Trump’s attack on Iran has put to the test the limits of what “America First” means. The division inside the MAGA movement over its definition goes beyond semantics; it’s a quest for legitimate authority—what the Romans called auctoritas. It originally referred to the legitimacy to dictate a prescribed course of action based on the respect commanded by the person or institution that issued it. The decision carried a heavy moral weight, though it was not law.
Since Trump first launched his presidential campaign, he has used the slogan “America First.” It was not originally his, but—as is often the case with marketing—his team repurposed it. It could be said that it is the guiding principle behind MAGA. Since then, throughout both his terms, this principle has been used to justify a wide variety of policies focused on economic nationalism, border security, energy dominance, tighter controls on foreign investment, and other areas.
Although these policies involve foreign countries and thus touch on foreign policy, what is less clear is how “America First” applies to broader international engagement. The recent conflict between Israel and Iran illustrates this ambiguity, as it involved one of the US’s closest allies—if not the closest—and one of its main antagonists.
A central question in the debate over whether the US should intervene was whether attacking Iran aligned with “America First”—that is, whether it served the US’s core interests—or whether it served mainly those of its ally, thus making it “America Second.” This debate has exposed fractures within the MAGA movement.
On one side are the noninterventionists, among them Steve Bannon, Tucker Carlson, and Marjorie Taylor Greene. They argued that involving US troops and resources in this conflict—and potentially being dragged into a prolonged war—was not in the national interest. Such a move, they claimed, contradicted the President’s promise to end “forever wars” and did not reflect the spirit of “America First.”
On the other side are the pro-Israel advocates and neoconservative hawks—including Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, and Laura Loomer—who contended that supporting Israel and preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear capabilities are in US interests. Therefore, they argued, intervention aligned with “America First.”
These opposing interpretations reflect a fundamental problem: “America First” is an abstract principle with no fixed definition, a powerful, evocative slogan that anyone can appropriate to defend their own idea of what America is and what its interests are. Its strength lies in its ambiguity—it can be molded to fit divergent views. This broad ideological flexibility works well in campaigning but becomes problematic when translated into actual policy.
Yet the debate is not simply about a campaign slogan. Because “America First” has been invoked to justify everything from tariffs to airstrikes, who defines it becomes a matter of moral and political authority—not just rhetoric. A policy labeled as “America First” may not be law, but it gains legitimacy through perceived alignment with the nation’s fundamental interests. Therefore, whoever decides what these interests are—and whether they fall under “America First”—commands auctoritas in the Roman sense.
Who holds auctoritas, and why, has been at the center of political turmoil and armed conflict throughout much of Western history. In fact, to understand the modern nation-state, it is essential to grasp how this concept has been interpreted—and where it was believed to reside—at different points in time.
According to Cicero’s axiom—“Cum potestas in populo, auctoritas in Senatu sit”—power in the Roman Republic rested with the people, but auctoritas with the Senate. Here, “power” is not to be understood in the Foucauldian sense—this predates the rise of the modern subjective individual—but as the capacity to act in concert with others. It was understood that the power to act ultimately resided in individuals acting together, but the legitimacy to decide the course of action belonged not to the individual, but to the institution above them: the Senate.
For the Romans, the State mattered more than the individual. Rome was eternal—urbs aeterna, as Albius Tibullus wrote—while individuals were mortal. Even though Rome’s power was abstract, its institutions exercised auctoritas over its citizens.
This is a very different situation from what we have today. It could be said that, if for the Romans power rested with the people and auctoritas with the Senate, in the modern nation-state auctoritas rests with the people and power with the state. This shift reflects the change in how we understand the relationship between the individual, society, and, more broadly, the surrounding environment.
With the adoption of Christianity as the religion of Rome, a debate began that continued throughout the entire European Middle Ages and shaped many of its political developments: Who holds legitimate authority—secular power or religious authority? Is the king above the Church, or is the Church above the king?
According to the Gelasian thesis (rooted in Pauline doctrine), the Pope is the true head, and temporal power is merely auxiliary. In contrast, under Justinian (notably after the codification of Roman law in the Corpus Juris Civilis), the monarch held sovereign power. Thomas Aquinas sought a synthesis, inadvertently opening the door to critiques of theocratic rule.
Later, the Bartolists proposed a new idea: auctoritas rested not with the king or pope (inherited from the Roman state), but with the people. The Council they elected represented them as the ultimate source of legitimacy. This marked the conceptual birth of modern political legitimacy for the state.
This idea aligned with the Renaissance worldview, which placed man—not God—at the center. The individual became not only a source of power but of auctoritas itself. This was the political stance of the Italian city-states.
With Hobbes and Locke, the concept of the State evolved further. Hobbes declared: “The value or worth of a man is, of all things, his price; that is to say, so much would be given by the use of his power”—a key statement in how we perceive modern human relations framed in economic terms. Hobbes’s view of the State was negative: a necessary mechanism for protection and control.
The State, in this view, was no longer a gathering for truth or wisdom—as in the Roman Senate—but an instrument of defense. This is the concept of the State that we have inherited. “America First” seems to challenge that conception, for it implies putting the continuation of the state as an end in itself. The State is increasingly being perceived not as a negative necessity (which would be the Libertarian position), as in Hobbes’s view, but a positive one, as in the Roman sense.
If that is the case, then “America First” would overrule any personal opinion. Protecting America becomes more important than the particular interests of its individuals. However, as we have explained, “America First” is an abstract slogan with no concrete, applicable definition. So whoever decides what America is, and what its interests are, holds auctoritas—even above individuals and institutions.
When the Trump administration was deliberating whether or not to bomb Iran, the debate over the meaning of “America First” intensified. In an interview with The Atlantic, Trump stated that “America First” means whatever he says. He is quoted in that phone interview as saying, “Considering that I’m the one who developed ‘America First,’ and considering that the term wasn’t used until I came along, I think I’m the one who decides that.”
This was reportedly a response to criticism that attacking Iran contradicted his own principle. Then, on June 17, Trump posted on Truth Social:
“AMERICA FIRST means many GREAT things, including the fact that IRAN CANNOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!”
On June 21, Vice President J.D. Vance appeared on Fox News, stating that Trump “gets to define ‘America First’ because he is the person who ran, who was elected, and who actually leads this movement.” He further emphasized that Trump represented the core of American national interest—an interest that, according to him, includes denying nuclear weapons to Iran.
On June 22, the US launched a bombing campaign against Iran—the legality and effectiveness of which remains in question. But according to the President, the Vice President, and a host of other personalities and commentators, this was in the US interest—not because Congress decided (they remain the only body with legal authority to declare war), nor because there was intelligence about an imminent threat, nor because the American people wanted it—but because President Trump said so, as he is the only one who gets to decide what “America First” means.
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Presidents of the United States have always embraced the “America First” mindset. However, in this context, “America” has never referred to the average American.
Trump, I am done with Trump.
I am not MAGA, I sympathize with a lot of MAGAs.
I sympathized with the no war campaign comments, especially ending Kiev conflict in 24 hours that is a lie.
I had hope for talk with Russia normalization…. Trump used this while sending CIA MI 6 out on zSpider Web. Trump is playing Machiavellian espionage.
I hoped for diplomacy with Iran Trump used talks while doing Tehran spider web with Mossad.
Playing imperial games… absolutely untrusted!.
I forgot the Goebbels speak from the top adminsitration: Rubio, Hegspeth, Caine.
I’m waiting for “read my lips, no new wars” from a candidate.
#BookIt
“On June 22, the US launched a bombing campaign against Iran—the legality and effectiveness of which remains in question. ”
How is the legality or lack thereof of the attack be in question?
The scream of Iran is not allowed to have nukes absolutely drowns Iran yelling from the top of their lungs: “we don’t want nukes”.
“Iran has enriched uranium to 60%!”
Yeah, because US has exited the JPCOA and by this action Iran tried to bring the US back to the negotiation table.
But it seems that everyone, including the Russians seem to forget that the US IS NOT AGREEMENT CAPABLE!
Iran: “…we don’t want nukes”.
Maybe they should give this a rethink.
Bet they are so doing.
It’s not in question because it was obviously ‘unprovoked’, to use their favorite talking point in it’s honest meaning.
All very interesting about theories of state power but surely the phrase “America First” finds its origin, to anyone of Trump’s age, in the movement prior to WW2 to keep the US out of the war. Millions of Americans were part of this so the not yet born Trump can hardly claim to have thought it up. It meant then what it means now–avoid foreign entanglements. Even Trump, who seems to have barely cracked a book in his life, must have heard of it.
It took Pearl Harbor to get our Imperial Age going and Harry Truman to keep it going once the war was over (with plenty of help). We USians gained vast prosperity but seem to have lost a bit of our soul although any country that once had to fight over slavery could hardly claim to be pristine.
Trump’s campaign rhetoric has now proven to be eyewash anyway since Trump is shown to be someone with doubtful patriotism except to himself and his family. As Sonny says to Michael in The Godfather: why are you going off to fight for strangers rather than your own family? Certainly Trump didn’t fight back in Vietnam time for all his breast beating now. Mafia rules apply.
Actually, the British colonies that became the USA have always been infected with the imperial urge, The destruction of native Americans was not an accident, it was intentional.
While the Louisiana Purchase Treaty with France (1803) doubled the acreage of the USA for $15M, the US reneged on the Article III of the Treaty that gave ALL persons (including native Americans) residing within the territory the same civil/property rights; which were readily abridged by the then ‘agreement incapable’ US government.
Some 45 years later the US acquired the western territory in the US war on the slavery disavowing. nascent nation Mexico in the War of 1848. Most of the native Americans were exterminated or sent to reservations in the following 40 years. All those native American treaties have since been repudiated by the US government. Manifest Destiny came to be the joyous refrain across the USA.
It’s always been America First. It’s our DNA.
“America First” is another chapter in “The American Iliad”, the multi-layered mythology that’s been fed to the American public for decades now. It’s never been “America First”; it’s always been “Plutocracy First”. This country has only ever been spiraling slowly but surely from the peak of “Public Good Policy” after the Great Depression (New Deal) to where we are now, where the implicit control over all our lives by the billionaire class is now explicit – they run for office, win elections and no longer have to remain consigned to the shadows. That photograph of Elon Musk standing next to a seated President Trump in the Oval Office should win a Pulitzer. That pic deserves a gargantuan “Mission Accomplished” banner like the one (Dubya) Bush stood in front of on a carrier. I keep saying, Trump is not the disease – he is the puss-filled symptom of decades of capture of the state by the pluto-kleptocrat duopoly. His presidencies, more than any other before him, have served the accelerate that capture toward completion while, exposing the raw violence of it all. Trump has lifted the veils – near fully now, and this is causing a greater awakening of the masses. America’s uni-party has little left behind which to hide. We’ll see how many people who embraced MAGA will now turn on it, and what avenues emerge to harness their disaffection.
capture of the state by the pluto-kleptocrat duopoly.
You say that like there’s a difference. : )
> You say that like there’s a difference
One of the reasons the West is so broken is because its denizens cannot for the life of them conceive of a world where a government that their vote put into power will actually work for them.
Luke 23:28
See also: How Xi Jin Ping came to be President. (via X)
… versus …
How Trump became President (via WaPo)
America First, by Woody Guthrie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_k83WArW5XU&list=RD_k83WArW5XU
Thank you, Yves, for putting Curro Jimenez on your payroll.
His essay goes beyond the issue of oligarchy, beyond the issue of bureaucracy, and beyond the issue of money, to what I would call the deeper issues of language and legitimate authority.
What follows is just a couple of brief responses to what I consider a wonderful analysis.
“America first is an abstract slogan.”
That sentence opens a pathway to a discussion about the role of language, as to its nature, its use as a powerful tool, and also as a powerful weapon, especially important since many of of us engage in and enjoy linguistic warfare.
“Hobbes’ view of the state was negative, a necessary mechanism for protection and control.”
I would add that, according to Hobbes for all intents and purposes, the philosophical archetype of the political principle of no authority without consent becomes the most important political principle and is all that is required to underwrite the structure of liberal government.
This authority-consent formula of liberalism constitutes, for Hobbes, a circular construction which cannot be superseded. Hobbes’ minimalism gets translated through Madison’s constitution, into a document replete with vacuous tautologies like “general welfare,” “necessary and proper clause,” “the legislative, executive, and judicial power clauses,” all of which seem to invite a continuous redrawing of boundaries in the light of changing historical circumstances and the pressure of immediate events.
Thank God we seem to have a constitution of emptiness which may just allow for our continual survival in the generations to come–all based on the reality of endless interpretations and conceptualizations.
I’m really liking these more philosophical pieces, Curro, and I’m interested in what others you have planned.
I’m no classicist, but if I remember the random bits from high-school Latin and my own reading, the Romans (in very Roman, legalistic fashion) had even further distinctions that we lump together as “power”. It’s definitely a subtle and educational way of looking at things.
The Cicero quote is interesting because while it doesn’t necessarily clash with my understanding, I always thought potestas was the term for the raw, actual political power to do things. Besides that and auctoritas though, there was also imperium, which was originally subtler before hardening into the imperial state itself.
In a formula, the way I always thought of it was that a warlord that can compel others has potestas, a respected citizen that can openly persuade people has auctoritas, and an officer holding the ritual / traditional markers of an institution has imperium. In that sense, the Roman empire was a very specific change where Augustus Caesar managed to unify all offices under him and subsume the other more organic aspects of power under the formal aspect.
That could all be totally wrong though. I’d definitely like to hear if anyone here is a huge Rome nerd and understands it better.
I think a good comparison would be to say that Vladimir Putin is the captain of the Russian ship of state, while Donald Trump is current alpha male. All too evident in this recent trip to the NATO summit.
The fact is that government functions as the nervous system of the state, executive and regulatory. Much as the nervous system of the body focuses all the cells(people) and organs(institutional structures) into one fairly coherent entity.
While money and banking serve as a form of blood and circulation system. Presumably harmonizing the internal ecosystem of all these various entities in a functional network.
We have come to understand that as the function of government has to be the general health of society, even if it seems just to sustain the requisite forces and workers, it has to be a public utility.
We haven’t yet come to see the same principle applies to banking. When the medium enabling markets is a player and not a utility, the rest are tenant farmers to the banks.
In a market economy, money is the medium. In a capitalist economy, money is the message.
Consequently this system of exchange has been used to suck as much as possible out of the society and the state, leaving this situation where the puppets allowed to sit in the seats really are little more than monkeys beating their chests and throwing poo at each other.
I think that here Marjorie Taylor Greene really nails it in this Jimmy Dore video. Listen to her when she is speaking here, especially when she is talking about her kids and how kid’s futures like that are being sacrificed by the neocons-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0d6ILvkRkY (14:53 mins)
Majorie Taylor Greene being a sane one is not something that I would have expected.
Turns out the Jews don’t have space lasers.
America First is simply supremacism.
If you want to do well, best to love your neighbours as yourself, therefore everyone else first.
Trump’s tariffs right now would be a good illustration of this interdependency on the economics front, Israel’s misconduct would be another on the moral and ethical front. Had America been about raising up all others, instead of destroying all others so as to be first, it could have been the light of the world.
There was always a battle in America between the idea of the country working towards being a shining city on the hill or being a beautiful (slave) plantation.
I think Trump scored a public relations win by de-escalating the conflict between Iran and Israel, even if it was ‘theater’. I was sure he would get dragged into a long drawn out conflict by Israel. It’s not over yet, but things could have turned for the worse a few days ago.
„Auctoritas, non veritas facit legem“, according to Hobbes, which means „protecting America becomes more important than the particular interests of its individuals“ does not contradict Hobbes’s view.
He describes the state as a mortal god, born of a contract in which the jus naturale is limited by the lex naturalis, and the statement “the value or worth of a man is, of all things, his price“, makes it clear what this theory is based on.
But because value is not identical with price, the volonté générale cannot be identical with the volonté de tous, and therefore the idea that the subject (which is here confused with the individual) „became not only a source of power but of auctoritas itself“, is, what one could call, the democratic illusion.
MAGA is just another example, as pathetic as it is brutal, of this inability of the bourgeois subject to recognize the conditions of its own constitution, and Trump’s vulnerable as well as malignant narcissism is the adequate expression of this subject in its final phase.
With it, the illusion of law also enters its final crisis, and it is disappearing first at its weakest links, international law and human rights (cf. Iran, Gaza).
Jus naturale as an a priori construction reveals itself a posteriori as the logic of the capitalist form of association: homo homini lupus.
I am just going to park this here if that is OK, Curro.
“Israel entered the 12-day exchange convinced it could absorb costs; the ledger now shows a nation bleeding cash, talent, and confidence. Direct military outlays hit $5 B in the first week, then ballooned to $725 M every 24 hours, $593 M on offensive strikes that failed to silence Iran, $132 M on frantic mobilisation and missile intercepts that still let 400 warheads through. Iron Dome batteries alone inhaled $10 M to $200 M per day while Iranian salvos sailed past them and erased $1.47 B in civilian property, triggering 38 700 damage claims, 11 000 evacuations, and 30 condemned high-rise skeletons across Tel Aviv’s financial spine.
The Weizmann Institute, Israel’s prestige export, lies in shards, 45 labs gone and $500 M in biomedical IP incinerated, pulling decades of grant pipelines and pharma partnerships off the table overnight. Intel’s Kiryat Gat fabs froze mid-wafer, choking a supply chain that feeds 64 % of Israel’s exports and 1/5 of its GDP; the high-tech sector now runs on skeleton crews because 300 000 reservists were yanked from R&D floors and data centers to guard empty runways at Tel Nof. Commercial flights halted twice at Ben Gurion, insurers jacked premiums, and foreign airlines rerouted around a country that once sold itself as the region’s safe hub.” – snip.
https://x.com/iwasnevrhere_/status/1938013471486185551
That is just the tip of the iceberg … so you have all of the Atlanticist neoliberal/FIRE Sector econ sorts groomed generationally, both heraldic and academia, fexians promoted, politically/private sector, holding positions of power and influence over the unwahsed via MSM/Internet sites that take orders from above.
I mean how many decades has it been post Russia/China being pure state capitalism but, called commies, accused of wanting the whole world to be totalitarian anti property and everyone a slave to the state. Curiously things have manifested just the opposite, wherein the wealth control both the state as a collective[tm] and the unwashed through targeted Bernays sauce.
Back to the above … Israel banked[tm] on intelligence[lol] agencies, air force, and anti missile systems, oh and the US having its back. Where Iran, not unlike Russia developed far reaching and multiple missile systems which could be used defensively if attacked and offensively. In this Iran was able to overwhelm the anti missile systems and as Israel is just a small/compact target at a large cost during the event and post it. All without training pilots/support personnel and high Mfg cost considering their loss, not to mention aircraft e.g build a very varied missile system that can be used for many different reasons and then store them. No need to build and maintain a large man powered military to invade of defend the nation – negative socioeconomic factors – see US.
Meanwhile my disheveled mind looks at it all through a lens of Black Adder Goes forth, Apple series Foundation, Empire being a self reinforcing doom loop that can’t adjust or admit it was pan-gloss from day one …
Potential failed state? One run by religious fanatics? Netanyahu wants to go to the White House and I can see why-
‘Hey Donald. America gave the Ukraine over $350 billion over the past three years, So, how much will you be giving Israel?’
All that matters too some – is the flow of funds … en fin …
An interesting comparison would be with Confucianism – a paternalistic but protectionist state philosophy that has endured somewhat longer than either Ancient Greece or Roman civilisations.
It has allowed long periods of autarky, but as an underpinning structure has ethics, moral duties and as strong hierarchies as the western models.
Daoism even exists alongside Confucianism and acts as a non hierarchical counterbalance, so its not all about obedience and obeisance – the prime criteria in 47s Romanesque executive.
In the west we tend to ignore Asia and the Chinese civilisation, which, despite its frequent intervening disputatious periods has endured for over two thousand years. Even then, Martin Jaques pointed out that those external conquerors of China mostly ended up absorbing many Confucian principles and guidelines in their rule.
It may well be that the 21stC will require the west to better understand, appreciate and critique Asian cultures and civilisations, rather than revert to Roman and Greek philosophy, as China and India influence, if not dominate.
Please correct me but in my Latin days I believe “auctor” was also the author – and with that we might have also “auctor-itas” an author-ship – which eventually may point at an intellectual capacity underlying the use or handling of power. So violence, power, force are results first of a theoretical concept of thought initally and of reflection. On that level in a very humble way the Trumpian allegation might ring true – which puts him into the same category of people as Neocons. As here the relationship of fiction (author) turning into fact (force) results in the Karl Rove-ian “We now create our own reality”. The major difference I assume is that former, Trump is possibly mostly bluster and PR. At least if we compare that with the 6M killed as result of the 9/11 wars. That this has nothing to do with democratic rule and in fact neglects that one special feature that – in theory – did differentiate the American colonies from Europe. Although of course the democratic power was intended for the propertied class only. Still I wonder how Trump would respond how his current modus operandi corresponds with the true source of American exceptionalism – at least as it is understood in the schoolbooks – which is the most beautiful of democracies of all. Indeed the question is – and I am sure Vance did not consider or care about the major implications of the question at large – who decides of what actually “America First” means.
p.s. “It could be said that, if for the Romans power rested with the people and auctoritas with the Senate, in the modern nation-state auctoritas rests with the people and power with the state.” – interesting assumption and worthy a separate entry as is the reference to Foucault: “Here, “power” is not to be understood in the Foucauldian sense—this predates the rise of the modern subjective individual—but as the capacity to act in concert with others”.
The pivot of Hobbes’ philosophical liberalism is the notion that all citizens can be assumed to acquiesce
in the establishment of the political sovereign because, without that postulation, the organizing principle of liberalism that political authority rests upon the consent of the government could not be operationalized.
In other words, Hobbes’ philosophical and political construction in the “Leviathan,” is supposed to yield a state that would not be subject to revolutionary turmoil, as the British state was in Hobbes’ time, but would rather be able to endure indefinitely.
Hobbes also argues that the source of this endurance is the capacity of the state to make and remake itself without a firmly preset agenda of what economic, political, and social goals it needs to accomplish in order to negotiate effective transitions across political time and survive from generation to generation.
My hope is that the state machinery as described by Hobbes and the constitutional machinery as constructed primarily by Madison have the necessary fluidity to reorient for this task.
In my old age, much to my surprise, liberalism as an ever ongoing process, doesn’t sound half-bad.
I guess I am becoming more comfortable with uncertainty.