Hillary Clinton and the left's new isolationism

Last time around, Clinton used her now-infamous “3 a.m. phone call” ad to question Barack Obama’s aptitude in a dangerous world. How times have changed. Today, the Clinton brand stands for the power and privilege of isolating Americans themselves from America’s interventions around the world. Sure, we might have to bomb this or that country into chaos. But from the standpoint of “Everyday Americans” thirsting for equal access to resources and recognition, what difference does it make? They’re on a need-to-know basis, and they don’t need to know.

Here’s where conservatives must pay close attention. Americans like it this way. We don’t want the gory details. We want experts we can trust to keep our anxious, harried minds away from the endless stress case of global management. We didn’t really want to know about the CIA’s black sites. We don’t really want to know what Hillary Clinton is doing when she’s not out there fighting everyday for working families.

Americans have never had a lot of patience for protracted conflict in an uncertain world. Love it or hate it, the New Isolationism that Team Clinton is prepared to promote carries a broad, inherent appeal. Americans have always fretted about the security of their station in life. Especially these days, they increasingly look to government for reassurance that the burden of fretting about foreign policy can be gently lifted away. It would be remarkable if the left finally mainstreamed a greater concern for domestic “safe spaces” than for the safety of America — or democracy, or freedom, or the world. But it would not be shocking.