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Pat Buchanan writes at his blog, Buchanan.org:
After the Great Pandemic has passed and we emerge from Great Depression II, what will be America’s mission in the world?
What will be America’s cause?
We have been at such a turning point before.
After World War II, Americans wanted to come home. But we put aside our nation-building to face the challenge of a malevolent Stalinist empire dominant from the Elbe river to the Barents Sea.
And after persevering for four decades, we prevailed.
What, then, did we do with our epochal victory?
We alienated Russia by moving our NATO military alliance into the Baltic and Black Seas. We launched bloody, costly crusades for democracy in the Middle East that, invariably, failed. We exported a huge slice of our manufacturing capacity and economic independence to a coddled China.
Even before COVID-19, Americans had begun to realize the folly of decades of mindless interventionism over matters irrelevant to our vital interests.
If the Democrats win in November, we know their priorities: national health insurance, carbon taxes, the Green New Deal, open borders, amnesty, reparations and wealth redistribution to reduce social and economic inequality — an agenda costing trillions of dollars.
If the Republicans win, given the influence of hawks and neocons among the party elite, interventionism may get another run in the yard.( a disastrous outcome)
In a second Trump presidency, there would likely be even less concern for how other nations rule themselves.
If Trump wins, borders will be tightened.
The U.S. withdrawal from the Mideast will continue.
U.S. manufacturing will begin to be repatriated.
Transnational institutions will be downgraded, ignored and superseded.
The watchword will be what it has lately been: “America First.”
