Since the advent of the Trump administration, American progressives have been aghast at its narrow, nationalist approach to world affairs. But many of them should also be uneasy at the American establishment’s defense of its more traditional foreign policy.

Trump “America First” approach has largely dispensed with American-led alliances of the past. Instead, it emphasizes making “deals” with powerful, often authoritarian regimes; threats of unleashing military power against smaller, weaker countries; and the abandonment of any pretenses about defending human rights.

To undergird this policy, Trump has sought and secured major increases in U.S. military spending, scrapped the Obama administration’s efforts at nuclear arms control and disarmament, and blocked refugees from entering the United States.

Appalled, the U.S. foreign policy establishment has fought back ― lambasting Trump for eroding America’s alliances, undermining U.S. world “leadership,” and colluding with the Russians. But that establishment’s own foreign policy — conducted with great vigor over the previous decades — was characterized by U.S.-dominated military alliances, soaring Pentagon budgets, and numerous wars.

Indeed, since World War II, the United States has been almost continuously at war, with particularly disastrous conflicts in Korea, Vietnam, Central America, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Its regime change operations have numbered in the dozens, with some of the most notorious occurring in Iran, Guatemala, the Congo, and Cuba.

From the standpoint of progressive values, neither strategy inspires much enthusiasm.

Trump’s nationalist approach has its roots in the foreign policy of the United States for more than a century. George Washington’s farewell address of 1796 warned of “entangling alliances,” and the new nation generally did avoid them right up until 1917 and the First World War.

Although this nationalist foreign policy has sometimes been referred to as “isolationism,” that’s really a misnomer. During this period, the U.S. government had diplomatic relations with most nations, acquired vast territories from them through purchase or force, and engaged in plenty of foreign wars, including bloody conflicts with France, Britain, Mexico, Spain, and the Philippines.

This go-it-alone approach, facilitated by the two oceans separating the United States from wars in Europe, Africa, and Asia, was broken, though, by America’s military alliance with other nations during World War I. Although a brief retreat into nationalism occurred in the aftermath of that bloody conflict, American entry into the Second World War cemented an alliance approach, usually dubbed “collective security.”

The military alliance approach, typified by (but not limited to) NATO ― and remaining more or less firm through wars and assorted global crises ― has characterized U.S. foreign policy right up to the arrival of the Trump administration.

An Enduringly Popular Alternative

Fortunately, despite the rabid nationalist resurgence symbolized by Trump and his overseas counterparts, global governance remains remarkably popular among Americans.

An October 2017 poll of U.S. voters by Public Opinion Strategies and Hart Research Associates found that 79 percent of respondents declared their support for continuing the existence of the United Nations. This represented an increase in support since 2009, when 69 percent said the world organization was necessary. In addition, 88 percent of U.S. respondents (including 80 percent of Republicans) affirmed that it was important for the United States to play an active role in the United Nations.

Furthermore, many Americans favor expanding the power of the United Nations. In a 2008 poll, 79 percent of U.S. respondents said that “strengthening the United Nations” should be an important U.S. foreign policy goal. Only 21 percent disagreed. In fact, American support for a stronger United Nations was very consistent over the preceding three decades, with roughly eight out of ten respondents favoring it.

Although polling on this issue has almost entirely disappeared since 2008, a November 2013 Pew survey continued to find that 79 percent of American respondents gave strengthening the United Nations either a top priority or some priority as a goal for U.S. foreign policy.

Consequently, people searching for a progressive alternative to the discredited nationalist and military alliance-driven approaches of the past would do well to champion strengthened global governance. It’s a foreign policy that has enormous potential for addressing current world problems, as well as substantial public support.