Opponents of the policy included a powerful supporter of the isolationist America First Committee, Senator Burton K. Wheeler.
In the mid-1930s, Gerald L. K. Smith carried the banner for business nationalists, many of whom were isolationists and would later oppose the entry of the United States into World War II.
In a 1997 piece for International Security entitled "Competing Visions for U.S. Grand Strategy," Barry R. Posen and Andrew L. Ross outlined four major grand strategies applicable to U.S. foreign policy in the post-Cold War world: neo-isolationism, selective engagement, cooperative security and primacy.
In the two decades following World War I and the failure of the League of Nations, a spirit of isolationism became prevalent throughout the United States that persisted up to the attack on Pearl Harbor.