> The isolationist and xenophobic rhetoric of recent years is mostly a reaction to a growing sense that increasingly few Americans are benefiting from global goodwill and development.
I'm not sure I buy your claim that this is the reason for the rhetoric. And if you're right that this is the reason for the rhetoric, it's extremely flawed reasoning.
Diminishing material conditions makes a fertil breeding ground for right wing nationalism (isolationism and xenophobia). It's a pattern being replicated all over the world. UK citizens don't have high heat bills and sewage leaking into their rivers because of privatization and Brexit, it's because there's too many refugees!
Of course it's incorrect, but without the diminishing material conditions, it's a lot harder to get people to drum up the energy to be racist.
I'm not sure I buy your claim that this is the reason for the rhetoric. And if you're right that this is the reason for the rhetoric, it's extremely flawed reasoning.