Second-place Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake keeps raising money to challenge election results in 2020, 2022 (when she lost) and even the future results of 2024, when the integrity of American elections will be front and center among MAGA adherents, even if then, as now, the courts and other credible sources fail to find problems at a scale that could alter results.
But for those who say Lake is a one-trick candidate exclusively platforming election fraud, it’s notable that Lake has another issue, too: MAGA’s America First platform, which promotes American exceptionalism and non-interventionism.
In the post below, Lake rages at President Joe Biden — casually calling him a “crook” — when the President asserts that America First policy makes the U.S. “weaker.”
America Last @JoeBiden.
— Kari Lake (@KariLake) August 19, 2023
I am sick and tired of having a crook in the Oval Office who refuses to put the people of his OWN country first. https://t.co/lLkZy6SurW
Biden’s position, wrong or right, is that current American foreign policy is not in retreat from a global leadership position and will continue to seek advantages for America internationally (like helping U.S. manufacturers secure critical nickel in Indonesia). That’s the realpolitik and current approach, however provincial Lake and MAGA want to make the American narrative.
Biden, with key GOP supporters like South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, believes that America must assert itself globally to protect its international interests for the sake of national security and financial prosperity at home — and that a global scene devoid of America’s leadership paves a road to chaos that would destroy the U.S. economically.
The “America First” phrase isn’t new, though the MAGA movement has given it enhanced prominence: Long before Donald Trump dusted off the phrase in 2016, President Woodrow Wilson espoused the America First Doctrine, explaining a desire to avoid sending U.S. troops to fight in the First World War.
Lake, like many “anti-globalists,” believes that caring for the people of, say, East Palestine, Ohio isn’t possible while also supporting an independent Ukraine against a Russian invasion. To support Ukraine, Lake and her ilk maintain, the U.S. must necessarily neglect problems at home — that the money and attention required is a zero sum game.
Biden’s policies assert that the global economy requires an international approach, and that East Palestine and places like it are affected by situations occurring around the world. The migrant crisis is a clear example — working to make the places migrants and asylum seekers are coming from increasingly livable is the best defense against a surge in U.S. border crossings.
In these beliefs the Biden administration aligns with the work of think tanks like the Brookings Institution, which has written: “Doubling down on ‘America First,’ with its mix of nationalism, unilateralism and xenophobia, would only exacerbate [problems like cyberwarfare to mass migration to a warming planet].”
Forbes has also linked American security with a global outlook, citing former Trump National Security Adviser John Bolton whose book claimed that “in pursuing a tariff-first, ‘America First’ trade policy, Donald Trump made the United States less secure and more susceptible to manipulation by the Chinese government.”
