While McConnell announced recently that he would step down as Republican leader in the US Senate, in an interview last week he was adamant that he would continue to serve out his term in the Senate with one purpose in mind: "fighting back against the isolationist movement in my own party."

He sounds worried.

What McConnell deems to be "isolationism" had for much of our history been called America's traditional foreign policy. There have been  major exceptions, but until the emergence of the neoconservatives starting in the late 1970s we largely adhered to the words of John Quincy Adams that America, "goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy."

Why is that? The idea had always been that we would have more influence on freedom worldwide by concentrating on demonstrating the benefits of a free-market economy and protection of our Constitutional liberties at home. The US would lead the world by example rather than leading at the barrel of a gun.

When we strayed from that idea we got disasters like Vietnam.

But then in the 1980s, the neoconservatives seized control of the foreign policy of the Republican Party (and eventually much of the Democratic Party). They were determined to remake the world in their image through the use of force.

The military-industrial complex and all the special interests loved this takeover because it meant a huge transfer of wealth from the middle class to them, the moneyed class. The American people at first accepted the hollow promises of the interventionist neocons, believing as they were told that it was the "patriotic" thing to do.

What we are now seeing – and it is evident in the polls as well as in speeches of our politicians – is a shift away from interventionism. The mood has changed, and more Americans are tired of being told they must sacrifice to save the rest of the world from itself.