Example Image
Civitas Outlook
Topic
Politics
Published on
Mar 28, 2025
Contributors
Joel Kotkin
Photo by Kyle Glenn on Unsplash

Ignore the Bluster – Donald Trump Is Not an Imperialist

Contributors
Joel Kotkin
Joel Kotkin
Senior Research Fellow
Joel Kotkin
Summary
MAGA foreign policy is driven by a haunting sense of America’s vulnerability and decline.
Summary
MAGA foreign policy is driven by a haunting sense of America’s vulnerability and decline.
Listen to this article

US president Donald Trump’s MAGA brand of foreign policy has been treated with contempt and consternation by much of the world. He has incited the ire of neoliberal theorists like Francis Fukuyama, as well as many European intellectuals, who rarely have much positive to say about America anyway. To them, Trump epitomises a destructive American arrogance and imperial delusions.

Whatever he may think of himself, Donald Trump is no Augustan figure, no colossus ready to conquer the known world. He is a phenomenon borne of concern about American decline, ranging from failing education levels and massive debt to frayed national coherence and fading industrial, even military, supremacy. He is driven not by imperial ambitions (despite his absurd claims about acquiring Greenland and Canada), but rather in response to the consequences of recent imperial overreach.

The old US foreign policy, argues secretary of state Marco Rubio, is ‘obsolete’. Attempts to reshape the world through unrestrained globalisation and foreign interventions have not only failed, he says, but are now also a ‘weapon being used against us’.

Continue reading at Spiked

10:13
1x
10:13
More articles

Why Amtrak Needs Airport-Level Security

Politics
May 5, 2026

Colorado’s Secularist Hostility Strikes Again

Constitutionalism
May 5, 2026
View all

Join the newsletter

Receive new publications, news, and updates from the Civitas Institute.

Sign up
More on

Politics

Is American Nationalism Still Creed-able?

We are not there now, but there is reason to worry that the United States is in danger, if we are not careful, of ceasing to be a nation with the principles of 1776 at its core.

Richard Samuelson
Politics
Apr 29, 2026
National Civitas Institute Poll: Americans are Anxious and Frustrated, Creating a Challenging Environment for Leaders

The poll reveals a deeply pessimistic American electorate, with a majority convinced the nation is on the wrong track.

Politics
Feb 19, 2026
Liberal Democracy Reexamined: Leo Strauss on Alexis de Tocqueville

This article explores Leo Strauss’s thoughts on Alexis de Tocqueville in his 1954 “Natural Right” course transcript.

Raúl Rodríguez
Politics
Feb 25, 2025
Long Distance Migration as a Two-Step Sorting Process: The Resettlement of Californians in Texas

Here we press the question of whether the well-documented stream of migrants relocating from California to Texas has been sufficient to alter the political complexion of the destination state.

James Gimpel, Daron Shaw
Politics
Feb 6, 2025

The Three Whiskey Happy Hour

Steven Hayward brings you the Power Line Blog's perspective on the week's big headlines.

View all
** items
Iranian-Americans Want Regime Gone — Aside From a Few Gun-Running Social Media Mavens

Joel Kotkin
Politics
May 4, 2026
California is Sacrificing its Economic Future on the Altar of Climate Change

John Yoo, Michael Toth
Politics
Apr 26, 2026
The Left’s War on the Supreme Court Just Hit a Terrifying New Low

John Yoo
Politics
Apr 25, 2026
Canadians Must Stop Romanticizing a Failing Europe

Joel Kotkin
Politics
Apr 23, 2026

May Day Protests Take Place Across the U.S.

Politics
May 1, 2026
1:05

How Gavin Newsom Ran California Into The Ground

Politics
Apr 30, 2026
1:05

WHCD Shooting Suspect Allegedly Targeted Trump Administration Officials

Politics
Apr 26, 2026
1:05

All federal law enforcement agencies must answer to the president: Former deputy assistant AG

Politics
Apr 16, 2026
1:05

‘NO RIGHT to block passage’: John Yoo on Strait of Hormuz Dispute

Politics
Apr 10, 2026
1:05
No items found.
No items found.
Why Amtrak Needs Airport-Level Security

Cole Allen transporting weapons across the country on Amtrak highlights the issue.

Jonathan Hartley
Politics
May 5, 2026
Remembering and Rebuking the Covid Regime

Preventing a future repetition of this exercise in pandemic central planning will require removing “emergency” powers from political authorities who are all too keen to use them as instruments to impose an unattainable societal order.

Phillip W. Magness
Politics
May 4, 2026
Why America, Not Iran, Has the Stronger Legal Position in the Current War

There are both long and short time scales for evaluating the current conflict over control of the Strait of Hormuz.

Richard Epstein
Politics
Apr 29, 2026
The Cuba Play

Cuba, in relation to China and Russia, poses a threat due to the risk of weapons deployment or strategic positioning in the event of an attack on the US homeland.

Oscar Sumar
Politics
Apr 27, 2026
No items found.