john's thoughts

Isolationism is misunderstood and changes from time to time and from one situation to another. But in the US, certain aspects of it appear to remain the same over decades. I am going to try to relate the isolationism of FDR’s time to today’s and perhaps add a few comments on what happened in between the two times.

FDR’s first administration dealt largely with domestic problems. At the depth of the depression with unemployment rates of 25%, maybe more, there was no other possibility. It is true that the Good Neighbor Policy with Latin America dates to the first term and that at the very first FDR cabinet meeting the question of possible conflict with Japan was mentioned. But the emphasis was on the economy, and for good reason.

At least the first 2 years of the second term were heavily involved with the depression too, an issue which was easing but not as fast or fully as had been hoped. But foreign issues, always lurking in the background were becoming pressing and by the second half of the term were threatening to take over. As far back as the early ’30’s some Americans had attended anti-Nazi rallies and feelings about foreign powers and affairs began to rise, perhaps more among those who were not on the edge of disaster from the depression than those still doing badly.

And anti-democratic powers were rising. In Japan a once fairly constitutional government was slowly slipping into being one dominated by the military, and many of the military leaders (along with a few others) had imperial ambitions. In Italy Mussolini had been in power for more than a decade and had turned one of the founding cultures of Western Civilization into a Fascist dictatorship looking for conquests. Worst, in Germany, Hitler had come to power about 6 weeks before FDR’s first inauguration, and his intentions became clear quickly. German was a threat to its neighbors (maybe including Italy-he and Mussolini did not get along at first), the rest of Europe and possibly elsewhere. But many Americans, including a lot of WWI veterans wanted not to be involved.

To some degree as a result of this, one of the leading, though not well organized political trends of the 1930’s was isolationism. It is possible to give a long history of US attitudes and other times of isolationism, but I wish to stick largely with the issues which concerned FDR. WWI began in 1914 and the US walked a narrow and sometimes difficult line of “neutrality” for nearly 3 years. But German aggressiveness and British/French desperation brought the US into the war in the Spring of 1917. It was over about a year and a half later, and the US losses, though appalling enough when taken by themselves, were smallish compared to those of the large European countries. President Woodrow Wilson was one of the dominant figures of the 1919 Paris Peace conference and on the whole performed both morally and competently. But his plan for a League of Nations to keep peace in the future was the cause of trouble.

Wilson insisted on having the League included in the Treaty of Versailles. The Treaty never passed the US Senate(the US had to make a separate peace with Germany)and the main reason was the League and fears by many that the US would become involved in foreign wars if it joined. The main enemies of the Treaty and the League were The Irreconcilables who were determined to vote “no” whatever, and the Reservationists who at least claimed to be willing to support the Treaty if their “reservations” were resolved. Between these two groups and public hostility and apathy the Treaty was doomed.

From the 1920’s on into the ’30’s American largely forgot about the war as much as possible and many who didn’t regarded it as a mistake which had cost the US much. It was also largely believed that a vicious and immoral coalition of munitions manufacturers, banks, and others had wanted war for reason of profit and had tricked the US into joining the Allies.

By the mid-1930’s a number of books with titles like “Merchants of Death” and “The Road to War.” had been best sellers. They fueled the investigations of the Nye Committee, led by ND Republican Sen Gerald Nye which investigated the argument that the US had fought for the money makers rather than for freedom. They did manage to show that a lot of munitions merchants were indeed for war(not really a big surprise). But their contention that there was a widespread plot to do this among many businesses was not proven. Nor did they address seriously the issue of German actions which drove the US further and further from genuine neutrality.

Nonetheless, by the mid-30’s there was a large number of American who could be called, roughly. “isolationists.” They were a motley lot including socialists and genuine communists on the left who regarded all war as capitalist evil, out and out pacifists who regared any war as wrong, through more or less moderates who simply wanted to keep the US at peace, to conservatives who genuinely disliked WW’s policies and believed the US should(and presumably could)stay out of other countries affairs and largely live on its own. Coupled with the resentment over the Great Depression’s misery this meant a considerable number of dissatisfied people with no taste for foreign matters.

The most obvious political result of these feelings was a series of acts called the Neutrality Acts passed from 1935 to 1939. As their name would suggest they were intended to keep the US out of any future wars, and there were three, four, or five of them depending on how you define the actions of the US Congress. The First Neutrality act passed in 1935, forbade the export of arms or any “implements of war” to any foreign nation involved in a war. It further advised US citizens that if they traveled into war zones they did so at their own risk.

In 1936 as Hitler and other dictators looked more threatening Congress renewed the Neutrality Act and extended it to May, 1937. It also made illegal any loans to belligerent nations(“Belligerent” used in this sense is a legal, not an emotional description–it means a nation involved in a war). This action may be considered a Second Neutrality Act although some have regarded it as merely an extension of the one of 1935,

In 1936 civil war broke out in Spain and other European powers saw opportunities there. The American response was the Neutrality Act of 1937 which forbade US citizens to travel on ships of belligerent nations and made it illegal for US merchant ships to transport arms to any belligerent The President was given the authority(but not required) to bar belligerent ships from US waters(the 3 mile limit off the coasts) and to extend the arms embargo to other “articles or materials” as his discretion. In a direct response to what was happening in Spain the Act specifically stated civil wars were included.

In a concession to a dubious President the Act also included the famous “cash and carry” provision which would allow belligerents to purchase necessary material other than arms from the US as long as they immediately paid for them and took them away on non-US ships. (FDR knew as many others did that only the UK and France could gain benefit from this)

In 1939 this all ceased to be theoretical when Germany occupied Czechoslovakia and war was obviously a likelihood. Congress refused to renew “cash and carry” and to include arms sales as FDR wished. But after war broke out and after a bitter Congressional debate, the Neutrality Act of 1939 was passed. It lifted the embargo against selling arms to belligerents and put all trade with belligerent nations into the “cash and carry’ category.

About a year after the outbreak of the European war, the “America First” movement was founded beginning at, of all places, Yale University. It was begun and later joined by people who were totally opposed to the US getting into a foreign war or taking any chancres of getting into one. According to their theory, strong support for the UK made it more likely that US involvement would follow.

Like the group that I described above, the unorganized isolationists of a few years earlier, the America Firsters were a fairly loose and often contradictory group. They “included Republicans, Democrats, farmers, industrialists, communists, anti-communists, students and journalists–however …(it) was controversial for the anti-Semitic and pro-fascist views of some of its most prominent speakers.”(so says Wikipedia) These included Henry Ford, perhaps the most famous industrialist and anti-Semite in the country and , after he joined several months after the founding of AFC(America First Committee), Charles A Lindberg, the great American hero of the past.

At its peak the AFC had perhaps 800,000 members. They represented practically all parts of the country but it was obvious that the mid-west was their home base. Their headquarters were in Chicago and about 2/3 of the members were from somewhere within a 300 miles radius of the Midwest’s First city. In an unusual exercise of good sense and restraint southern Whites were reluctant about joining the group, perhaps because of their military tradition and strong relations to the British from whom so many of them were descended(though the Brits were not always sympathetic to southern racial practices). Ironically, the Southern Democrats were among FDR’s strongest supporters in Congress when he turned to serious efforts to assist the UK as he quickly did after Nazi domination began to threaten.

The America Firsters demanded absolute neutrality and opposed any kind of assistance to the UK. Many of them, though mostly of WASP descent themselves, were strongly, even hatefully anti-British. Lindberg, who a few years earlier had warned US military officials that the German Air Force looked like a serious threat, often sounded anti-Semitic in his public statements. This powerful and often bitter opposition to FDR’s attempts to help Churchill and the Brits lasted until The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor Dec 7, 1941. On Dec 11 the AFC disbanded(There would be a couple of movements/parties to use the name in the next few years but nothing much came of them)

My own view of them is that they were not traitors to the US but they were foolish, selfish and short-sighted. What, indeed, did they think would happen to the US if the UK went down or sued for peace and Hitler got the British Navy to add to his own? They were certainly not all anti-Semites or pro-Nazis, but it is undeniable that that element was present. There seems to be always an underlying tendency towards anti-Semitism which has shown disgusting signs of revitalizing in the US, Europe and elsewhere in recent years. Certainly it was at work with the American isolationists of the 1930’s and up to Pearl Harbor.

The rest of the story may be told more quickly. During the war isolationism and anti-war sentiment reached a low with only a few of the mostly nutcase variety opposed to fighting Hitler. A few hysterically anti-Communist rightists thought we shouldn’t be so close to Stalin, but how many choices were there? In any event, isolationism played almost no part in the US during the war. It re-appeared quickly afterward.

There were several reasons for this. During the New Deal there had arisen among a number of Republican leaders an obsessive dread of communism and the Soviet Union. This was not entirely wrong–Stalin was indeed one of the most brutal dictators of the century and his USSR would be the enemy of the US and the rest of European-American Western Civilization about as soon as the war ended. But the fear and detesting of communism went to obsessive, nearly insane lengths in some cases. And ironically, history, a time or two, played into the hands of these extremists.

At the end of the war the US and the USSR more or less agreed that both Vietnam and Korea would be divided with the Communists dominating the North and the US the South in each case. In China there could be no agreement. The pro-Western Nationalists were in charge and the communist Revolutionaries were in the mountains and the fields and about anywhere else they could use to conduct guerilla warfare.

In Europe, the USSR dominated which was a surprise to no one, though their bald-faced impostion of dicgatorship may have surprised a few. With the French exhausted and the Brits broke it was up to Harry Truman and the Americans. He intruded in Soviet efforts with the Truman Doctrine and then by joining 15 other nations(Canada plus 14 from Europe) to form NATO with the purpose of discouraging Soviet adventurism.

Oddly and irrationally some of the hysterically anti-communist rightists opposed this, particularly NATO. Their arguments were largely what they(or their predecessors) had said about a decade earlier when Hitler was the threat–that it might lead to US involvement in foreign wars. Well, of course it might, moderates wanted to say, I’m sure, but wasn’t it you guys who have told us repeatedly about the necessity of resisting “godless Communism.?” Even so, some moderate to liberal Congressional Democrats were denounced by the far right as pro-Communist for voting to join an anti-Communists organization. No, irrationalism in American politics is not a 21st century invention.

On the whole, they calmed down after this, but when the Chinese Communists won their civl war, the rightists raised the cry, “Who lost China?” There was no simple answer to that but if you had to go for a simple one Chaing Kai-Shek was likely as close as you could get. And after the McCarthy era began he began to make references to when Truman “declared war in Korea.” Again, we have here a rightist cheered on by other rightists for denouncing an anti-Communist move by a liberal President.

After this the controversy calmed a bit, but one of the reasons for this may be that a funny thing happened. I won’t try to explain why this happened because I cannot, but over about the next decade or so a lot of those small town conservative isolationists became interventionists. They were still hysterically anti-Communist but now believed in fighting it abroad and abandoned isolationism. This was logical in a way, but also unfortunate. Their change of feelings may have ben involved in whatever pushed LBJ to his over committment in Vietnam.

I have alreaady written of Vietnam and will not take much time re-doing that. I will merely say that the interventionism which I think was wise to the point of being necessary in World War II and was at least arguably correct in Korea, was badly misplaced in the case of Vietnam. But the isolationists, if there were any, were not a serious national voice, and their inheritors the small town and rural conservatives were now not only rabid-anti-Communists but rabid advocates of intervening anywhere to “Fight communism.” Unfortunately, this often meant fighting someone who accepted Soviet Communist help and mouthed the commie line to get it; but often they were more nationalist than communist and sometimes they opposed people who we shouldn’t have been the the same metaphorical room with and who simply used us. But that is(perhaps)something to discuss another time.

After our various adventures and misadventures in the Middle East in the first two decades of this century, we are brought to our contemporary situation. Is isolationism returning? If so, who are the isolationists and what is their motivation? And to what extent are they likely to have an effect?

Although as you know I like to avoid generalizations, it appears to me that pre-WWII isolationism was clearly dominated by the far right but with a fair amount of far-left and even some centrist input(see above). The inheritors of the same people seem to be the isolationists now, only without the possible restraint of almost anyone from the left or center. This means most of the Republicans in the House of Representatives and a lot from the Senate also, though possibly a bit more restrained and found in small numbers there. Mitch McConnell, whatever his shortcomings, is not fond of extremists, paticularly noisy ones who make his party look foolish.

But look at the record. The anti-FDR, anti-Churchill, anti-Brit isolationists were led by conservative Republicans almost all the time. There was some anti-Semitism in their movement in the ’30’s and this became clear after the America Firsters appeared. Anti-Semitism was rife among them from their founding up until Pearl Harbor. After that, of course, they practically had to go into hiding, and indeed many of them behaved honorably during the war

In the current case which is to say Ukraine, there are similarities and differences, but I am particularly impressed by the former. While Biden has maintained fairly solid support of the Ukrainians, both in Europe and at home, there have been a few who never agreed or have changed their minds. There is, fortunately, no note of anti-Semitism in the current lot, but the similarities to their forbears in the 1930’s are noteable. They are now nearly all rightist Republicans and once again we hear, at times, that this is none of our business and that America’s interests are more threatened by our Ukrainian-support policy than they would be by just staying out of it.

Like the 1930’s-’40’s isolationism and like a lot of mistakes, this has a shred of truth in it. Obviously early in WWII it was more likely Americans would wind up fighting Germans if they helped the British than if they didn’t. But what about the cost for later on, both for the world and our own people?

Today it is true that there is a greater danger of trouble short of conflict or actual conflict if we help Ukraine right now, but again–what might be the price of not-helping? The case is complicated by the presence of Russia’s nuclear arsenal compounded by what appears to be instability in Russia itself. I do not wish to make light of any of this. These things, particularly the danger of a direct US-Russia confrontation, are serious matters. But so would be an overt Russian invasion of Poland perhaps with the backing of Belarus. Poland is a NATO member and Article 5 would apply.

The current isolationists include, but are not limited to, some of the more bizarre characters on the Republican Right. Although there is no known(to me, anyway)familial relationship, they seem to have inherited some of the less admirable aspects of the America Firsters. It appears that there is a sort of psychological/philosophical inheritance that drifts down the generations and the years and that no one completely understands.

But like their forbears many of the isolationists of today bear a bitter dislike of the US President and show a reckless disregard for the dangers we face from our leading adversaries, in this case Russia and Putin who seems to be still running it as of now. They disparage our efforts to hold together our so far effective NATO support of Ukraine and seem unconcerned by the possible loss of freedom to Russia or to home-grown dictators in Eastern Europe. This group, which includes such now well-known names as McCarthy, Greene, Boebert, Gaetz, Gosar and Jordan, seems to be repeating history though I suspect , to a large degree without consciously being aware of what they’re doing or how close the comparisons are.

It would be interesting to see someone do a column or a TV satire on these comparisons. Equate Putin with Hitler, Biden with FDR and Zelensky with Churchill and see what you get. Or, more to the point, see what the isolationist point of view might get us if we consider history, precedents and current patterns. This should be a lesson for everyone concerned. I hope it is a lesson well learned–or that at the least it soon will be.