On Elitism and Ahistoricism: A Response to David French

Since the political ascent of Donald Trump, Americans have been subjected to endless think pieces on the "isolationism" that he purports to represent and threatens to unleash upon the postwar order. David French's most recent column for the New York Times, "There Will Always Be a Trump. That's Only Part of the Problem," is the latest offering in this line of commentary. Like many articles before it, French relies upon a narrow understanding of American noninterventionism, derisively referred to as "isolationism," and a simplistic understanding of those who proposed greater American involvement in foreign affairs. As has become common in America's mainstream news outlets, French provides a myopic history of noninterventionism, casting it as spiritually akin to all the evils of American history, thereby juxtaposing it against his own thinly veiled whig history. French laments that after being founded as the party of emancipation, the Republicans suffered from frequent bouts of "reaction, isolationism and xenophobia."