loaded anti-Semitic and isolationist history

Those same words galvanized a mass populist movement against U.S. entry into the war in Europe, even as the German army rolled through France and Belgium in the spring of 1940.

Donald Trump’s Plagiarized Anti-Semitic Slogan

Trump says he’ll put America First, which of course carries echoes of the old isolationist and anti-Semitic movement—which Trump has apparently never even heard of.