[DesertRhino]

“institutions like the UN, IMF, World Bank, NATO and the like that keep the world from blowing apart”

Every one of those spreads misery, war, loots America, and destroys freedom. Each of those mostly provides full employment for legions of EU bureaucrats. Sad that anyone still sees those as making a better world.

[Rockingham]

Your criticisms are misplaced. In masking and amplifying the exercise of American power, the Western alliance's post WW II international organizations attract an oddball opposition of neo-Marxists, isolationists, and Third World thugs and dictators. For conservatives, reflexively adopting and repeating their rhetoric suggests weak and confused thinking.

Granted, all of those institutions are flawed -- in some respects deeply so -- but they are ultimately supported by the US for strategic reasons, not emotional or romantic ones. Thus the Reagan administration kept them, reformed them to a degree, and used them -- successfully -- against the Soviet Union. The same can and should be be done to curb both Islamic radicalism and Chinese expansionism. I trust that you would support those objectives at least.