The Secret ‘Isolationist’ Majority That’s Lurking Until After the Election

In a piece that confusingly
suggests that politicians skeptical of permament war are hiding
their true colors until after the midterm election even as he
concedes that non-interventionism is an increasingly popular
position among Americans, Nicholas Wapshott frets for Politico that
“after
election day, the isolationists will be back.”

When we wake up Wednesday morning, a lot of us will be
isolationists again. All the tough election-season rhetoric about
supporting U.S. troops abroad will have disappeared overnight, and
many Americans can be expected to revert back to what has been a
rising and unmistakable trend: For the first time in nearly
three-quarters of a century – since the months before Dec. 7,
1941—many people are forthrightly embracing isolationism as an
election issue. And the feeling isn’t likely to go away any time
soon, despite some recent polls suggesting that more and
more Americans outraged by the videotaped beheadings of two
journalists have supported military action against ISIL, also known
as the Islamic State. With the war against ISIL expected to last
many years, the pivotal issue of the 2016 election might turn out
to be not the economy or health care but whether the United States
should continue as the world’s policeman, as it has since the end
of World War II, or should finally come home for good.

“Isolationism” is Wapshott’s preferred term throughout; he
castigates as a “weasel word” any attempt to distinguish
isolationists who didn’t want to engage the world at all from
non-interventionists who support free trade and peaceful
interaction with the world, but object to the D.C. fetish for
dropping American bombs and bodies into every knife fight on the
planet.

Wapshott acknowledges that “isolationism” as well as opposition
to NSA surveillance unites Americans, “bringing together the far
left of the Democratic Party with libertarian Republicans in a show
of solidarity rarely seen in Washington.”

It’s also popular among Americans who vote for those
politicians, he concedes, with support for limited action against
ISIS acting as an
exception to public opposition to greater military
intervention, according to Pew. Reason-Rupe polling finds
almost identical results, with
support for air strikes against ISIS balanced against opposition to
the use of ground forces.

That skepticism about intervention
extends elsewhere, according to Reason-Rupe polling. Only 28
percent of Americans want to increase the U.S. military presence
around the world, while 36 percent want to decrease America’s
global military presence.

This skepticism of permanent war is so popular
that…non-interventionists send “dog-whistle signals” to reassure
the faithful without letting hawks catch on, according to Wapshott.
But “as soon as the midterms are out of the way, dovish Democrats
and libertarian Republicans will feel free once again to express
their reluctance to continue to support military action
abroad.”

But the polling…Never mind. Wapshott is convinced that this is
an underground movement—of the majority.

His spin aside, Wapshott is likely right. Non-interventionism—or
“isolationism,” if he insists—is on the rise, with limited
exceptions made for special horrors like ISIS. Wapshott clearly
doesn’t like that development, but those of us who care about
American lives might find it encouraging.