Autor: REBECCA GORDON | 17. 1. 2023
Originally, he was an America Firster, a phrase from the pre-World War II era deeply associated with anti-Semitism. (Yep, he arrived there years before Ye ever made it on the scene!) As an America Firster, who undoubtedly snitched the phrase from Pat Buchanan’s 2000 presidential run, he even used it in his 2017 inaugural address. (“We assembled here today are issuing a new decree to be heard in every city, in every foreign capital and in every hall of power. From this day forward, a new vision will govern our land. From this day forward, it’s going to be only America first — America first.”) Initially, however, he rejected the allied idea of American exceptionalism. As he put it at an event in Texas in 2015, “I don’t like the term. I never liked it. When I see these politicians get up [and say], ‘the American exceptionalism’ — we’re dying. We owe $18 trillion in debt. I’d like to make us exceptional. And I’d like to talk later instead of now.”
More: tomdispatch.com
