Rod Dreher and others have been discussing David Brooks’ (he of the pithy generalizations) new political typology of “populist nationalists” vs. “progressive globalists” (The original Brooks column is available to NY Times subscribers only). Populist nationalists, in Brooks’ account, see themselves as “the ordinary, burden-bearing people of this country. … the ones who work hard and build communities” who “recognize that our loyalty to our fellow Americans comes first.”

The policy positions that follow from this are, in Dreher’s words:

1) no more waste of blood and treasure on fantasies of democratizing the Middle East; 2) securing our borders against terrorists and illegal immigrants; 3) standing up to “the big money interests who value their own profits more than their own countrymen;” 4) supporting a government that will “stand up to Internet porn and for decent family values; and 5) the defense of government programs that help ordinary people bear the burdens that threaten to wipe them out (e.g., health-care costs).

On the other side are the “progressive globalists” who supposedly favor free trade, open borders, international institutions, and an interventionist foreign policy with a Wilsonian cast. This is the ideology of cosmopolitan coastal elites in business, government, and the arts (Christopher Lasch’s revolting elites, you might say).

As Leon Hadar points out, this dichotomy doesn’t exactly map onto reality. Many people who would be describable as populist nationalists support the Iraq venture for instance. Indeed, the degree to which post-9/11 foreign policy has tapped into a deep strain of American nationalism doesn’t seem to be appreciated by Brooks. Meanwhile, many among the foreign policy elites, especially those of an internationalist-realist bent opposed the Iraq war (many of the old hands from the Bush I administration, for instance, as well as conservative internationalists like Sen. Chuck Hagel). Brooks is basically characterizing any opponent of the Iraq war in particular and the Bush brand of interventionism in general as someone who favors a “closed” society which has shut its doors to foreign trade and foreign immigration. This may accurately describe some people (Pat Buchanan comes to mind), but there’s no necessary connection between those positions. It’s possible to be in favor of free trade and immigration and opposed to preventive war and nation-building. (This was in fact the stated position of candidate George W. Bush in 2000 which suckered me into voting for him. Sigh.)

In some ways this is another variation of the slur occasionally made against opponents of the Iraq war that if you oppose our invasion and nation-buiding project there it must be because you don’t think Iraqis are suited for democracy and therefore you’re racist. As though it was racist to oppose bombing foreigners!

Contra Brooks, in other words, the possible choices are not exhausted by either closing ourselves off to the rest of the world or trying to dominate it.