Trump promised an 'America First' foreign policy rooted in the national interest, not in nostalgia.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Donald Trump understands the anxiety and aspirations of the American people like no leader since Reagan.
Nostalgia is eternal for Americans. We are often displaced from our origins and carry anxious memories of that lost past. We fear losing our bearings.
However Donald Trump came upon the foreign policy views he espoused, they were as crucial to his election as his views on trade and the border.
You don't run for the presidency out of nostalgia.
Rather than be asked to abandon one's own heritage and to adapt to the mores of the new country, one was expected to possess a treasure of foreign skills and customs that would enrich the resources of American living.
Trump is a cultural candidate for president, not an economic one. He clearly loves America and wants America to stay America. America won't be America if it has open borders and mass Muslim immigration.
Unless our conception of patriotism is progressive, it cannot hope to embody the real affection and the real interest of the nation.
Idealism that makes no distinction between areas where our national interest lies and those from which it is remote does no good for America. The weariness of the post-Versailles, post-Korea, post-Vietnam eras is never far from the national mood.
What we can borrow from Ronald Reagan... is that great sense of optimism. He led by building on the strengths of America, not running America down.
Bush promised a foreign policy of humility and a domestic policy of compassion. He has given us a foreign policy of arrogance and a domestic policy that is cynical, myopic and cruel.