You should read up a bit more on how people perceived it contemporaneously. It’s too easy to absolve oneself of having to think hard about the current goings on when we can look at WWII and act like the right answer was obvious to everyone.
The right path is never clear when you're in the valley of the moment.
Also in hindsight it is not always clear, if the choosen path was really the best.
As strong as? I don't see much of an isolationist strain in the US today at all. The paleoconservatives are isolationist, but they barely exist any more. The Biden administration appointed a neoconservative as Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs.
And cutting ties with countries in NATO that repeatedly refuse to make the financial contributions towards defense that they pledged to make is also not "isolationism". NATO countries made a deal, part of that deal was 2% of GDP to defense, there are NATO countries that over and over have refused to keep their part of the deal, they promised to do something and year after year after year, broke their promise. Saying, "OK, we have had enough, deal is off" is not "isolationism", it's a common sense bargaining technique.
And "a strong affinity toward foreign autocrats", if it were true, would also not be "isolationism", it would be the opposite of isolationism. An isolationist country does not have a strong affinity for foreign leaders of any type.
I'm not quite an isolationist, but I lean that way. I wish Trump was an isolationist. I wish there was any major politician that was. Sadly, no.
I agree, it's more than isolationism: it's sheer stupidity and the Hallmark of a compromised government official.
It's unbelievably stupid to claim that members of an alliance are protecting their interests by rejecting mutual defense agreements due to flutuations in the order of fractions of a percent in a metric that is by its very nature completely arbitrary.
It is fascinating to see bent-reality arithmetic in real time:
“There is no isolationist strain”
“Okay yes there is but it’s ‘counterbalanced’ (whatever that means) through vigorous efforts by the opponents of that strain!”
That’s called there being an isolationist strain buddy.
It just isn't. That's not what "isolationism" means.
> ‘counterbalanced’ (whatever that means)
ah, you are engaging in bad faith. adios!
Huh
And I've just explained exactly how it's consequential and not meaningless. It succeeded in delaying aid to Ukraine. There you go: a consequence!