What do religious traditions and the Constitution say about "America First" as a broader movement and ideology — not just a foreign policy, but a vision of national identity?
Religious traditions affirm that nations have particular obligations to their own people — that part of America First is unobjectionable. Religious traditions become more critical when "First" tips into "only," when foreigners cease to count, when "real Americans" is defined narrowly, or when the phrase carries historical baggage from movements that explicitly excluded particular ethnic and religious groups. The Founders built a country with constitutional protections for all "persons," not just citizens; with treaty and trade powers assuming substantial international engagement; with explicit grievances against the tyranny of restricted immigration. The current "America First" movement contains both defensible elements (legitimate national interest) and contested ones (the historical antisemitism, the narrow definitions of who counts, the unilateral implementation through executive power). Honest evaluation requires keeping the distinctions clear rather than treating the slogan as a single thing.
Religious perspectives
The slogan "America First" can mean many things, and religious traditions evaluate it differently depending on which meaning is in play. Honesty requires distinguishing the meanings rather than evaluating the slogan as a single thing.
The defensible meaning: A government has primary obligations to its own citizens. It exists to serve them, not the world at large. Religious traditions affirm this — duties closer to home come first in the ordering of moral obligations. Christian Just War theory, the Jewish principle of arvut (mutual responsibility within the community), and Islamic siyasa (legitimate governance) all recognize that political authorities have specific obligations to their own people. This is uncontroversial across traditions.
The harder meaning: America First also has, historically and currently, meant something more — that other peoples don't count, that international engagement is inherently suspect, that "real Americans" are a specific subset of the actual population, that the rest of the world exists primarily as a threat or instrument. This is where religious traditions become more cautious.
The historical baggage: The America First Committee (1940-1941) was the most powerful isolationist organization in pre-war America, with 800,000 members and 450 chapters. Its most prominent spokesperson, Charles Lindbergh, gave a September 11, 1941 speech in Des Moines blaming "the Roosevelt administration, the British, and the Jewish race" for pushing America toward war. Historian Susan Dunn concluded that while most members were "patriotic, well-meaning, and honest," the AFC "would never be able to purge itself of the taint of anti-Semitism." Multiple Jewish organizations (the ADL, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs) and historians have noted the historical association of the phrase with nativism and antisemitism.
What religious traditions say about national identity:
- Christianity: The Good Samaritan parable (Luke 10:25-37) was Jesus's direct answer to "Who is my neighbor?" — and he deliberately chose a foreigner as the moral hero. Pope Francis, in his February 2025 letter to U.S. Bishops, explicitly rejected Vice President Vance's use of ordo amoris to justify treating non-citizens as morally secondary. The early Christian community deliberately broke down ethnic distinctions: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:28).
- Judaism: The command to "love the stranger" appears 36 times in the Torah. Jewish identity itself is constituted partly through the memory of having been strangers in Egypt. The prophetic tradition repeatedly warned against national-religious exclusivism — Jonah was sent to Nineveh, a foreign city, and rebuked by God for hoping for its destruction.
- Islam: "O mankind, We created you from a male and a female and made you peoples and tribes that you may know one another" (Quran 49:13). Tribes and nations exist for mutual recognition, not for ranking. The Prophet Muhammad explicitly rejected ethnic hierarchies: "There is no superiority of an Arab over a non-Arab, nor of a non-Arab over an Arab; nor of a white person over a black person, nor of a black person over a white person, except by piety."
- Buddhism: The principle of universal compassion (karuna) does not stop at national borders. The Buddhist Just King is identified by his service to all peoples in his sphere of influence, not by his nationalism.
The shared principle: Religious traditions converge on a precise distinction. Having particular obligations to your own people is moral. Treating other peoples as not counting is not. The first is duty. The second is what religious traditions have warned against for millennia.
The "who counts as American" question: Even within the American community itself, "America First" can carry an implicit definition of who counts. When the movement's rhetoric distinguishes between "real Americans" and others — by ethnicity, religion, immigration status, or political affiliation — it is making a substantive claim that religious traditions evaluate carefully. The American story has always been contested. Religious traditions are generally on the side of expansive rather than narrow definitions of who belongs.
Constitutional & legal framework
The American Founders thought about national identity carefully — and their conclusions are more complex than the contemporary slogan suggests.
The Declaration of Independence: Begins with "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind" — recognizing that America was accountable to a broader human community, not only to itself. "All men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights" — the equality and rights are universal, not American-specific.
Washington's Farewell Address (1796): The locus classicus of American foreign-policy nationalism, but the actual text is more nuanced than the modern slogan: "Observe good faith and justice towards all Nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all... It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and at no distant period, a great Nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a People always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence." Washington advocated for not entangling in European alliances, not for treating other nations as adversaries.
The Constitution's structure:
- Treaties require Senate consent (Article II, §2). The Founders assumed America would have treaties.
- Trade is regulated by Congress (Article I, §8). The Founders assumed America would trade with the world.
- The "Law of Nations" is recognized as binding on Congress (Article I, §8). The Founders assumed America was part of an international legal order.
- Naturalization rules are set by Congress (Article I, §8). The Founders assumed America would continue to admit immigrants.
- The Declaration's grievances against George III included "obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners" and "refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither." Restricting immigration was a tyranny they revolted against.
The 14th Amendment: Guarantees due process and equal protection to all "persons" within U.S. jurisdiction, not only to citizens. The drafters chose "persons" deliberately. Any "America First" framework that treats non-citizen persons as outside the Constitution's reach has a textual problem with this amendment.
The post-WWII international order: The United States led the construction of the United Nations, NATO, the Bretton Woods institutions, and the modern rules-based trading system. This was not charity; it served American interests by preventing the kind of great-power conflicts that had killed tens of millions. "America First" implementations that walk away from these institutions are making a substantive policy choice that deserves to be evaluated on its merits — not treated as a return to the Founders' position.
The historical irony: The phrase "America First" was actively avoided by mainstream American politicians for decades after WWII precisely because of its association with the 1940 Committee. Both Republican and Democratic presidents from Eisenhower through Obama declined to use it. Its revival in 2016 and after represents a choice to take on the phrase's baggage along with its appealing meaning. Whether the revival has shed the baggage is contested; that the baggage exists is documented.
The "globalist" framing: America First rhetoric often contrasts itself with "globalism," which can mean different things — sometimes legitimate critique of trade arrangements or international institutions, sometimes coded language for older conspiracy theories about specific ethnic or religious groups. The terminology itself doesn't resolve the question; the actual content of any specific use does.
The substantive policy questions: Beyond rhetoric, America First as a policy program has specific elements — tariff policy, immigration restriction, withdrawal from international institutions, energy policy, defense spending. Each is debatable on its own merits. The Constitution doesn't resolve them; it provides the framework within which they are debated. Where America First policies are implemented through unilateral executive action rather than congressional deliberation, they raise separation-of-powers questions distinct from the substantive policy questions.
See: Washington's Farewell Address → | Declaration of Independence → | 14th Amendment →
Sources cited:BibleQuranBuddhismConstitutionDeclaration