Even after Hitler violated the Munich Pact by dispatching his troops to conquer all of Czechoslovakia in March 1939, Lindbergh thought Hitler's justification plausible, and argued that France and Britain should form an alliance with the Third Reich. "It is time to turn from our quarrels and to build our White ramparts again," he declared. "Our future depends on... a Western Wall of race and arms which can hold back... the infiltration of inferior blood." Returning from his European travels to the United States, Lindbergh argued that it was "imperative" for "the sake of Western civilization that America stay out of Germany's way as [it] guarded against the West's true enemies--" the "Asiatic hordes" of Russia, China, and Japan.
That September, with the outbreak of World War II in Europe, Lindbergh became America's foremost isolationist, telling a radio audience: "Our bond with Europe is a bond of race.... It is the European race we must preserve.... If the white race is ever... threatened, it may then be time for us to take our part in its protection, to fight side by side with the English, French, and Germans, but not with one against the other for our mutual destruction." Only after Japan's devastating attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 did Lindbergh and the America First Committee shut down their isolationist campaign.
Given this record, when Trump revived the "America First" slogan, the Anti-Defamation League urged him to reconsider, pointing to the slogan's bigoted and pro-Nazi history.
But Trump has continued to invoke "America First" in his statements.
Why? It's clear that he agrees with this slogan's connotations. After all, Trump's top emphases have been barring and deporting minority group immigrants from the United States, attacking "migrant crime," inflaming Christian Nationalism, and ridiculing international cooperation and organizations. When one adds his obsession with genetic superiority and blood purity, plus his admiration for dictators, it's an all too familiar pattern.
Indeed, Trump is the heir to America First and its fascist proclivities.
Lawrence S. Wittner (https://www.lawrenceswittner.com/ ) is Professor of History Emeritus at SUNY/Albany and the author of Confronting the Bomb (Stanford University Press).(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
