As the military conflict between Israel and Iran raged Monday, the Republican senator Tom Cotton (Ark.) wrote on X that “President Trump created and shaped the Make America Great Again movement and defined America First foreign policy.”
“He is absolutely right that Iran’s terrorist regime cannot be trusted with a nuclear weapon,” Cotton added. Cotton wanted people to know that the true definition of “America First” is for the United States to be part of yet another regime-change war.
Makes perfect sense, right? Not for anyone who has actually been paying attention.
Kelley Vlahos, editorial director for Responsible Statecraft, replied to Cotton, “THIS IS NOT AMERICA FIRST. Cotton co-opted this language when he wet his finger and put it up to the wind and figured out the MAGA base was done with neocons. He is a fake.”
Vlahos is right. It was just a month ago that President Donald Trump buried the neoconservatives during his speech in Saudi Arabia: “The so-called nation-builders wrecked far more nations than they built, and the interventionists were intervening in complex societies that they did not even understand themselves.” (No modern presidency was more associated with “nation-building” than that of George W. Bush, a legacy Trump vehemently rejected early in the 2016 GOP presidential debates.)
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