“The world seems mad in its preoccupation with what is particular and disconnected in politics.  Recovery of sanity depends on seeing these particular things as links in a process.”

—James Dewey, “Experience and Nature”

Some conservative voters who turned out in overwhelming numbers last year to support the Trump ticket are said, by the progressive MSM and some podcasters, to be questioning their confidence in America First policy.  They say the administration is “backtracking.”  The New York Times, not surprisingly, is gleefully declaring the demise of MAGA.

Don’t believe it.  Trump is a classic American pragmatist.  Some political accommodation and strategic international cooperation is not "backtracking," but just the opposite: It is pragmatic adaptation in a process toward a larger goal.

What is pragmatism?  It is a distinctly American philosophy based on taking action, setting goals, and working toward them in a realistic way.  In aviation we say that going from A to B is never a straight line, but a constant series of course corrections.  The same is true of politics.  That means responding to numerous complex factors that require adaptation in order to stay on course.

President Trump’s recent interview with Laura Ingraham concerning some Chinese H1-B  student visa approvals, for example, seemed to some to indicate backpedaling on America First policy.  The media are emphasizing that narrative, but as usual, they’re missing many facts. 

The concept of “America first” refers in practical terms to U.S. industrial capacity, scientific discovery, and competitive strength.  America first ultimately means Americans first.  But that means each individual American doing his part to make it a reality.  “America first” isn’t a side-show, entertainment, or a slogan.  And it isn’t a handout from Washington, D.C.

The same thing applies to Make America Great Again.  That means make Americans great again — each one of us, on his own initiative.  Maybe it’s old-fashioned, but that’s what Amer-I-Can means.

So when it comes to Chinese students, yes, they will undercut some jobs for some people, in some limited areas, for some limited time.  And Chinese university espionage is indeed a risk, but mostly from faculty and administrators.  The reality is that the U.S. needs to get better at teaching our own young adults in high school so they are “shovel ready,” or more appropriately, “technology ready.”  That means ready for STEM.

There are a lot of parties to blame concerning our relative shortcomings in student preparation for STEM. The politically far-left teachers’ union is one.  Some blame comes from our own lack of discipline.  How many American students, for example, could go to China, speak Mandarin, and get through technical college in Beijing?

Moreover, the business of America, as president Calvin Coolidge put it, is business.  Companies are lined up in Washington, D.C. and in every state capital and city hall, lobbying to get things done, right now, not five years from now.  If that means having to temporarily use some legal foreign workers in some areas, they will.  That’s pragmatic.

America otherwise doesn’t do idealism.  We do pragmatism.  Trump is an American pragmatist.  We all should be.  Stand with the U.S. president, not behind him or against him.

Matthew G. Andersson is a former CEO and author.  He has testified before the U.S. Senate and is a graduate of the University of Chicago, the University of Texas at Austin, and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.

Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.