What Does “America First” Really Mean?
I’ve spent most of my adult life in places most people hope never to see. War zones. Conflict areas. Countries where speaking your mind can get you disappeared. Where women are raped as a weapon of war. Where children grow up knowing nothing but the boot of oppression.
I’ve interviewed dissidents in dungeons. I’ve documented torture. I’ve seen what happens when bullies run countries — bullies who systematically destroy lives, families, entire generations.
So when I say I understand why regimes like Maduro’s in Venezuela need to fall, I mean it. This is a government that jails political opposition, that has turned a once-prosperous nation into a humanitarian catastrophe, that operates as a narco-state while its people starve. I’ve written about this extensively. I’m no fan.
Similarly, watching what’s unfolding in Iran, the possibility of a new chapter, the courage of ordinary Iranians demanding more from their lives, it’s remarkable. It’s brave. These are people risking everything for the kind of freedoms we take for granted. Then there are the Ukrainians who spend night after night on frontlines, refusing to let a tyrant walk all over them, which is deeply admirable, and I am all for having their backs.
I don’t like bullies. Not here, not anywhere.
Yet, here’s what’s keeping me up at night:
This week, the start of 2026, millions of Americans lost their healthcare because it’s become unaffordable and Congress got up and went on vacation after recieving a full year’s pay and benefits despite only working 80-something days. Right now, as I write this in below-freezing temperatures, veterans are sleeping on the streets outside my door. Families across the country are being forced to choose between childcare and keeping their jobs because one state’s fraud led to the dismantling of support systems nationwide.
And I’m watching hundreds of billions of dollars disappear in a flash, up in smoke for foreign operations. Sure, this matters. But at the expense of what?
So I’m asking myself: What does “America First” actually mean?
Does it mean regime change abroad while Americans lose their homes because they got cancer? Does it mean funding military operations overseas while parents can’t afford childcare and are pushed out of the workforce? Does it mean we have unlimited resources for foreign policy objectives but none for healthcare subsidies?
I’ll say it plainly: healthcare is not a partisan political issue to me. It’s the fundamental principle of life. Your health is your wealth. Without access to adequate healthcare, nothing else matters. You can’t pursue happiness, can’t build a business, can’t raise your family if one diagnosis or an accident bankrupts you.
That should be the epitome of “America First,” in my opinion. In other words, I want to see my tax dollars help my neighbor. We are nothing without our health.
I’m not saying we abandon our role in the world. I’m not saying we shouldn’t oppose Putin or Maduro or any of the other dictators I’ve spent my career documenting. I’ve seen too much to believe we can retreat from the world’s problems.
However, I am saying this: How can we claim to be putting America first when we tell our own citizens there’s no money for their healthcare amid a for-profit health and pharmaceutical industry model, no money for childcare support, no money for housing assistance — while simultaneously spending hundreds of billions abroad?
I don’t have all the answers. I’m genuinely struggling with this.
What I know is this: I don’t want to see Americans losing their homes because they were in a car accident. I don’t want women forced out of the workforce because childcare costs make working impossible. I don’t want this country, the wealthiest in human history, to tell its people they’re on their own when it comes to basic necessities while we fund operations across the globe, including in places that offer universal healthcare to their own citizens as the American taxpayer foots the bill.
Maybe “America First” looks different to each of us. There may be no single answer. Perhaps we can agree to disagree.
But I’d love to hear from you: What does “America First” look like to you? What do you want your tax dollars spent on?
Drop your thoughts in the comments. Let’s have this conversation.
You have written about something that I am struggling with. My state senator sent an email survey asking what issues I wanted her to focus on in the coming year. There was everything to spending more tax money for affordable housing, better mental health care, child care, Improving education, making college free, help with heating costs (I live in NY), etc. There was a long list of things I could choose for my tax dollars to be spent on. ALL of those things are wonderful. But unless the state tax rate goes up even higher than it already is, we cannot subsidize all of that. At the federal level it is even more complex. We expect our Federal Government to protect us militarily (but does that include a mission to depose a current foreign head of state?), make sure roads and bridges are safe and administer the Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid programs. They also fund everything from PBS (at least they did before now) to acquiring park lands, to funding medical research (at least they did before now).
All of these things are helpful. But if there is a limited supply of tax money how should it be spent? Is government the best administrator of all of this? Everyone knows the frustration of having an insurance company deny a procedure or drug your doctor thinks is necessary. Would a government run system be better or worse in these cases?? I feel overwhelmed just thinking about it.