"If you want freedom, take pride in your country,” President Trump told the United Nations on Tuesday. “If you want democracy, hold onto sovereignty. And if you want peace, love your nation.”
Whatever drawbacks there are to electing Trump as president, this has always been one of the benefits. He is never afraid to stand up for popular self-government and the greatest guarantor self-government has ever had: the nation-state.
Trump did very well in his Tuesday speech to the U.N. General Assembly to reassert, once again, that the nation-state is a good thing; speaking as he was in an institution with misguided supranational ambitions. This was something U.N. bureaucrats and diplomats needed to hear from the leader of the free world.
International institutions have a place. They serve a purpose in creating opportunities for nations to cooperate and pursue common interests where they exist. That includes the U.N., the World Trade Organization, the European Union, NATO, and others.
But Trump also recognizes that the role of such global institutions is very specific and limited, based on partnerships freely entered (and also freely dissolved) by national governments.
The U.N. has no right, Trump pointed out, to harass member governments for preserving free citizens’ rights to keep and bear arms or for protecting innocent human life from abortion.
“Many United Nations Projects have attempted to assert a global right to taxpayer-funded abortion on demand, right up until the moment of delivery,” Trump said. “Global bureaucrats have absolutely no business attacking the sovereignty of nations that wish to protect innocent life.”
Because nations matter, borders also matter. Every sovereign nation has a right to establish and enforce an orderly immigration system, in which all individuals seeking to establish a new home country are vetted based on their individual record and selected based on the benefits they potentially bring to the table.
No nation has to suffer having its system of asylum and refuge overwhelmed by meritless claims. Nor, as Trump noted, is it truly compassionate to empower human smugglers with the de facto open borders policy that has become part of the Democratic Party’s platform.
As Trump hinted, it is also reasonable for nations to make demands of their newest residents. In the case of the U.S., and of nearly every country that accepts immigrants in any serious number, this means buying into the classically liberal ideals and rule of law that has made the Western world prosperous.
"Wise leaders always put the good of their own people and their own country first," Trump said. He is right. This is why governments are formed in the first place. To elevate them beyond this purpose, or to elevate transnational organizations above them, is to defeat the entire purpose for which governments are formed. To say this is not even "nationalism" — it is mere common sense.
As Trump put it, "The future belongs to sovereign and independent nations who protect their citizens, respect their neighbors, and honor the differences that make each country special and unique."
Nationalism isn't terribly popular these days. Yes, nationalists sometimes become isolationists, which is counterproductive. Yes, nationalists sometimes trample localists, which is unjust.
Vis-a-vis the rest of the world, though, we should all be nationalists. Supranational government is inherently anti-democratic. The president's job on the world stage, after all, is to stand up for America and Americans.
