By Mark Anderson
CHICAGO, Ill.—The results of a survey called “What Americans Think About America First” were released Oct. 20 by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs (CCGA), purporting to show that halfway into President Donald Trump’s first year in office, only his core supporters are clinging to his professed “America first” outlook and associated policies. Meanwhile, the survey suggests, overall, that establishment Republicans and Democrats, as well as many independents, are heading a different direction by largely eschewing Trumpian nationalism—instead embracing the international “rules-based world order” that this Windy City think tank champions nonstop.
In a sense, the results could hardly be otherwise. The CCGA, like its elite cousins, including the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) of New York, Chatham House in the UK and the Brookings Institution in Washington, need a strong sense of public validation as they advance their trans-nationalist, monopoly-capitalist credo.