I purposely mentioned D-Day and Hitler, not Japan. Paul would have responded to the Japanese attack, but would have shown no enthusiasm to intervene in Europe. Churchill’s desperate plea for American help would have fallen on deaf ears until Hitler actually attacked American soil. It’s also likely that Hitler would have developed the bomb before America, and by then Paul’s America would have faced a terrifying reality. (Also, WW2 got America out of the Depression. Perhaps it would have continued under Paul.) Details aside, the point is that the war would have been waged by an extremely reluctant commander in chief, and might very well have turned out differently.
The larger point, as suggested by the other examples you didn’t challenge, is that Paul’s isolationism has the potential to be dangerously imprudent rather than sensible, and certainly without nobility. I don’t get the sense from Paul that he has any concept of the importance of “the free world” or the value of alliances. It’s as if he thinks every country outside America’s borders is the same. Just trade with all of them, mind our own business, let the storms gather and to hell with our allies.
And what happens the day America herself needs the help of an ally?
