Conservative writer William Kristol is blaming Donald Trump for killing MAGA's winning "America First" slogan as he continues to meddle in foreign affairs.
The isolationist "America First" motto was coined by President Woodrow Wilson in 1916 as he pledged to keep the U.S. out of WWI. Trump used it in his 2024 campaign to rail against globalization, but that's far from what's been happening during his second term, Kristol wrote in a new article for The Bulwark.
Under the headline, "'America First' Is Dead And Donald Trump Killed It," Kristol wrote, "The fact is, for all the talk about rejecting 'globalists,' the experience of the Trump administration is one of intervening, repeatedly, in global affairs."
Kristol called Trump "the Globalist-in-Chief" when discussing his stances on Ukraine, Taiwan, NATO, and "the extreme right-wing AfD in the recent German elections," before pivoting to the current situation with Iran.
"Right now we’re in the midst of a raging debate about whether President Trump should make one last effort at negotiating with Iran or use military force in trying to remove Iran’s nuclear weapons capacity for good," Kristol wrote.
"Whichever of these alternatives you prefer, neither is 'America First.' 'America First' would tell you the whole fight should be none of our business. An 'America First' administration would warn both parties not to attack our homeland or our people. That’s it."
Kristol argued that the slogan is "an attempt to short-circuit the serious debate we need to have about our foreign policy."
"The question isn’t whether or not we’re going to shape the global order. We are going to do that," Kristol wrote. "The question is how we will do it—for better or for worse?"
He added that "as the Israel-Iran crisis shows, one way or the other, we’re going to be involved. We are all globalists now."
Read The Bulwark article here.
