Opinion Why zero Republicans have joined Sanders's warning of a Brazil coup [View all]

[Uncle Joe]

(snip)

All this raises fundamental questions about Republican foreign policy. The nascent “national conservatism” movement is just one of many strains on the right that look at authoritarian leaders such as Bolsonaro, Viktor Orban of Hungary and Vladimir Putin of Russia and see much to admire. A Putinist wing is even developing among congressional Republicans.

(snip)

One unspoken purpose this affection for authoritarians serves is to give shape to a new Republican foreign-policy philosophy. This is something the party has lacked, after the Cold War and then the global war on terrorism faded as organizing causes.

A transnational alliance of right-wing authoritarians fighting against liberal democracy everywhere might just be the ticket to renew the right’s sense of foreign policy purpose. But that means embracing an unwillingness to stand up for basic democratic principles, if not outright hostility to them, both at home and abroad.

Sanders, for his part, argues that the argument over the Brazil resolution highlights a debate over democracy itself — “an internal debate about whether or not we believe in this country in the rule of law and free elections.” As we can all see, this debate is very unsettled indeed.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/21/bernie-sanders-bolsonaro-brazil-election-coup/