Trump’s Nationalism Is Nothing New

[Draggingtree]

Hoover Institute

Trump’s Nationalism Is Nothing New

by Katherine A. Becker

Monday, April 3, 2017

“Nationalism”—like globalism and globalization—has become a loaded and ill-defined term. The ambiguity, some argue, is intentionally fostered by globalists. So, let us be clear: Globalization is concerned with business opportunities in a transnational and global market, as a prelude to creating worldwide homogeneity. Globalism, a Western idea, ultimately leads to the postmodern dream of a worldwide political system in which western European leaders will dictate laws governing international policy at the expense of the nation-state that eventually will become irrelevant and wilt away. Inherently, then “globalism” is opposed to “nationalism.” Xenophobes, admittedly, can at times employ nationalistic rhetoric to further bigoted agendas, but in its original context, a nationalist was simply a person who advocated political independence for his country and viewed foreign relations through the lenses of his own country’s narrower self-interests.

So, it matters how we define nationalism and the historical context in which Donald J. Trump is said to be a nationalist. Today globalists define nationalism as something akin to 19th- and mid-20th-century European imperialism that culminated in Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini;