What is Trump talking about when he talks about "nationalism"

"Really, we are not supposed to use that word," President Trump said at his rally in Houston Monday night. "You know what I am? I am a nationalist, O.K.? I am a nationalist.A nationalist! Use this word! Use this word!"

This was not the first time Mr. Trump had adopted the "nationalist" label. But for some leftist commentators, the president said he was not subtly proclaiming himself as a "white nationalist". It's a term that can be defined in different ways, but is generally used to describe racists who believe that only people of European descent can be termed "true" Americans.

For his part, Mr. Trump says that he does not know the concept of white nationalism. "I've never heard this theory about nationalism, I've heard them all." he told reporters on Tuesday. "But I am someone who loves our country.When I speak of nationalist, I do not like that Germany pays 1% of GDP to NATO, and we pay 4 3%, I do not like that. "

However, even if nationalism lacks any overtly racist overtones, there remains a word steeped in history.

Mr. Trump is not the first American politician to call himself a nationalist. Alexander Hamilton, for example, is sometimes associated with a thought tension called "economic nationalism". And perhaps even more famous, Theodore Roosevelt called his platform a "new nationalism" when he was elected president in 1912.

"The new nationalism puts the national need before a sectoral or personal advantage … This new nationalism considers the executive power as the guardian of political well-being, it requires the judiciary that it is interested in. human well-being rather than property, just as it requires that the representative body represents the whole people rather than any class or part of the people " said Roosevelt in a 1910 speech in Osawatomie, Kansas.

At the time, Roosevelt was trying to move the Republican Party in a more progressive direction, which Mr. Trump does not seem to be doing with the current GOP. A more precise definition of Mr. Trump's kind of nationalism might come from a closer contemporary, Steve Bannon, his former strategist.

"I am not a white nationalist, I am a nationalist.I am a nationalist of the economy," Bannon told the author, Michael Wolff, shortly after the election of Mr. Trump. . "The globalists have slaughtered the American working class and created a middle class in Asia, the problem is now with the Americans who are trying not to be fucked in. If we deliver, we will get 60% of the white vote, and 40% of the blacks and Hispanics will vote and we will govern for 50 years, which is what the Democrats missed, they were talking to companies whose market capitalization of $ 9 billion employed nine people, and that is not the reality. world is about "

Like Bannon, Trump described "globalism" as the main enemy of nationalism in his Monday speech. But the term "globalist" is also a loaded term, because it is considered by some as an anti-Semitic insult.

In general, economic nationalism is the belief in protectionist trade policies and the need for a robust domestic manufacturing sector. And while traditional economists tend to dismiss economic nationalism as distorted and counterproductive, Trump's penchant for tariffs and trade wars would indicate that he is adopting at least some of them.

It is possible that Trump's belief in nationalism is solely a matter of economic policy. It could also shed light on his suspicions about US allies and international bodies such as the UN But there are darker definitions of nationalism, the best known of which probably comes from George Orwell.

Historically, nationalists and patriots have been used somewhat interchangeably, although in modern times American presidents have tended to adopt the patriotic label while avoiding nationalism. As Mr Trump has pointed out, nationalists have sometimes become a vulgar word associated with racists, activists and terrorists.

In 1945, Orwell wrote a famous essay titled "Notes on Nationalism" which attempted to create separate definitions for patriotism and nationalism. "By" patriotism ", I mean devotion to a particular place and way of life, which we believe to be the best in the world, but which we do not want to impose on others ", wrote Orwell. "Patriotism is inherently defensive, both militarily and culturally.Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseparable from the desire for power.The constant goal of any nationalist is to obtain more power and more prestige, do not for himself but for the nation or some other unit in which he chose to sink into his own individuality ".

For Orwell, patriotism was benign or even good. Nationalism, on the other hand, is "the habit of assuming that human beings can be classified as insects and that whole blocks of millions or tens of millions of people can be termed" good "or" bad " and "the habit of identifying with one nation or other unit, placing it beyond good and evil and recognizing no other duty than to promote one's interests. "