MacIntyre: Loving the nation, not the empire

Last week, the Family Leadership Summit and Blaze Media presented a forum in Iowa to showcase the field of primary candidates for the Republican presidential nomination. Usually these events are shallow, bordering on useless, as candidates scramble to secure 30-second sound bites while answering the carefully curated questions provided by the mainstream media, but this time things went very differently.

Most of this is owed to the format. Each of the candidates who attended spent roughly half an hour in a one-on-one conversation with Tucker Carlson. Carlson, recently freed from any remaining shackles by his departure from Fox News, has his finger on the pulse of the Republican base. Questions were measured and fair, but they were also tied strongly to the interests of the average GOP voter rather than the priorities of the Washington elite.

Carlson was affable but relentless, and as a result, several candidates destroyed their campaigns live on air. Many of the candidates were simply unable to separate the needs of the American people from the geopolitical aspirations of the ruling class and their global empire, and that inability to understand the priorities of the base led several candidates to ruin.

The nation is not in a great place, and the average American is starting to suspect that the future his children inherit will be less free and less prosperous. The basic life milestones of the past, like getting married, owning a home, having children, and providing for a family on one income now seem like incredible luxuries. Deaths of despair skyrocket as increasingly irreligious and isolated Americans seek the solace of the fentanyl that pours across the nation’s borders along with the illegal immigrants corporations will exploit as cheap labor to depress the wages of citizens.

Major American cities have become dangerous and filled with the kind of squalor that often makes them indistinguishable from third world slums. The Republican base voters see the degradation of their once great nation and seek the kind of leadership that can restore the homeland and build a brighter future, but instead they receive endless platitudes about the importance of supporting foreign countries they will never see and foreign peoples they will never meet. Voters grow sick and tired of candidates who prattle on endlessly about secure borders for Ukraine or Israel, but show no urgency when it comes to protecting the people of the United States

While several candidates likely scuttled their campaigns live on stage with Tucker Carlson, former Vice President Mike Pence took the gold medal for self-immolation. Pence expressed warm affection for the Ukrainians who thanked him for the missiles and other military equipment the U.S. government had provided them. He spoke passionately about providing additional funding and military hardware like tanks to the Ukrainian forces. But when Carlson pointed out the deteriorating condition of American cities and questioned whether that money could be better spent at home, Pence had a simple response: “It’s not my concern.”

The response was both terse and horrifying, but it was at least honest. Pence went on to assert that “anybody who says that we can’t be the leader of the free world and solve our problems at home has a pretty small view of the greatest nation on earth.” You see, it is not disconnected Washington elites who are out of touch; it is the ordinary American who is insufficiently patriotic. Pence was asked to prioritize the security and prosperity of American families and communities over a foreign nation, and his response was to recoil in disgust.

What Americans want, what the GOP base in particular truly desires, is a president who looks at them the way that Mike Pence looks at random Ukrainians. Someone who holds the same level of care and admiration for the people of the American Rust Belt as Pence has for those fighting in Eastern Europe. A president who is as passionate about the border security of America as Pence is about the territorial sovereignty of nations like Israel or Ukraine. A president who is willing to commit funds to building a wall and making American cities safe before writing blank checks to foreign governments. Simply put, Americans are desperate for president who puts America first.

National security matters and projecting power are critical to the maintenance of an empire. Some conservatives might find the characterization of America as an empire shocking, but how could it be anything else? When your nation has military bases on every continent, when it heads military alliances that dictate geopolitics in every region of the globe, when it operates a vast trade network that has an economic impact on a majority of nations, it has an empire.

Admitting this fact might be awkward for a nation that traces its founding to a rebellion against and separation from the British Empire, but ignoring the obvious truth does us no favors. America is in the business of maintaining and operating an empire, its leaders are fully aware of this fact, and they set their priorities accordingly. If you want to understand why the interests of so many GOP candidates are widely divergent from the interests of their base, this is a key factor.

Empires get a bad reputation, but they are an ancient form of human political organization seen throughout history that, at least at their beginnings, usually increase the quality of life and level of security for their founding populations. Empires are attractive because they are profitable and expand the geopolitical influence of those who operate them, increasing both economic and military power.

This means that the incentive to transform the nation into an empire is always high, and in some ways a society expanding beyond its natural borders is simply part of the natural life cycle of great civilizations. There is a good argument to be made that someone will always occupy the position of regional or global primacy, so your civilization might as well benefit from claiming the top spot. Successful empires bring riches and security. It is good to be king.

While the initial benefits of empire are well documented, so is the empire's historical cycle of decay. While the empire is initially operated for the benefit of the founding civilization, the elites of that society quickly realize that the opportunity for personal enrichment lies in the provinces. In ancient Rome, the downfall of the republic was closely tied to endless wars of expansion that brought in a vast underclass of slaves that replaced the labor of the native Roman population while increasing the wealth of elite patricians. Stop me if any of this sounds familiar. Eventually, those with no connection or loyalty to the founding homeland are elevated to positions of leadership, and the empire is operated strictly for the benefit of its ruling class instead of the original nation. Later emperors even moved the capital of the empire far away from Rome, not even bothering to visit the city for which the empire was named.

It is difficult and dangerous for nations to walk away from the game of empire, but at some point, it may become necessary for the well-being of their citizens. There is a reason that American elites are constantly in search of a new military conflict that they can label “vital to national security.” Constant military expenditure and expansion are critical if the empire is to remain profitable to our ruling elite, but eventually the cost to the homeland comes due. The United States will always have some level of legitimate interest in projecting power abroad, but the well-being of the nation's citizens must once again become paramount. Americans want leaders who can put aside their own enrichment and the priorities of geopolitical dominance for the good of the people. They want someone who loves the American nation more than the Global American Empire. They want someone who puts America first.