The nineteenth century was the age of nationalism. Since then nationalism has been tested by various kinds of internationalism. Communism was a big test. Fascism was another. Notwithstanding the Fascist alliance with the nationalism of each country where it arose, there is affinity and loyalty among fascists across borders. Trump’s sympathy with dictators is that kind of international affinity
There is an internationalism peculiar to the United States which is different from ideological internationalism. The United States, a mixture of immigrants, is particularly susceptible to sympathies that go beyond the country’s boundaries. Irish-Americans worked to help Ireland become an independent nation. Armenian Americans do not give up their resentments toward Turkey. German-Americans, some from the Upper East Side New York City neighborhood where I live, were devotees of the German revival under Hitler. American Jews’ sympathies with Israel are for a state composed primarily of fellow Jews, for a state that has fulfilled more than two thousand years of a religion call for a return to Jerusalem.
Is it a shock that American Evangelical Christians are even more fervent supporters of Israel? Is it a shock that American Muslims don’t feel the same connection to a Jewish Israel as American Jews? Is it a shock that American Muslims see American foreign policy through lenses colored by the struggles of the countries and the peoples who remain in the places they come from?
Seeing foreign policy through a different lens does not make Irish-Americans, Armenian-Americans, German-Americans, American Jews, or American Muslims disloyal. Nor do their disagreements make them disloyal Americans. What about individuals whose policy proposals or decisions are based on something other than the best interests of the United States?
That would not be dual loyalty. That would be disloyalty.