Opposing imperialism meant losing touch with economic reality.

Evidence

“World politics is for a nation what megalomania is for an individual,” said Eugen Richter (leader of the German progressive party) at about the same historical moment. But his opposition in the Reichstag to Bismarck’s proposal to support private companies in the foundation of trading and maritime stations, showed clearly that he understood the economic needs of a nation in his time even less than Bismarck himself. It looked as though those who opposed or ignored imperialism—like Eugen Richter in Germany, or Gladstone in England, or Clemenceau in France—had lost touch with reality and did not realize that trade and economics had already involved every nation in world politics. The national principle was leading into provincial ignorance and the battle fought by sanity was lost. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 341

Categorization

• SEED: The claim that opponents of a dominant economic force ‘lose touch with reality’ is a transferable argumentative move — sanity itself becomes a liability under expansionism. Could seed an essay on how resistance to an inescapable system gets framed as provinciality.