 To think tech, I'm Jay Fidel. This is Keeping the World Company. We're gonna talk about isolationism and look at whether it may be gaining ground. My co-host, Tim Epicella, and our special esteemed guest, Jean Roosevelt. Thank you so much for being here, both of you. Morning. So we've seen the threat of isolationism coming through the Republican Party. It hasn't stopped Joe Biden in his efforts, although it seems to have slowed down the funding, especially for Ukraine. And so the question is to look at where it's going politically in this country to see what isolationism means, how prominent it is now, how prominent it is likely to be, and who's leading that particular phenomenon. Jean, you spotted an article and by a fellow named Christopher McCallion, which has been reported here and there, and it is of some concern. So Jean, can you tell us, can you tell us the four corners of that article, and then we can discuss what it signifies and where it's likely to go? Well, in terms of this discussion, I'll make it very brief, but I will write, and perhaps you may post, an article based on his points and my attempted reputation of him. Christopher McCallion apparently was hired by a think tank established by libertarians, specifically Rand and Ron Paul, with the backing of billionaire Charles Koch in 2016. He was hired from apparently his only position has been a three year, three and a half year position at Hunter College as an adjunct lecturer, which is like a junior academic just starting out, historian. He writes persuasively and supposedly in a moderate tone and he advances points against American current foreign policy, which could be extremely damaging to the United States down the line, but which have a rhetorical appeal to a large segment of the American electorate who are becoming weary of war stories and who would like the United States to spend its money domestically on the various issues and problems that we have. Now, no one can argue with that. However, withdrawing from our position of primary superpower in the world is a very dangerous position to take at a time when China and Russia are united in being more aggressive than they have been for many years. His points are directly in line with what Putin has advanced at his Valdai Club conferences, which are held to attract unaligned nations. Remember that China and Russia together have potential influence and control over 40% of the world's population. They are making advances in Latin America, in Africa, in the South Pacific, and China has been more aggressive than one would expect in taking over actual maritime territory in the South China Sea through a trade route that controls one third of the world's trade while Russia has been building military bases in the Arctic, which is warming up and is a potential trade route that it's sharing with China over one half of the territory in the Arctic. This is background to McCallion's very naive statements that our distance from Eurasia is going to make us secure. We can withdraw from the Middle East. We can withdraw from our Pacific alliances into the secure bastion of the United States. Now that was fine in 1830, but today with the development of the delivery by hypersonic missiles of nuclear weapons and Russia and China's advances in cyber space and in actual satellite space, that is a ridiculous assumption. We cannot withdraw from the world. We are part of the world. And we need to recognize that the idea that we could withdraw our support from Ukraine and from Israel in those vital areas where Russia is aggressing against Eastern Europe and is aligned with Iran in aggressing against the Sunni Arabs in the Middle East who are trying to make agreements with Israel is ridiculous. A second ridiculous assumption that he makes and this think tank that the Cox and that the Pauls established is that we can withdraw from the Middle East and from our alignment with Israel. Israel can defend itself against all of the powers aligned against it back by Russia if we withdraw from Israel. And given the fact that Gaza, ruled by Hamas, has actually started a war that it's planned for two years with the knowledge of Iran, which is backed by Russia, I don't see how our withdrawal could contribute to regional stability when our presence there has actually enabled Israel to make peace agreements with Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. So these assumptions that somehow Western Europe can support itself against Russian energy aggression, which was well on its way to controlling politics in Western Europe and against Russian actual aggression in Ukraine when Ukraine established its bona fides by electing democratically a president and overthrowing a Russian puppet. I just don't see how this libertarian think tank can come up with a foreign policy in alignment with Russia that is going to make the United States more secure, the world more stable and ourselves more safe. So, Tim, as Gene said, this would appeal to an existing thread within the MAGA and GOP, but it would also appeal to the left-wing liberals too. It's both sides of the extremes that are the target of this article and this initiative, which is called the Defense Priority Initiative. That's the name of the think tank they've created. So a query, does that properly reach both sides, both extremes? Is that likely to gain traction in this country? Well, I think to some degree with the MAGA GOP, as you said, it has, and thanks to Donald Trump initiating these concepts back when he first became president with trying to shake NATO down to its foundations and threatening withdrawal from NATO and its support, threatening all the nations that they better pay their fair share or else. That was the spark I thought when it occurred that he was introducing the concept of isolationism and certainly has since then. And the big push, and you've heard this from Taylor Greene, Congresswoman Taylor Greene, about we need to stop supporting Ukraine because we need to take care of America first, specifically down at the southern border. That has always had an echo within the United States. America first take care of America before we send money to other foreign nations either for military defense or humanitarian reasons. Talk to any very conservative GOP person and that comes up in their discourse, America first, and forget about other nations. So as far as on the liberal side, I don't have a pulse on that market. I don't know if this concept will appeal. They may be so far extreme that they're right where the MAGA GOP is on this issue. I just really don't have a feel for that, Jay. Yeah, it's very ironic that the article and the GOP mantra is that we ought to deal with domestic issues first, but they're the ones who have blocked any legislation to solve any of those issues. They've locked up Congress. That's a hypocrisy of it all. Tremendous hypocrisy. So by talking about hypocrisy, Gene, you have Koch, Charles Koch, the survivor of the Koch brothers, who just a couple of days ago put his approval on Nikki Haley. And Nikki Haley has said as part of her platform that she will support aid to both Ukraine and Israel. So here's Charles Koch supporting a candidate who takes that position. At the same moment, he's behind this defense priorities think tank, which has had McKillian write this article and advance the notion of isolationism. Can you reconcile those two steps by the same Charles Koch? In a power sense, yes, because they're backing a potential viable candidate for president at the same time. They are backing a viable potential reversal of foreign policy to appeal to younger conservatives. And it's the youth vote that they're after in reestablishing a newly aligned Republican party. I don't think that billionaires are that advanced in their knowledge of foreign policy that sophisticated or that concerned about it. I think they're mostly concerned with domestic power and that means controlling the offices, which govern the United States. Well, we have a hypocrisy going left and right, but it seems to me from what Gene says that what they're doing is reforming, reorganizing the Republican party, that's what they wanna do. They wanna get a younger candidate in for president, woman candidate. And as we discussed before the show, the fact that she's a woman is not all that much of an impediment. The fact that she's Asian is not all that much of an impediment. And they're trying to gain the diversity vote, if you will, and the people who would vote for women, if you will. They're trying to reach a younger age group of the electorate at the same time. Taking a position that might appeal. Let's get out of these foreign engagements. Let's be pacifist. Peace is always good. I suggest that may appeal to some of the voters on the left side of the spectrum. Peace is always good. Let's do peace. But the question is, can they achieve, Tim, this reorganization in the face of Trump's numbers in the polls? Yeah, I think they can. Again, the root of all evil is the love of money. And the more money, the more you can influence through social media, to direct mailers, ads, doorbell knocking, it just takes resources. And resources can certainly shape public opinion. And it just depends on what organization wants to dedicate how much of their resource to the formation of a change of attitude or a value. Or in the case of politics now, belief system. But nevertheless, all three attitudes, values, and beliefs can be changed with proper, I won't say propaganda, but with proper media attention. So the answer is yes. And speaking of media, I recall this as an article in today's times to the effect that Joe Biden, who has been trying to get the social media companies to avoid disinformation, especially from Putin, from overseas. So we don't have a recurrence of what happened in 2016 in the November election. He was stopped and I don't know the status of the case by some Louisiana judge a couple of months ago from doing this more formally. But he's been in fact doing it informally, talking to these various social media executives and asking them to be really careful about accepting disinformation. But the article in the paper today was really interesting. He has on his own motion stopped doing that. He isn't approaching them anymore. He decided not to. This is not a judicial edict or anything. He decided not to try to stop them in efforts to avoid disinformation from outside the country. And I find that extraordinary. The reason given was that, and maybe the reason given by organizations that would lobby against such an effort by the White House is that it's not consistent with the First Amendment. That's why some of the social media companies said that too. Your thoughts about this, because what we have is that we have Joe Biden backing off and being stopped also on efforts to avoid disinformation including disinformation from Russia who would like to see this isolationist initiative succeed. The progressives are very concerned about their First Amendment rights as all Americans should be. I think they're a little more sensitive to it. And I don't think they recognize the threat of Vladimir Putin or and or Russia and its influence on social media. They just see the main issue is that government is trying to intercede in the social media platforms and trying to restrict their First Amendment rights. So they're rearing up, if you will, on that particular issue. Joe Biden has every right to say disinformation is not healthy for this country. I'm sure that the progressive left would look at it as he's self-interested only in his reelection and that's why he's doing it. I don't believe so. Look at how disinformation took over on the how we look at COVID and the treatment of COVID. A million Americans died and a lot of them died partly to misinformation, disinformation, directly spread through social media and Donald Trump. This is interesting because, you know, that the First Amendment argument appeals to the liberals and yet it's something that the right wing would like to see. They would like to be able to speak on social media and have Putin speak on social media as we get closer to the election. So all of these factors, Gene, seem to play in favor of, you know, a greater attention to isolationism. And I don't know if Biden can stop that. What do you think? I'd like to put on my history hat for a minute, even though I'm not primarily a historian of 20th century politics. I was hoping you would, Gene. I have lived through some of it, although this is a little bit earlier than my parents on earth. That is the 1930s. I am becoming increasingly alarmed at parallels, historical parallels with the 1930s. And I've said this before. We may be in 1938, we may be in 1939. Christopher McCallion brought this up himself in his article when he was talking about the Munich appeasement argument that is, that is utilized to support American military involvement in the world. And I went back and looked a little bit at the Munich situation. You remember that we gave Hitler what he wanted. And I think it was 1938 when he was demanding the Sudetenland parts of Czechoslovakia with German speaking individuals. He wanted control over it. And the allies said, yeah, okay, go ahead. Thinking they could buy him off just like Israel thought it could buy him off before they recently attacked. And it didn't work. But we don't just use this argument for a one type of example or situation. Well, before Hitler demanded the Sudetenland, he was already doing things that should have raised red flags like remilitarizing the Rhineland. And, you know, like taking over other areas as well. We have now seen indications of Russian aggression since especially 2014 in terms of his grabbing from Crimea. But he's also made aggressive moves in adjacent areas like Moldova, Belarus. Obviously he's taken over. He's a puppet in Belarus. He established a puppet in Ukraine who was overthrown and that instigated the current aggression. He's been aggressing against Armenia. He's been aggressing in Georgia. All of these things are red flags. He's acting like Hitler, unfortunately. And it isn't just a one-off with Munich. If we concede Ukraine to Russia, McCallion says, oh no, he's not going to aggress against the Baltic States in Poland. Well, maybe he doesn't need to aggress militarily, but he can aggress politically, giving the right wing mood in some of those countries and he can aggress in terms of energy. We now know that it's the Ukrainians that sabotaged the second Russian pipeline, energy pipeline to Europe. And that was a strong move. It's a move like Israel would like to make against Iran, but maybe they were seeing something we can't see. And that would be concession to a weakening of NATO, concession to Russian energy control over Western Europe, concession to Russian placing its puppets in its areas of supposed control and hegemony. All the while crying to the rest of the world that we have to get rid of American influence, that the yuan should replace the dollar, and that China and Russia should build up their militaries and that we need to get rid of American hegemony because as Christopher McCallion echoes, we have done more to provoke them than they have done to provoke us. Of course, he doesn't give any specific examples and it's an untenable argument. But he says framing this as Biden does in terms of autocracy versus democracy is the reason why they're provoked. Well, think about that for a moment. Who has aggressed against democracy? Well, yeah, it's extraordinary when people say that the United States is responsible for Russia's aggression. We've had discussions of that on the show. Or that, yes, please. You know, where we're on this topic of history and isolationism back in the 30s in Germany, I guess I'd like to get Jean's responses. When 2014, when Putin did go into Crimea and the United States didn't respond quite nearly as forceful as it could have, but we certainly have now since the recent invasion of Ukraine. And I guess did United States learn a lesson from 1939? I mean, what would the world look like had on September 1st, 1939, when Germany invaded Poland, had United States gotten very aggressive to fund with military equipment, France and England? What would World War II have looked like had we got in then versus 1941? And I think it would have been a different war. I don't think it would have been as expansive as it did turn out to be, but we'll never know that. But here it is where being proactive in Ukraine was certainly better than just sitting on the sidelines waiting to see what would happen. And that's what isolationism is all about, sitting on the sidelines, seeing how things will unfold. And you could pay now for military aid for Ukraine or you could pay 10 times more when there's a full blown and, you know, aggressive Russia invasion of other European nations. So pay now or pay more? Jay, can I respond to that? Because I think Tim has really hit the nail on the head. I think he's absolutely right. This is what deeply concerns me. In 1938, 39, had we been able to rearm earlier? And by the way, Christopher McCallion thinks we should disarm rather than rearm. And that we couldn't, we're using up our finite resources in Ukraine. He's never lived long enough to understand how fast we reproduced arms once we got into World War II and what we can do when we need to. The fact is isolationism and not building up our armaments earlier in the face of Hitler's very obvious aggressions actually did not save lives. It took lives. It did not shorten a war. It prolonged a war. It was tragic. And it would be tragic if we did this again. And if we backed off from Ukraine and we backed off from the Middle East, if that happened, where would unaligned nations turn? And where would the pressures be? He says, you know, in Asia, if we stop basically countering the moves that China is making in the South China Sea, or if we didn't make those Quad alliances and other things, there would also be more stability and we would be more secure because after all we have, we're between two oceans. Again, that could have worked out in 1830, but it's not gonna work out today. And the fact is that our withdrawal from foreign policy against aggression in the late 1930s was tragic. We need to raise the red flag again today because unfortunately, McCallion's article appeared in CNN. And I think we have to engage when things like that happen, even with the risk of building a name or defense priorities. It's gonna be, I think, an appeal to a lot of young people who haven't lived long enough to learn the lessons that we had to learn then. And I must say this, one of the reasons why Joe Biden's foreign policy is more effective than Donald Trump's is because Joe Biden remembers what happened in the 1930s and 40s. He got it straight from the horse's mouth from his uncles and his father and from everybody else, just as I did. I mean, he really knows the score and too many people have forgotten the score and that enables them to be manipulated by these subtle arguments by people like McCallion who is really being horribly naive. Well, maybe more than naive, maybe he's getting instructions on what to say and how to say it. As you mentioned, he writes well and I have this sense that it went all through the Koch organization before it ever got published. Who knows who wrote that? Anyway, Tim, and for that matter, Gina, when I ask you both the same question, that is, what's the level of alarm here? Putin, and I think of Putin primarily because he's more visible somehow is running an asymmetrical war. It's not just the kinetics on the battlefield. It's not just the tanks and the drones and the missiles and all that. He's hacking. He's hacking into all the countries that Gene mentioned. He's putting puppets wherever he can. He's trying to undermine Europe in general. That's part of his war. And okay, and this is the question, he's trying to undermine the United States in order to have us sort of leave the field. He's done that with Trump. My God knows what compromise he has on Trump that would make Trump vulnerable to that. But Trump certainly has taken the position that if elected on day one, he would terminate the support of Ukraine. Mike Johnson, who works for Trump has said pretty much the same thing. No support for Ukraine, even if support for Israel, no support for Ukraine. And now we have this article in the Koch Brothers and they're also talking about withdrawing any support of many of our allies that are under contention right now. And I feel that we have 10 months to go. Joe Biden has 10 clear months to continue his efforts, including dealing with the attacks by Iran and Syria. We read about that in today's news. And in doing that, he has to contend with this movement, this isolationist movement. And that movement may actually make him less popular. And that movement may cost him the election to either Trump or Nikki Haley. And the result would be at the end of the day, Nikki Haley may change her position to more isolationist. Koch would like that, the GOP may go that way and some liberals may go that way. So what is the level of alarm here? Is this a five alarm fire or is it something that will pass? Tim? I think all left-leaning Democrats, middle of the road Democrats, independents and moderate GOP, this is a 4.5 alarm. And that is just to your point, if Donald Trump becomes president again, you can guarantee he will be an isolationist nation. He will get us out of NATO. He'll detract or retract from the United Nations. You can forget about Ukraine support. We will be an isolationist nation. So to what degree is that an alarm? 4.5. And even if Donald Trump doesn't use his influence right now on isolationism, there will be other influencers. God knows where they'll come from. Will they have popularity, fame? I mean, look at the 1920s and 30s. Who was the great influencer of isolationism back then? Charles Lindbergh. And who is the next Charles Lindbergh in 2023? I don't know, but you can rest assured that there will be a continual movement for this feeling of isolationism. And they are gonna go to the young minds that don't remember history or never were taught the history. So they will try to influence the younger minds, Gen Z, the millennials, and even some Gen X. I think most boomers really do know their history about World War II and how that all came to be. But I don't want to assume that, but there you go. We're in, as you like to say, Jay, we're in deep kimchi. Well, Jean, you know, you talk about history in the 30s and I recall that in Radio City Music Hall in New York in the early 30s, day 33, 34, they had a Nazi rally. And like 10,000 people showed up a few years later and gave the Hitler salute and all that. A few years later, they had another rally at Radio City Music Hall and something way more, like 30,000 people were involved in the second rally. So the number of Nazis and Nazi sympathizers in the country grew. And their thing was, stay out of what's going on in Europe, Hitler's a good guy. And they would have sought isolationism. They were seeking isolationism, Lindbergh and all that. And were it not for Pearl Harbor, you know, our stance, you guys have both referred to this, our stance would have been entirely different. Pearl Harbor was the catalytic agent for us, for Roosevelt, for the country. And seems to me that if the Republicans get back in office, we will have a Republican administration and we will not have a leader like FDR and we will not have a catalytic agent that will draw the United States into the fray or frays as the case may be. So I'm pretty worried. How about you? Well, if I weren't worried, I wouldn't have brought the article to attention because the best thing to do with things like this is to let them just sort of die on the vine and not get the PR. The think tank, which is Defense Priorities Foundation has an arm of lobbyists. They now are lobbying. And I don't know how much influence they are having right now on members of Congress who are isolationist in terms of the MAGA Republicans who are isolationist and want to get out of Ukraine and the far, far progressive ones who look at the United States as being the main provocateur in late history with all the wars we have been involved in from Afghanistan. One of the major hires for Defense Priorities has been a fellow named Ruger, who was the chief whistleblower in Afghanistan and wanted us out of Afghanistan. So he has, he doesn't have the same view as McCallion, but he's on board. And I think they could put together a coalition politically in the country that would be as appealing as it was in the late 1930s. Now, of course, Pearl Harbor happened, but we have to remember that after Pearl Harbor, Germany also declared war on the United States. And eventually it will arrive on our shores. So this is only a holding action by people who really have not paid attention to history and who have their own interests at heart. And in terms of gaining power and influence within the United States by taking over a major political party and governing the judiciary system and governing the major offices in the United States, Speaker of the House, President, and et cetera. I think we have to remember that charismatic leaders in a situation of polarization and high anxiety among an electorate, the charismatic leaders are very, very dangerous because people just wanna put it on some father figure or mother figure who is going to take this fear away from them and make them feel secure. And the fact that defense priorities is using the word security and stability in league with American withdrawal is alarming. I'm not gonna put a number on it, but I seem to have a facility for finding things early on that are going to develop a constituency as we go and become front page news. Well, we're almost out of time. So I wanna ask you guys for your final thoughts based on our discussion so far. And the question I would put to you to consider dealing with in your final thoughts is what should Joe Biden do between now and November? He's kind of in a dilemma. The more overseas he goes, the more he tries to do aggressive foreign policy, the more he's gonna be attacked by the GOP. And in any event, the GOP and the isolationists, as Gene said, are really getting it together and they're gonna try to affect public opinion and the electorate to sort of vote for isolationism, whoever speaks for it in the campaign and in the election in November. What should Joe Biden do between now and then? Tim? Very quickly, he should use the bully pulpit, not to lecture the American public, but to educate them gentilly and remind them what isolation is brought to the United States even before World War I, during after World War I, certainly what led up to World War II and basically remind people how we got into the mess that we got into and what Donald Trump's philosophy will bring us in the future to come. That's the one thing he can do and then remind everybody that he's still viable as a candidate and he's not too old to conduct the job and conduct world policy because right now, credibility is everything for Joe Biden and he needs to increase his credibility so that his message gets out and is accepted. But without credibility, it's just air in the wind. Yeah, and people, everybody in the country has to see that if we are going to retain our influence and protect ourselves, we're gonna have to sacrifice. You know, right now the country spends $150 billion on beer and chips. We're gonna have to make some sacrifices. So Jean, what are your final comments? I think that Joe Biden's speeches recently have been an attempt to educate the American public. I think that's why he's speaking out. He has a congenital stammering problem. He is not a good public speaker but if you listen to what he has to say, he's a very wise man. One of the reasons why we made a mistake with Syria and allowing Russia to come in at that time that Obama made that mistake is because he's too young. Joe Biden is not too old. He's old enough to deal with these particular challenges which the young are not able to deal with. And we need to reverse that argument and that campaign needs to make that argument. Secondly, you have to always counter someone who's coming up with these harebrained ideas. And remember that Ron Paul is sort of a guy who is an inmate in an asylum that sort of taken it over and he's aligned with a lot of very questionable ideas. He is not a wise man and he's behind all of this. So you need to counter this type of misinformation by real information, loud and clear repetitively. You have to engage the debate. You have to give the people a real choice while you're educating them. You have to make it very clear and you have to reverse that age argument. I'm three years older than Joe Biden. I feel just fine when dealing with these things. And I know Joe Biden is too. And it's not how fast he walks or how he talks that matters. It's his thought processes and how he handles other leaders in the world. He just had a meeting with Xi Jinping which I think was a very effective meeting and a very smart meeting to make. The outreach to Xi Jinping was great in its timing right now and in its execution. Those are the things we have to look at. We have to look at how he behaves in his execution of things. And we have to get rid of all the rhetoric that is clouding the airwaves and listen to the main message because this is a wise man. We need his leadership. And there's nobody else on the horizon with the chops to do it right now. Gene Rosenberg, Tim Apichela, we're out of time. Thank you so much for this discussion. I can't say I feel better now, but I also feel that if necessary, Gene can run for president. Thank you very much. Aloha. Thank you.