From “America Last” to “Israel Last”
Trump’s First Cabinet Was a Neocon Swamp. His Second is an Isolationist Daycare.
First the Neocons Broke the World. Now the Isolationists Want to Abandon It - and Trump Is the Only One Trying to Split the Difference.
Donald Trump may have known that his first administration was packed with establishment cronies and neoconservatives. But what he probably didn’t anticipate is that his second could be overtaken by the opposite extreme: radical isolationist cronies.
These are people who seem to believe we’re still living in the era of the Monroe Doctrine, with a world conveniently policed by the British or French empires - while America can sit safely on the sidelines. They imagine we can afford to “go regional” without consequences, not realizing that once global influence is lost, you can’t simply reclaim it.
As David Crystal once said:
“The reason isolationism doesn’t work is that you can’t isolate yourself from a bullet being fired at you.”
Or to put it in Hobbesian terms:
When every man can hurt every man, there is no such thing as ultimate refuge. Without some form of global order, there is only chaos.
Yes, that global order can be American-led—or Chinese-led. But make no mistake: someone will shape the Middle East, and no one is simply “dropping” it.
Just because George W. Bush misused global leadership through reckless interventionism doesn’t mean we correct that mistake by swinging blindly in the other direction.
That’s a new mistake.
And that’s exactly what the likes of J.D. Vance and Tulsi Gabbard don’t seem to grasp. Their brand of performative isolationism comes not from careful principle, but from a desire to react against media overexposure and reframe the Republican Party as something “edgy.” It’s the same logic behind figures like Rep. Thomas Massie—people who confuse contrarianism with conviction.
Now they’re using Israel as a political platform. Because Israel was once a Republican foreign policy darling, it now becomes a target for these pseudo-populists, or as i call them PINO (Populists in name only) who see it as a way to mark a “new frontier” in the party - something they can conquer rhetorically.
Because American Jews are vocal, engaged, and deeply conscientious, Israel becomes an especially convenient pawn in the political media game. We’ve now reached a dangerous crossroads: Democrats, long steeped in narratives of American guilt, say “America bad.” A rising faction in the GOP counters with “Israel bad.” Trapped in this false dichotomy, we’re being pushed to choose the latter.
Trump realized there's a medium-middle - and as the genius he is - he showed it to the whole world yesterday.