Along with the customary cluster of cookouts, parades and
fireworks, the 4th of July this year brings something different to the
observance of our great national festival. “America First” is President Trump’s
not-so-new rhetorical contribution to Independence Day 2017.
Opinion is divided on whether that’s good or bad. On this, a
distinction may help.
Taken simply as an ingenuous expression of patriotism, there’s no
real objection to America First. Charity at the global level truly must begin
at home, for unless it starts there — in love of one’s own country, that is — charity
isn’t likely to thrive anywhere else.
The Second Vatican Council says as much. “Citizens should
cultivate a generous and loyal spirit of patriotism,” Vatican II teaches in its
Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World. But then it makes a
second, inseparable point. Citizens should practice patriotism, it says,
“without narrow-mindedness,” keeping in mind “the welfare of the whole human
family which is formed into one by various kinds of links between races,
peoples, and nations” (Gaudium et Spes, 75).
By that standard, how does Trump’s iteration of America First
measure up? That question must be weighed in light of his withdrawal from the
Paris climate accord, his problematic views on NATO, immigration and free
trade, and much else. These plainly are complex issues about which reasoned
disagreement is possible; but, the president’s words and deeds, taken together,
at least provide matter for concern when gauged by Vatican II.
That said, moreover, there is no ignoring the historical baggage
that the slogan “America First” inescapably carries with it.
The story goes back to 1940 when Yale law students who included
future president Gerald Ford, future Peace Corps director Sargent Shriver and
future Supreme Court justice Potter Stewart joined in establishing a group
called the America First Committee. Its stated purpose was to oppose United
States’ entry into the war then raging in Europe.
By that time the world had witnessed the Hitler-Stalin
nonaggression pact, the invasion and dismemberment of Poland and the fall of
France. The Luftwaffe’s air war against London and other British cities was
underway, and a German invasion of Britain was thought to be imminent.
By no means, however, was the America First Committee a mere
creature of head-in-the-sand isolationism. Isolationism certainly was part of
it, but the group also drew support from respectable sources, including a
number of big businessmen. Its chief spokesman was the celebrated aviator
Charles Lindbergh, who, besides wanting America to stay out of the war, also
advocated an American military buildup in anticipation of the day when the
country might have to fight. Future president John F. Kennedy sent a check for
$100 together with a note calling America First’s efforts “vital.” At its peak,
the group claimed 800,000 members in 450 chapters, most of them in the Midwest.
Then came Dec. 7, 1941 — Pearl Harbor. Four days after the attack
on America’s Pacific Fleet, the America First Committee closed down for good.
Historical parallels are never exact, and this one surely isn’t.
Still, there may be a lesson here, one reinforced by Vatican Council II.
Besides calling for patriotism, the council prayed that leaders of nations
would “enlarge their thoughts and their spirit beyond the confines of their own
countries” and, putting aside “nationalistic selfishness and ambition … cultivate
deep reverence for the whole of mankind” (Gaudium et
Spes, 82).
That is still a good prayer. Yes, certainly, America First. But a
very close second, the rest of the world.
Shaw is a freelance writer from Washington and
author of American Church: The Remarkable Rise, Meteoric Fall,
and Uncertain Future of Catholicism in America.