Nationalism vs Globalism
Globalism has been the American philosophy for a long time and can be seen in media, academia, at financial corporations and at charitable foundations. Then came The Donald and changed everything, with his nationalism promises on immigration, foreign policies and trade talk.
Nationalists believe that any true nation must have clearly delineated and protected borders, otherwise it isn’t really a nation. They also believe that their nation’s cultural heritage is sacred and needs to be protected, whereas mass immigration from far-flung lands could undermine the national commitment to that heritage. Globalists don’t care about borders. They believe the nation-state is obsolete, a relic of the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, which codified the recognition of co-existing nation states. Globalists reject Westphalia in favor of an integrated world with information, money, goods and people traversing the globe at accelerating speeds without much regard to traditional concepts of nationhood or borders.
Globalists are motivated by humanitarian impulses. For them, the rights and well-being of the world’s people supersede the rights and well-being of the American populace. Nationalists don’t care about dominating world events. Being nationalists, they want their country to be powerful, with plenty of military reaches, but mostly to protect American national interests. They usually ask a fundamental question when foreign adventures are proposed—whether the national interest justifies the expenditure of American blood and treasure on behalf of this or that military initiative. The fate of other people struggling around the globe, however heartrending, doesn’t usually figure in nationalist considerations. The fate of America is the key.
The US history of trade admits of no straight-line analysis. Andrew Jackson was a supreme nationalist, and a free-trader. William McKinley made America a global power but was a protectionist. In our own time, though, the fault line is clear. Globalists salute the free flow of goods across national borders on the theory that this will foster ever greater global commerce, to the benefit of all peoples of all nations. Whether they are right or not, their focus is on the American citizens whose lives and livelihoods have been also hollowed out in many instances. Thus has a powerful new wave of protectionism washed over the body politic, leaving globalist elites running to get out of the way. Globalists were too focused on global trade and commerce to notice the horrendous plight of America’s internal refugees from the industrial nation of old.
Therefore, it's not women vs. men; evangelicals vs. liberals; Latinos vs. Whites, working-class Americans with no college; progressives vs. traditionalists; old vs. young. These are all important, but not crucial. An understanding of this mudslinging camp pain and the upcoming election, or what may be known as the revolution of 2016 will be what is driving The United States of America into a period of serious political tremors.
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