Only I Know How to Make "America First" a Reality

Most American’s have heard the “America First” slogan. It didn’t hurt that it was heavily used in the last three US Presidential elections. And with our unavoidable and omnipresent media inundating everyone constantly with audio and video about everything both imaginable and unimaginable, even a simple slogan like “America First” will penetrate even the most dense and resistance consciousness. But even with the universal recognition of America First by the public, there isn’t any guarantee that the substance and meaning of America First has been communicated or understood. And this is not in America’s best interest. How can any issue be handled if the decisions that are being made don’t include assessing if a decision, an answer, a policy, or a strategy does or does not support America First principles?

I am positive everyone would agree that to make sure we are putting America’s needs and interests first, we have to know what makes a thing good or not for America. This is exactly the problem that we have had to deal with in America since before we were a nation. Our citizens have had to decide what was in America’s best interests first and foremost as a societal and economic group(s). The Founding Fathers and America’s patriotic adherents of independence determined that it was in their (and as a consequence our) best interests to become a free and independent nation. Though no one used an “America First” slogan at that time, the motivation was to put our own needs and interests as essential to our existence as a people who needed to be treated as equals to their fellow citizens.

Upon winning our independence, a guiding principle for our confederation of states was to organize and govern with the interests of each state and the aggregate confederation as first and foremost in the ways they operated. In essence an America First doctrine applied and executed for each state and for their union. This should not be surprising as it is a basic and common governmental and societal strategy recognized by anyone who has considered the reality of governance. We will return to this later. Let’s look at the emergence of the actual America First slogan.

The phrase came into being, as cited from numerous sources on the internet, with the American Party in the 1850s. America First then became popular once again with Woodrow Wilson in 1915 to stay out of WWI. Then very predictably it resurfaced with the advent of WWII in the 1940s.

America First has been used over and over since by many different groups and politicians. There has also always been an undercurrent where the concept that America should focus more on itself than on things outside the nation that has had a following in the population. But this internal looking view’s current popularity has reached an all-time high in the last 8 or so years to a major degree as a slogan within Trump’s campaigns and ideological themes. It is a prominent mantra that seems to provide a vision and even a direction that people will follow. Though the vision is unclear and the direction ever shifting.

America First carries with it a host of benefits, or perceived benefits, that attract individuals and groups from a variety of disparate groups who might not otherwise get along all that well. It may even gain support from groups who absolutely do not and will not agree on positions, policies, and strategies with each other. While this is not logical or rational, it accomplishes one of the most important objectives for those touting America First: votes and office.

The secret sauce to America First’s attractive property is a well-kept secret. Now America First is not a conspiracy, or a deep-state program, or a highly conceived and effective strategic approach to establishing good policies or making smart decisions. What may be known by fewer than a handful of people is that America First’s secret ingredient is that it doesn’t inherently mean anything at all. It is its very meaninglessness that turns the various raw ingredients into gold. America First can turn a patriotic value into unquestioned obedience to authority which corrodes and pollutes patriotism. It can turn concern, dissatisfaction, or fear into anger, hatred, or violence eroding reasoning and compassion. It can turn our values of equal rights, personal responsibility, and freedoms into unequal justice, stratified privilege, and barriers to opportunities and choice.

Now don’t conclude that America First must transform our values, principles, policies, and goals into undesirable, destructive, or evil results. The reason that America First can produce any of these un-American outcomes is simply due to that secret sauce; that America First is a meaningless concept. You may not agree with this, and in many cases, some will be angry, perhaps very angry, that anyone would say such a thing. But I didn’t say America First must produce these outcomes. I very specifically used “can”. America First can do these things and that’s why it can be dangerous, misused, and undemocratic. It can do good as well. It can do either because once again America First doesn’t mean anything until you make a decision and say that the decision was made because it is what America First requires; which is circular validation.

America First’s meaningless nature simply allows it to be turned to good or to bad purposes, or it be used without any thought given to a purpose that has been well-conceived and reasoned. Just as someone can take a gun and use it for good or ill, or without any thought to the danger that it poses, America First is a tool that carries with it no constraints for how it is or will be used.

What is important to understand is why America First can do good, bad, or unintended things and how America First can do them. Actually, it is surprisingly easy. Why can America First do them; because the underlying concept is that a choice will be made on anything and everything in the context of choosing an option that will benefit America. That sounds good and reasonable. Who could object to doing what is good for America? I don’t. I suspect that you and most other citizens do not. So, we all agree that we ought to follow an America First principle. Except there is a catch!

That catch? There is a requirement to being able to determine/know what is “good” for America. Failing to meet that requirement would imply that you may be acting unpatriotically or even treasonously. The choice that is made must result in movement to some goal(s) and objective(s) that are measurably better for America and not just better for someone or some group. Afterall, someone or some group is not America. They are always less than America, and what is good for them need not be good for America. And of course there have to be at least two options, else there is no choice to be made. Even If there are two choices, you have a 50-50 chance of picking the best, unless neither is in fact good for America. This reveals the often overlooked, ignored, or hidden aspect of who, how, and why the selected choice is made and critically that the assessment(s) made is competently done to determine what would be an actual America First choice.

This is why only I know how to make America First a reality; and why others who claim that they can will fail. You may think you know who to believe can and will do this, but that is just another name for a wish. Just like buying a lottery ticket is a wish, except the lottery ticket give you a better chance of winning. Wanting it, doesn’t make it so.

If you understand “who” is making the decision, “how” they are making the decision, and “why” they are making the decision; you still need to be able to show that it will deliver on the objectives and do so better than other options. Once again most people are choosing to “believe” and don’t or can’t do the work required to show what the best America First choice should be. To help you out, the next posting will illustrate where the pit falls, traps, missteps, and errors are with the “who”, “how”, “why”, and most importantly the “competence” of the assessment done.