America First slogan origin

[borosp1]

I just found an interesting fact about Trump's and many of the Republican's supporters use of the term "America First" has its origin from the 1930' - 1940's and its relation to Nazism and isolationism. Not surprising as history repeats itself and Trump is not an original person in co-opting phrases to his own benefit.

During the early 1930s, as the Nazis consolidated control over Germany, the U.S. media baron William Randolph Hearst began touting the slogan “America First” against President Franklin Roosevelt, whom he saw as dangerously likely to “allow the international bankers and the other big influences that have gambled with your prosperity to gamble with your politics.” Hearst regarded Roosevelt’s New Deal as “un-American to the core” and “more communistic than the communists” — unlike Nazism, which he believed had won a great victory for “liberty-loving people” everywhere in defeating Communism.

The most prominent of his opponents were the founders of the America First Committee, formed in September 1940. The committee opposed fighting Nazism and proposed a well-armed America confined largely to the Western hemisphere. It soon afterward adopted the noted aviator and enthusiast of fascism Charles Lindbergh as their favored speaker. Lindbergh accepted a medal from Herman Goering “in the name of the Fuehrer” during a visit to Germany in 1938, and “proudly wore the decoration.” He thought democracy was finished in Europe, that the western powers could not effectively resist the Nazi war machine and that the United States had better make terms with Adolf Hitler

President Trump declared that his new administration would have an old slogan: “We assembled here today are issuing a new decree … from this day forward, a new vision will govern our land. From this day forward, it’s going to be only America First. America First!” The White House website pledges an “America First Energy Policy” and an “America First Foreign Policy.”

America First” was the motto of Nazi-friendly Americans in the 1930s, and Trump has more than just a catchphrase in common with them. When he began using the phrase last year during the campaign, the Anti-Defamation League had asked him to stop..

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/01/20/president-trumps-america-first-slogan-was-popularized-by-nazi-sympathizers/

America First Committee - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The Long History Behind Donald Trump’s ‘America First’ Foreign Policy

The front runner's new catchphrase has old roots

time.com

 

[alien42]

Uhhhh, you do realize this article is 5 years old and everyone already knows this right?

 

[dank69]

Uhhhh, you do realize this article is 5 years old and everyone already knows this right?

Not everyone knows this as evidenced by widespread adoption by the GOP.

 

[Pens1566]

Not everyone knows this as evidenced by widespread adoption by the GOP.

Oh, they know. They just ignore it conveniently.

 

[dank69]

Oh, they know. They just ignore it conveniently.

I'd guess 90% or more of GOP popularity depends on ignorance. Sure, the ringleaders know. Rank and file know nothing. Well except for the self-identified white supremacists. I'm sure a lot of them know about this slogan.

 

[pauldun170]

I just found an interesting fact about Trump's and many of the Republican's supporters use of the term "America First" has its origin from the 1930' - 1940's and its relation to Nazism and isolationism. Not surprising as history repeats itself and Trump is not an original person in co-opting phrases to his own benefit.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/01/20/president-trumps-america-first-slogan-was-popularized-by-nazi-sympathizers/

America First Committee - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The Long History Behind Donald Trump’s ‘America First’ Foreign Policy

The front runner's new catchphrase has old roots

time.com

Majority of my life was spent in the 20th century.
You'd be surprised of how much garbage from the 20th century has been repackaged by the modern Republican party.

 

[UNCjigga]

Was mildly surprised that OP was not Amol.

 

[darkswordsman17]

Uhhhh, you do realize this article is 5 years old and everyone already knows this right?

This is worth reposting and I thinks its bad to shame someone learning something like this and going "whoa, more people need to know about this!"

 

[blackangst1]

There are several phrases that originally meant something racist but has changed over the years. Peanut gallery is one, grandfathered in is another. So is America First.

 

[dank69]

There are several phrases that originally meant something racist but has changed over the years. Peanut gallery is one, grandfathered in is another. So is America First.

Yeah, just a coincidence that the vast majority of people using "America First" are racists or happy to lie in bed with racists.

 

[Greenman]

And here I thought it meant America first. Learn something new (and a little stupid) every day.

 

[Meghan54]

Uhhhh, you do realize this article is 5 years old and everyone already knows this right?

Read the reply just above this.....

 

[woolfe9998]

There are several phrases that originally meant something racist but has changed over the years. Peanut gallery is one, grandfathered in is another. So is America First.

This is true, but irrelevant in this case. Because the point is that there are numerous very close similarities between Trump, his following, and historical fascism. "America First" is just one. And the similarity is not coincidental. Because America First then and now meant, among other things, opposition to immigration. Which is itself associated with racism, or at a minimum, the cultural form of bigotry which caused so many Americans to mistrust even certain categories of white European immigrants. It also signals isolationism both then and now. Just look at Trump trying to pull us out of NATO, and the America Firsters back then trying to keep us out of WWII.

 

[Thump553]

There are several phrases that originally meant something racist but has changed over the years. Peanut gallery is one, grandfathered in is another. So is America First.

Now that's something I never knew. I can see how peanut gallery could possibly have been racist, but how so on grandfathered?

 

[Meghan54]

Now that's something I never knew. I can see how peanut gallery could possibly have been racist, but how so on grandfathered?

Grandfathered in: This legal term broadly refers to the "grandfather clause" adopted by seven Southern states during the Reconstruction Era.
Under it, anyone who was able to vote before 1867 was exempt from the literacy tests, property requirements and poll taxes needed for voting. But enslaved Black people were not freed until 1865, when the 13th Amendment passed, and weren't granted the right to vote until the 15th Amendment was passed in 1870.

The grandfather clause effectively excluded them from voting -- a practice that continued until the 1960s, according to Encyclopedia Britannica.
Now, "grandfathered in" means that a person or company are exempt from following new laws, but "grandfather clause" in its original context disenfranchised Black Americans for decades.

Everyday words and phrases that have racist connotations | CNN

Problematic words and phrases like "master" and "blacklist" are everywhere: in real estate, in computing, in law and in everyday conversation.

www.cnn.com

 

[Meghan54]

Gospel music vs. Christian music. What's the difference? Hmmmm?

 

[dingster1]

Gospel music vs. Christian music. What's the difference? Hmmmm?

There actually is a difference between those genres.

 

[Meghan54]

There actually is a difference between those genres.

Yeah…one is by blacks, one by whites. Otherwise, really not much.

 

[IronWing]

Yeah…one is by blacks, one by whites. Otherwise, really not much.

The difference is from the divine to the mundane.

 

[pmv]

I'd always thought of it as a racist slogan, that's the context in which I first heard about it, long before Trump came to prominence (i.e. from reading about US history as a child). What was actually news to me was kind of the reverse - to discover that "America First" was not exclusively a racist slogan, it actually goes back further than Charles Lindburgh and his racist agenda.

The Original Meanings of the “American Dream” and “America First” Were Starkly Different From How We Use Them Today

A new book from historian Sarah Churchwell examines the etymologies of two ubiquitous phrases

www.smithsonianmag.com

 

[sportage]

Made In America. Isolationism. The Good Old Days. Segregation. Energy Independence.
The reality of it is, that we live in a global economy. The different world economies are entwined, and that is the way it is plain and simple. You can't go backwards. America alone can not possibly supply all the goods that Americans need and use, and the world depends of what America can produce which other countries can not produce for themselves.
Frankly, I don't see the big problem here with our world economy. Everyone benefits in the end. It's like a big family reunion. Someone brings the ham, someone else brings the gravy, the corn, the potatoes, and THE PIES!!!! We all love pies!!!!

It's just too bad that so many Americans still hold on to this belief of isolationism, segregation, only buying American made, and being totally energy independent.
And as far as segregation and isolationism goes, what are you going to do? Build a huge wall around America? Or send those of different skin color away to concentration camps?
That has been tried.... and it didn't work.
And most of the dictators that tried such a stunt end up shooting themselves in the head or drinking the drink of death.

Face it, all of us are here to stay. Red, yellow, brown, black and white. Men, women, and everything in between.
In my republican ran state the republican legislature just passed a law pretending that transgenders no longer exist, and the republican governor signed it. I won't say who, but this same republican governor just rebutted the state of the union address claiming herself to be a "state of acceptance, fairness, and equality".
Next, she and her legislature will go after some other race or creed that they feel the need to legislate out of existence.

The minority that will be doomed into extinction are those people who pass such laws and write such legislation. And believe me.... no wall no matter how massive or tall will ever make America great again.

 

[hal2kilo]

This is true, but irrelevant in this case. Because the point is that there are numerous very close similarities between Trump, his following, and historical fascism. "America First" is just one. And the similarity is not coincidental. Because America First then and now meant, among other things, opposition to immigration. Which is itself associated with racism, or at a minimum, the cultural form of bigotry which caused so many Americans to mistrust even certain categories of white European immigrants. It also signals isolationism both then and now. Just look at Trump trying to pull us out of NATO, and the America Firsters back then trying to keep us out of WWII.

Think Gangs of New York. This shit has been around since ..... forever.