Jeane Kirkpatrick’s 1984 message rings true in 2026: A nation that blames itself for the actions of its enemies can eventually lose the confidence to defend itself.
Kirkpatrick delivered that warning at the Republican National Convention in Dallas. She was not yet a lifelong conservative. She had been a Democrat for most of her political life, informed by the traditions of Hubert Humphrey and Scoop Jackson. Her decision to support Ronald Reagan reflected a growing conviction that her own party had moved too far toward accommodation of America’s adversaries.
Her target was a particular habit of American foreign-policy thinking. When something went wrong overseas, its advocates instinctively looked first for America’s responsibility. Kirkpatrick called it “blame America first.”
The phrase was aimed at the Cold War left. It still resonates today. A country that routinely assumes its own guilt can lose the ability to distinguish between its mistakes and the deliberate actions of its enemies.
In Kirkpatrick’s time, much of the worldview she criticized was concentrated in universities, activist organizations, and parts of the media and entertainment industries. American power was often described as imperialism. Capitalism was portrayed as exploitation. National borders were treated as obstacles to justice.
Today, some of those ideas have moved closer to the center of political power.
The Democratic Socialists of America is a useful example. Founded in 1982 by Michael Harrington, DSA was once part of the broader democratic-socialist movement on the American left. Harrington opposed antisemitism and defended Jewish national self-determination.
The organization has since become more extreme. At its 2025 convention, DSA delegates adopted a resolution making anti-Zionism a condition of membership in good standing and for organizational endorsement.
The point is not that today’s Democratic Party is the Democratic Socialists of America. It isn’t. Democrats remain divided among moderates, progressives, and democratic socialists, and those factions regularly compete in primaries.
The point is that ideas once confined to the political margins now have organized constituencies and elected representatives.
That makes Kirkpatrick’s warning more relevant, not less.
Kirkpatrick’s argument ultimately concerned responsibility. There is nothing wrong with examining American foreign policy critically. The United States has made serious mistakes. Those mistakes should be studied and debated.
But there is a difference between explaining an event and assigning responsibility.
If Hamas murders civilians, Hamas made that decision.
If Vladimir Putin invades Ukraine, Putin made that decision.
If China threatens Taiwan, suppresses dissidents, or steals American technology, the responsibility belongs to the Chinese Communist Party.
American policies may be relevant to understanding those events. They do not erase the agency of the people who commit them.
Explanation is not absolution. Context is not a permission slip.
That distinction is increasingly important in a political culture that can sometimes treat American behavior as the starting point—and the ultimate explanation—for nearly every international conflict.
Kirkpatrick offers another lesson.
A confident country does not need to choose between self-congratulation and self-condemnation.
America can teach slavery and segregation, yet also teach how constitutional principles provided the means to abolish them. We can acknowledge foreign-policy failures without concluding that American power itself is illegitimate.
We can recognize America’s past injustices while also valuing its accomplishments.
Americans built a continental railroad system. They constructed the Panama Canal. They defeated Imperial Germany in World War I and Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in World War II. They contained communist expansion, rebuilt Western Europe through the Marshall Plan, and supplied the Berlin Airlift. American economic and military power helped create the conditions that eventually brought down the Soviet Union and the Berlin Wall.
That history is neither pure nor perfect.
It is also not a crime scene.
That is the balance Kirkpatrick’s argument calls for: criticism without self-condemnation.
That is why I am proposing a simple alternative to “blame America first”: Thank America First.
Thank America for a Constitution that survived the Civil War, the Depression, and two world wars.
Thank America for religious liberty, free enterprise, and the freedom to criticize the government itself.
Thank the generations of Americans who fought slavery and segregation and worked to bring the country closer to the promises of its founding documents.
Thank America for welcoming legal immigrants and for remaining a beacon of freedom to people living under tyranny.
Then get back to work fixing what is broken.
Patriotism does not require pretending America is perfect. It requires believing America is worth improving. A free society should have the confidence to examine its failures. But it should also have the judgment to recognize its achievements and the courage to defend its interests.
That was Jeane Kirkpatrick’s message in 1984. Forty-two years later, it still resonates.
We should criticize America when criticism is deserved. But we should never confuse criticism with condemnation—and we should never lose sight of what makes America worth defending.
ENDNOTES
1. Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, “Blame America First,” Remarks at the 1984 Republican National Convention, Aug. 20, 1984 (Archives of Women’s Political Communication, Iowa State University). https://awpc.cattcenter.iastate.edu/2017/03/09/remarks-at-the-1984-rnc-aug-20-1984/
2.”The Democratic Socialists of America: From Zionism to Anti-Zionism,” Mideast Journal. https://www.mideastjournal.org/post/democratic-socialists-of-america-from-zionism-to-anti-zionism
3.”Democratic Socialists of America (DSA),” backgrounder, Anti-Defamation League Center on Extremism. https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounder/democratic-socialists-america-dsa
4.”How the DSA turned support for Israel into grounds for expulsion,” Washington Examiner. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/in_focus/4657526/dsa-turned-support-for-israel-grounds-for-expulsion/
5.”Democratic Socialists of America reaches all-time high membership,” Washington Examiner, July 6, 2026. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/campaigns/congressional/4634623/democratic-socialists-of-america-breaks-membership-records/
6.”Amid a democratic socialist surge, the DSA asks itself: What’s next?” The Washington Post, Aug. 3, 2026. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/08/03/amid-democratic-socialist-surge-dsa-asks-itself-whats-next/
7.”Four things we learned from primaries in Wisconsin, Minnesota and South Carolina,” Reuters, Aug. 12, 2026. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/four-things-we-learned-primaries-wisconsin-minnesota-south-carolina-2026-08-12/
8. Full text, Jeane Kirkpatrick, “Blame America First,” GOP Convention speech, 1984 (Speakola), containing the Jean-François Revel passage. https://speakola.com/political/jeane-kirkpatrick-blame-america-first-gop-1984