You're right to an extent, but there's some difference to it. Isolationism wasn't something poor xenophobes held, it was something people like Joe Kennedy held firmly to and that's 20 years after WW1 when the US went all out in getting involved in the global order.

Someone like Trump might talk some isolationist talk because it wins votes, but do you think those people who make hundreds of millions projecting American power really want that to stop? Not many people thought Brexit would happen, though, so maybe...

What Trump is doing and what Obama did to some extent is Retrenchment rather than Isolationism. US is hyper-extended and pulling back is pretty natural reaction after two decades of engagement in Middle East and Afghanistan.

That is not Isolationism, my rule of thumb is when US Navy vacates Diego Garcia (naval base in Indian Ocean), I will consider they are becoming Isolationist until then the talk of Isolationism just hot air.

Isolationism is much more than giving up foreign territories, it is as much about that as it is about solely looking after your own interests rather than a more global view. Places where you would see this are treaties, entities like NATO, the United Nations and so on and by that yardstick the US is becoming more isolationist by the day.

Diego Garcia being vacated would be a sign that America is no longer a world power by any measure. It might come to that, but not in the next 30 years or so.

The problem is that in politics you get called Isolationist as soon as you suggest sometime a little out of the 'allowed opinion' stream. Many so called 'isolations' are not against building a bunker around the US and doing nothing.

The United Nations for example can easily be engaged in even if you are against most US foreign policy.

> about solely looking after your own interests rather than a more global view

This 'global view' was basically about building a global order that the US could control. I was just another view about what in Americas best interest by a different group of elites.

> The problem is that in politics you get called Isolationist as soon as you suggest sometime a little out of the 'allowed opinion' stream.

That's not my experience.

> Many so called 'isolations' are not against building a bunker around the US and doing nothing.

That may be so. But many of them are. You can't build yourself up as the policeman of the world and then within the space of 6 months do a full 180 on that policy without getting called out on it.

> The United Nations for example can easily be engaged in even if you are against most US foreign policy.

Yes, but there are more ways to do this and the present day administration seems to have thrown 50 years of built up credit out with the remaining bathwater. Note that it is easy to destroy a reputation, it is very hard to put it back together again.

> This 'global view' was basically about building a global order that the US could control.

Agreed. But now we're headed towards a global order that the US definitely won't be able to control with China and Russia as dominant poles and the United States voting 'present' or even taking sides with Russia. This is going to have some significant consequences none of which will be pleasant.

> I[t] was just another view about what [is] in Americas best interest by a different group of elites.

That may be so. But the price for that changing viewpoint will not be paid by Americans.

> it is as much about that as it is about solely looking after your own interests rather than a more global view

I find it very, very hard to believe that the "global view" was ever more or different from "solely looking after your own interests". You may find nuance simply because there were and are many people involved with their own respective different ideas and goals, but even when something looked altruistic on the surface I'm sure you can always trace it back to someone benefiting financially. For example, giving aid but binding it to conditions leading to money returning to you (plus interest, when it's a loan). Altruistic would be giving up some of your own rights, e.g. on patents or IP, or giving the other party an advantage in trade - it does not even have to be giving "money" (which often just fuels corruption).

I see isolationism as the run up to the next world war, those who make 100's of millions projecting American power will make 100's of billions on the next big war.