2016-05-05

Nationalist vs Globalist: The New Fault Line in Politics

The old split in Western politics was focused on the size of government, economics, and social issues. The right generally wanted smaller government, capitalism and traditional values. The left generally wanted bigger government, socialism and modern values.

The new fault lines are identity and sovereignty. Nationalists believe in nations, nation states and sovereignty. Globalists believe in human rights (equality), the end of nation states and transfer of sovereignty to organizations such as the IMF or to treaties that supersede it. Nationalists put Americans first and decide policies based on whether they help or hurt the American people. Globalists focus on global well-being and view the residents of a state as interchangeable.

In The National Interest, Robert Merry runs through the new issues which will drive politics for at least the next few years:

NI: Trump vs. Hillary Is Nationalism vs. Globalism, 2016
Immigration: Nationalists believe that any true nation must have clearly delineated and protected borders, otherwise it isn’t really a nation. They also believe that their nation’s cultural heritage is sacred and needs to be protected, whereas mass immigration from far-flung lands could undermine the national commitment to that heritage. Globalists don’t care about borders. They believe the nation-state is obsolete, a relic of the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, which codified the recognition of co-existing nation states. Globalists reject Westphalia in favor of an integrated world with information, money, goods and people traversing the globe at accelerating speeds without much regard to traditional concepts of nationhood or borders.
This extends to foreign policy as well.
Foreign Policy: Globalists are motivated by humanitarian impulses. For them, the rights and well-being of the world’s people supersede the rights and well-being of the American populace. Indeed, as writer Robert D. Kaplan has observed, the liberal embrace of universal principles as foreign-policy guidance "leads to a pacifist strain…when it comes to defending our hard-core national interest, and an aggressive strain when it comes to defending human rights." Globalists, in advocating foreign policy adventurism, are quick to conflate events in the Baltics, say, or Georgia or Ukraine with U.S. national interest, but it’s really about the globalist impulse of dominating world events. Nationalists don’t care about dominating world events. Being nationalists, they want their country to be powerful, with plenty of military reach, but mostly to protect American national interests. They usually ask a fundamental question when foreign adventures are proposed—whether the national interest justifies the expenditure of American blood and treasure on behalf of this or that military initiative. The fate of other people struggling around the globe, however heartrending, doesn’t usually figure large in nationalist considerations. The fate of America is the key.
The article goes through all the key fault lines between the globalists and nationalists, one that is playing out all over the world.

One can view this as a short- or long-term phenomena, but the social mood and historical record argue for a major reaction by the global public, one that sets back global integration for at least a couple of decades. The movement won't go away if Trump loses in 2016, but instead come back more aggressive in 2020. It's possible nationalists will be kept out of power if everything (military, security, economy) goes well, but if there is a "change election" where voters choose a new direction, it will almost assuredly be in a nationalist direction.

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