With Delaware Congressman Mike Castle's earth-shattering loss of in his Senate primary bid, the Tea Party insurrection is destroying the last vestige of the Grand Old Party as a major driving force behind pragmatic foreign policy. The rise of the Tea Party, the self described "loose network of conservative grassroots movements," has challenged the old internationalist wing of the party and won. As the brutal primary fights in Utah, Alaska and now Delaware have shown us, this is not your father's Republican party. And it probably never will be again.
Gone are the great thinkers that once made the Republican Party a driving force in internationalist policy. How would the Tea Party react today to the globalist tradition of Dwight D. Eisenhower, Richard M. Nixon, Gerald Ford, George H. W. Bush, or even Ronald Reagan?
The candidates of the Republican Party today bear little if any resemblance to their internationalist cohorts of yesterday. Take for example the current bare-knuckled battle for Pennsylvania's Senate seat between former Congressman Pat Toomey and current Rep. Joe Sestak. As David Schorr, (a fellow member of Citizens for Global Solutions PAC) put it, "Toomey must be getting his foreign policy advice from John Bolton and Dick Cheney, since his message today tried to portray international cooperation as a radical left cause."
Toomey recently blasted Rep. Sestak for supporting an increase in the foreign aid budget, a standard boilerplate campaign slogan for modern day "fiscally responsible" Republicans who can't (or don't) want to think too hard. It doesn't take a lot of research to figure out that discretionary spending for international programs since 1962 has averaged just 0.4% of GDP, and has through the years generally trended downward.
This unsettling fact was even recognized by the Bush Administration, when shortly after the September 11th attacks it elevated foreign aid to "a third pillar of national security." This doctrine was even articulated in the U.S. National Security Strategy of 2002, and reiterated in 2006 and 2010.
How do these decidedly grown-up views compare to today's Tea Party-backed candidates? Delaware Senate Republican Nominee Christine O'Donnell is adamantly against "outsourcing our foreign policy to the U.N." Rand Paul, who is running for Senate in Kentucky, believes "all funding of the U.N. as a whole [should] become voluntary," and that the "United States should withdraw from and stop funding altogether those UN programs that undermine legitimate American interests and harm the cause of freedom around the world." Nevada Tea Party Senate candidate Sharron Angle just flat out wants to see the U.S. out of the U.N.
Recent political history serves only to highlight this great exodus (forced or not) of internationalist minds from the party. The defeat of Congressman Mike Castle in Delaware is but the latest in a long line of purges. After being labeled RINOs by many party activists, Congressman Chris Shays, Jim Leach and Senator Lincoln Chafee (whose single vote prevented the confirmation of Ambassador John Bolton) were all defeated in their reelection bids. Political environs caused Senator Chuck Hagel to retire in 2008.
Senator Lugar, perhaps the Senate's most pragmatic and courageous internationalist, is expected not to run for reelection in 2012. And rumors abound of a possible trip to the other side of the aisle for one of the last truly moderate Republicans in the Senate, Olympia Snowe.
The United States deserves two mature political parties that can work together and reach educated consensus. An effective foreign policy requires the U.S. to be a good global citizen. When we build positive multilateral relationships, respect international law, and use military engagement only as a tool of last resort, we flourish collectively as a nation.
In Washington, there has always been a tradition that politics stopped at the water's edge. We saw an example of that today when Republican Senators Lugar, Corker, and Isakson joined their Democratic colleagues to approve the New START nuclear weapons reduction treaty in the Foreign Relations Committee. The question is, will a Tea Party-dominated Republican party ever be sane enough to do this again?
I am confident there are realistic, "grown-up" folks in both parties that want to make globalization work for America. And there are some ostriches that want to pretend that America can escape this trend (how's that for American exceptionalism!). What CGS and other similar organizations need to do is to create the space for the grown-ups to have a real discussion about the best way to negotiate this changing international scene. And yes, we also need to elect more grown-ups to Congress.
In an interconnected, global, commercial society, what benefit can the Republicans possibly derive from transmuting the image of the United States in the eyes of the world into a Xenophobic, Islamophobic, Anti-Hispanic, Racist country? The Chinese aren't Caucasian Christians. Neither are the Japanese, the Indians, the Saudis, or dozens of other nations and cultures that the United State's economy and security is dependent upon now.
A nineteenth century worldview displayed by a nation that claims to be the leader of the free world is not going to pay dividends.
Good riddance to bad rubbish.
Globalism does not hold the best interests of the United States. This internationalist foreign policy has done nothing but outsourced America's backbone to third world countries. Manufacturing. The new GOP candidates are challenging the GOP dogma of the last 40 years. Now, I'm not super optimistic that these candidates will be incorruptible once in office but at least people are starting to reject the nonsense which pinnacled with the Bush administration. America is not the world police and we are a sovereign nation that should hold no allegiance to any 'international' government body like the U.N. or any other globalist group.
A healthy reversion back to the Constitution is needed and America's meddling in foreign affairs needs to end. We are not the world police nor do we have any authority to do so. We do not need to conquer sovereign nations in order to 'spread democracy'. This is a waste of resources in countries thousands of miles away while our own country's doorstep is left wide open to human and drug smuggling cartels. We need to get our priorities straight. Are we the United States of America or are we some strange global police force?
Recall that in 2008 Sarah Palin's foreign policy positions were to the right of McCain's -- BUT they were not to the right of Obama's. For example both Palin and Obama said yes to escalating predator drone attacks into Pakistan while McCain (and for that matter Bush) were for keeping them as was.
There is zero difference betweent he parties on foreign policy -- that is proverbial as this article concedes. This article is fearmongering to help get out the vote.
The two parties are becoming more different. While they were pretty much identical a while back, I think 9/11 changed a lot of things. The Republicans went crazy on the war path, while Democrats went back with a more pragmatist stance after the first crazy moments following 9/11...
(Not to be confused with domestic policy quotes from TP candidates like privatise social security. Or Doctors should go back to trading chickens for medical services, or repeal civil rights legislation.)
Second quick point: "When we ... respect international law, and use military engagement only as a tool of last resort" -- has never happened in US history and probably never will until after the US empire collapses and the US military is overshadowed by other countries.
As for the main point about foreign policy the little phrase, "politics stops at the water's edge" means that the elites have taken foreign policy decisions completely out of any democratic discussion. That is not about to change no matter what the Tea Party does and it's foolish to believe so. War is worth trillions of dollars and a pack of clowns are not going to be allowed to jeopardize that in any way whatsoever. Especially not a pack so firmly on the leash of Conservative financial backers.
If Fox was abusing blind people - someone would stop them. So why isn't anyone stepping in to protect Fox's politically clueless audience/victims?
"Christine's Law" to stop the abusive "manipulation" of the politically helpless for fun and profit, must be passed!
OMG, the Tea Partiers are salivating over running Snowe out on a rail. That day can't come soon enough. Lindsey Graham is another one who might think about retirement. There's most certainly more work to be done in 2012. The Tea Party is just getting started.
The author claims that as a congressman and senator, Nixon supported the formation of the UN. This is a neat trick as the UN was formed befor Nixon was ever elected to public office. Nixon did use the UN as a forum for preventing the Cold War between the US and USSR from becoming a Hot War and letting Mutually Assured Destruction become humanity's epithet.
Reagan did eventually reach out to Moscow in order to team with Gorbachov in order to replace Detente with Glasnost and Peristroika. He did this, however, unilaterally instead of just one nation among many.
The common threads among all three GOP President's non-isolationism were these: they were directed in order to safeguard the US and our allies from the perceived threat of the USSR, and they were conducted from a position of clear leadership in our alliances. We didn't beg the international community for permission to do something, we informed our friends how we intended to act, politely, of course.
You need a little history. Eisenhower was ready to give up US nuclear weapons but Russia refused to do the same.
Amen. One one party disregards facts and seeks to stir emotions rather than intellect, there is no working together.
Lemme put it this way: liberals support civil rights for all, conservatives don't.
Your middle ground is that only some people should have civil rights????
Nonetheless, had there never been the great compromise and thousands since, there would be no USA.
I guess the answer to that question is also the answer to the question of how differently Obama has governed from Bush.