‘America First’ is America’s Last convulsion.

‘Make America Great Again’ and ‘America First’, are slogans that give you a ‘hit’. A patriotic and a selfish ‘hit’. Sure, you must already be favourably primed for selfishness and patriotism to experience that ‘hit’, to feel it running through your veins. If not, you would simply set the slogan aside as nonsense. But evolution has made us so that we are still guided by the primitive emotions of selfishness and its cousin: tribalism.

Patriotism, or tribalism, and selfishness are no strange bedfellows. The difference lies just in the degree of selfishness. Selfishness is putting the individual first. Patriotism is putting your nation, your tribe, first (and believing that your country is exceptional). Patriotism resembles religion in that its adherents have an unshakable belief in the greatness of their imaginary country and they do not tolerate criticism. Every country has its patriots who believe their country is the best, just like every religion believes their god is the only one. They cannot all be right, and it is more likely that they are all wrong than that one of them is right. After all, what is a country but a different people with different views, opinions and beliefs who were directed to read, write and speak the same language and who were all taught the same history of their country and its heroic leaders.

The fact that patriotism and individual selfishness find themselves on the same measure can also be seen when we look at family. Many, if not most of us, will put our individual selfishness aside for our family. We regard…