Let the People Rule

Americans have "a consistent set of values" with regard to international affairs, but U.S. foreign policy frequently fails to reflect it, contends Alterman, a columnist for the Nation.

The views of the foreign policy Establishment fly in the face of public opinion, he says, citing quadrennial surveys conducted since 1978 by the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations. Whereas "opinion leaders" "are ideologically committed to free trade and widespread military intervention," the general public "believes that the United States should protect American jobs and mind its own business whenever possible." Asked in 1994 if the United States should go to war to defend South Korea from a North Korean invasion, 84 percent of the elite, but only 45 percent of the public, said yes. More than 80 percent of the public deemed protecting the jobs of American workers "a very important goal"; barely half of the opinion leaders did.

"The values of the foreign policy establishment," Alterman asserts, "are less reflective of the political interests of poor and middle-class Americans than of the transnational class of bankers, lobbyists, lawyers, and investors." Ordinary Americans, in contrast, are "liberal republicans," much as the country's founders were.

Alterman urges adoption of a "liberal republican foreign policy." Its goals would include:

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