The acute level of partisanship and polarization in modern America is often treated as a kind of unfortunate mass indulgence or moral deficiency across the ideological spectrum. When we’re not pointing accusatory fingers at our political adversaries for exacerbating tensions across party lines, the contempt we have for one another’s politics is often blamed on a toxic combination of technology and media.
Indeed, the explosion of social media encourages informational silos and “epistemic closure.” These cloistered environments invariably lead their inhabitants – millions of normal American citizens – toward progressively more militant poses. The decline in real-world relationships and the social media replacement of an increasing number of in-person interactions leaves millions in virtual hot-boxes, with little to temper growing partisan and ideological antagonism toward the hated “other.”
The antidote to this acrimony, then, should be found in tempering Americans’ dance with poisonous algorithms and political discourse. But, like any addiction, detox is merely a temporary reprieve. No doubt, some detachment from the online world of politics is essential for an individual’s mental health but, at a national level, this solution is unsatisfactory; short of an impracticable and massive censorship regime, millions can neither be persuaded nor forced to “touch grass.” While we can focus blame solely on social media and contrive temporary solutions to online rage-bait, technology is merely pouring gasoline on a fire that has long been burning.
Most Americans intuitively sense that the differences between Red and Blue America are far deeper than any of the daily controversies and debates we argue about on the surface. What social media is exposing is that America is now – if not physically and politically, but ideologically, spiritually, and aesthetically – two distinct countries. What truly divides us is political, in the original and most elemental sense: radically different and mutually exclusive conceptions of The Good, of justice, and of the proper role of the state in its interactions with its citizens.
Two Countries
These foundational conflicts naturally carry over into the debate about the country’s foreign policy. In order to relate to other nations – or to assess our own interests, whether correctly or incorrectly – America must first have a relatively coherent understanding of itself. If we are divided on who we are as a nation, it should not be surprising that we differ just as profoundly on the nature of other countries and civilizations, and how we interact with them.
In our current state of ideological disunion and polarization, the foreign policy debate we find ourselves in is no longer about different means to the same end; it is about making war on foreigners who remind us of our domestic enemies, and allying with those who remind us of ourselves.
Allies and Adversaries
As destructive for both domestic and foreign policy as it is, the source of these inclinations is natural; the ancient Greeks noticed that we feel most comfortable with the peoples nearer to us – as we are more likely to share a common understanding of the most basic things – and more skeptical of those farther away. Now that we have less in common as Americans, however, foreigners with whom Red and Blue Americans have affinity have largely shifted in opposite directions that mirror their own priorities and ways of seeing the world.
As the pot has come to a boil, both Americas have clung more fiercely to their most fundamental domestic ideological preoccupations, seeking foreign allies that share them.
Blue America
Blue America now looks abroad and sees itself mirrored in the European Union (EU), a permanent bureaucracy led by a constellation of post-national urban elites and NGOs committed to advancing a neoliberal vision of Progress. As within the United States, its commitment to this project is energized by the idea of overcoming what it sees as the irresponsible, retrograde (and, of course, racist) protestations of the citizens of their countries.
Over the last half-decade, Blue America has appropriated a millennia-old form of government (“Democracy”) for use as a banner and cudgel against its enemies within and without, redefining the term to be synonymous with its electoral fortunes and ideological program.
While the hard-Left had long had its own allies and enemies based on the needs and alliances of the Soviet Union during the Cold War, fringe sympathies for Marxist, Third World revolutionary movements and communist police states were rare among the Democratic Party’s mainstream voices. Now, however, Blue America’s domestic fixation on the evils of racism, colonialism, equity, gender, and sexual liberation overlay onto geopolitics to provide ready-made enemy nations that stand in the way of eradicating the sins of the past. The Intersectional “progressive stack” is in play here, too, as the fiercest opponents of colonialism trump the privilege of minority groups and social issues in Blue America’s understanding of its allies and enemies.
Red America
Red America, at first, clung to its more traditional and, arguably, now outdated view of the country’s foreign policy. But, in time, it began to seek allies and enemies that more closely corresponded to its understanding of its domestic predicament: those under siege by elites. Today, Red America relates more closely to countries and leaders willing to buck the post-national, bureaucratic consensus, favoring localism and greater accountability to voters.
These Americans believe, correctly, that a nation’s health and success depends on the coherence of a nation’s history, culture, and mores, which are intimately tied to demographics. To that end, their foreign allies are those who oppose the homogenization sought by Blue America’s allies in Brussels and in Turtle Bay, none more pressing than limitless immigration.
Where Israel Fits
There are still vestiges of what was once called the “bipartisan consensus.” But these are historical remnants, existing mostly in public opinion polls and the national political leadership that, by nature, must reflect them. While Americans of both parties back Israel by wide margins, in Blue America, this support declines sharply by generational cohort and, even more importantly, by activist enthusiasm.
Since the Obama administration, Democrats have negotiated this through rhetorical sleight-of-hand: mantra-like repetition of pro-Israel statements intended to mask a far more antagonistic policy toward the Jewish State. Over time, however, even that rhetoric will shift with the polls, as younger voters will demand more open opposition to Israel and Zionist Jews more generally.
The Water’s Edge
While the old adage “politics stops at the water’s edge” was never entirely embraced, the desire to maintain a united front against foreign adversaries was, at least, an expectation within mainstream political discourse – and its flagrant violation was understood to be punishable by voters rather than rewarded. In our state of disunion, however, that is no longer the case.
The consequences of our disunion for American foreign policy are many. We have already seen radical shifts between administrations, as one set of policymakers is replaced by others with opposite (and equally strong) convictions about ends, not just means. To be sure, a certain amount of change is to be expected with any White House turnover; prior to this current era, the differences between the postures of Carter and Reagan toward communism, for example, were stark.
But the shift from the Obama to Trump to Biden administrations has been a kind of whiplash, as each does its best to dismantle not just the policies, but the ideological premises of the prior one and erect a new one in its place. Each shift, though, is not cost-free; for the world’s lone superpower, inconsistency is destabilizing and, in the long or even medium-term, undermines any conceivable understanding of American interests, Red or Blue.
This is especially confusing for allies, who are aware that they could become one party’s designated hate object when it’s politically expedient. In some Middle Eastern and European capitals, officials were shocked when the Democratic allies they’d made over decades inside the Beltway suddenly abandoned them. The fallout from these severed relationships extends far past politicians and into the adjacent world of lobbying, business, and media. A quick shift in the domestic political winds makes it difficult for nations predisposed to friendship with the United States to do long-term planning and, more importantly, to make hard choices that would materially benefit this country’s interests. Why assist an American effort, when that cooperation could be politicized?
Advantage: Adversaries
This situation is advantageous to our enemies for the same reasons. The basic ethos of a good foreign policy has always been that, in order to encourage friendship rather than enmity, one must reward one’s friends and punish one’s enemies. Our disunion allows for neither. Adversaries recognize they have a free hand for mischief and little incentive not to pursue their own advantage at our expense. And, inside government, cutthroat ideological battles between policymakers allow much to fall between the cracks to the detriment of any conception of our national security.
Our Ideological Establishment
In principle, though, these dramatic shifts are preferable to the current situation: a foreign and defense establishment pursuing an agenda of its own, unresponsive to its citizens. Today, the leadership of the permanent national security bureaucracy – like other branches of the administrative state – is temperamentally and ideologically Blue. It is, at the very least, unresponsive to direction from Red presidents, understanding its mission to “protect and defend… from all enemies foreign and domestic” as synonymous with its fierce ideological and partisan commitments.
The foreign policy of the United States, the credentialed tribunes of Blue America argued, is far too important to be decided by a president from Red America, regardless of his constitutional mandate. It’s difficult to imagine more of an affront to the spirit of democracy than unelected functionaries entrusted by the American people with tremendous power to defend their lives determining, largely in secret and without real oversight, to veto the decisions of an elected president.
In the name of “Democracy.”
Implications of Disunion
As the implications of our disunion are so dire, it’s not surprising that professional foreign policy and national security elites largely avert their eyes. Grand Strategy is still discussed in war colleges, think tanks, and in Georgetown salons. At worst, the intelligentsia take for granted the unified country of their youth: the Cold War or the multipolar world of unconstrained American power. At best, sharp analysts perceive future conflicts abroad and attempt to address them while taking into consideration the limits of popular opinion on American action.
While the latter is strongly preferable, it also papers over internal conflicts that will, in time, become more contentious and make devising a coherent foreign policy for the United States impossible.
Those concerned with American foreign policy must, going forward, anticipate continued conflict about the most fundamental things. They should address the state of our disunion explicitly: as the primary concern of our domestic politics, and the primary concern for our relations with other nations. There is always the temptation to force a consensus on the two competing worldviews, supposedly in the dire interest of national security. While it is appealing – and the nostalgia for simpler, less contentious times is potent – this unity would be illusory. As it is in control of the bureaucratic engine of foreign policy, a consensus foreign policy would be little more than acquiescence to Blue America’s understanding of the world, and of this country.
Since the end of the Cold War, Americans have been confused about the most basic things, as public intellectuals, policymakers, and politicians have allowed ideological abstractions such as “democracy promotion” or the latticework of post War international agreements, to become ends in themselves. These preoccupations are, at best, means (of varying degrees of effectiveness), and chasing them at the expense of our material interests has wasted American prestige, resources, and power.
Statesmen have a responsibility to draw sharp distinctions between worldviews, and to explain their consequences, not by appealing to broad abstractions based on a shared sense of morality, but by modestly articulating our national interests. These national interests and priorities should focus on: (a) the lives and safety of our citizens; (b) their material or economic welfare; and (c) our particular American way of life, free from the predations of foreign nation-state or non-nation-state actors.
Explaining Ourselves
Those of us with strong opinions about the direction of American foreign policy or national security must explain ourselves in light of these things, always making clear how our preferences align best with the basic material interests of the American people. We cannot be content with repeating slogans, yelling ever louder, and depending on a crumbling consensus. Simply articulating these things will not solve our disunion or return us to a less complicated and perilous time, when Americans largely agreed on ends but fought over the means. There will always be a debate about the way we understand our foreign policy; injecting some truth and first principles into the public discourse, however messy, is better than abandoning the field to incoherence and conspiracies. There is no guarantee of convincing anyone, but doing so will, at least, appeal to those with the capacity to think clearly about the truly important things.
David Reaboi is the president of Strategic Improvisation, a consulting firm dealing with national security and communications, and a longtime writer on political warfare, information operations, and the Middle East.
