Input | Output |
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Link | YouTube |
Published | 2022/04/08 |
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Status | article incomplete |
Beau says:
Putin's actions in Ukraine have pushed the Republican Party to distance itself from authoritarian tendencies, leading to a realignment with traditional American values.
Political observers
The full transcript provides a detailed analysis of how Putin's actions in Ukraine have influenced a shift in the Republican Party's stance on authoritarianism, leading to a reevaluation of political rhetoric and alignment with traditional American values.
#Putin #RepublicanParty #Authoritarianism #USPolitics #ForeignPolicy
Well, howdy there, internet people.
It's Beau again.
So today, we're going to talk about how Putin might be
responsible for, at least in some ways, putting the
Republican Party back on track in the sense of getting it to
abandon its massive authoritarian tendencies lately.
Because I got this question.
Would you say that in some ways Putin invading Ukraine
is beneficial to defeating authoritarianism
in the US slash the West?
And the answer to that is, yeah, absolutely.
It's a happy benefit.
It's a side effect.
The Republican Party, for years,
spent a lot of political capital casting China
as the front-runner in the new Cold War, in that new near-peer contest. They put all of their
effort into demonizing China. And along the way, that appealed to a lot of people's latent xenophobia.
and that brought out a base that embraced a lot of authoritarian concepts
and figures and those politicians that they embraced, those authoritarians
within the Republican Party, when they got elected they used the Republican
Party and their position in government to cozy up to authoritarian strongmen
all over the world. See, the problem that has arisen for the Republican Party
politically at home is that it wasn't China. China didn't emerge as the bad guy
in American consciousness. Putin did. When he crossed that border, everything
went that way.
And the Republican Party has found itself shoulder-to-shoulder, arm-in-arm with authoritarian
strongmen who are Putin allies.
And with the United States actively supporting Ukraine in its fight against Russia, well,
that just won't do.
This is why you have almost unanimous support now from Republicans voting to reinstate the
Lindley Act, voting to ban Russian energy.
All that talk about gas prices and all that stuff, they've got to walk that back because
they all just voted in favor of banning that oil, which is going to raise gas prices.
have to walk all of this back because they know that siding with Putin who has
emerged as the bad guy, well that puts them on the authoritarian side. And the
new framing of the new Cold War of the multipolar contests on the geopolitical
scene is democracy versus authoritarianism. It's not democracy versus
communism, which is what they were banking on. So you're going to have a lot of Republicans start
to walk back their comments and start to more openly embrace the ideals that were traditionally
associated with this country rather than those of some wannabe dictator. They're going to have to
do that, that they don't really have a choice because the rank and file at the bottom, the
normal Republican voter, yeah, they can look the other way on a lot of stuff when it comes
to racism and injustice of all kinds.
When it comes to inequality, all of this stuff, yeah, they can look the other way on that.
But when you are openly siding with people that the US military, that American troops
view as the opposition, you're not going to get very far.
That's not something the right wing in the United States is going to be prepared to do.
Therefore those politicians in the Republican Party who embraced that authoritarian push,
They have to walk it back and they will because they don't actually have principle.
They have rhetoric that they see is useful at the moment.
You have to remember the Republican Party status quo.
They will say whatever it takes to keep the status quo.
It's not about principle there.
It's about maintaining what is and saying whatever they have to to maintain what is
so they can stay at the top and their supporters stay on the upper part of the bottom, that's
what it's about.
So to maintain that base that has traditionally been pro-military, support the troops, yellow
ribbons and all of that, they have to walk back that authoritarian rhetoric.
And when they do it on the foreign policy scene, they're going to end up doing it domestically
as well.
So in a weird way, Putin kind of saved the Republican Party from itself.
You'll start to see it.
It won't just be the votes.
The votes are a very obvious sign when you have nobody in the Senate on the Republican
side of the aisle willing to say no on something that they know is going to pass anyway.
to simply maintain their previous rhetoric, you know the big shift is coming.
And this shift has occurred in the last 24 hours.
They're starting to see the writing on the wall.
There are people in the House, Republicans in the House, that still haven't caught on
to this.
There are a lot of people who are still going to sing Putin's praises because they don't
actually understand the way conservative politics works and they're going to run into issues.
But to answer the simple question, is this going to help slow authoritarianism in the
US?
Yes.
The same way the first Cold War clamped down on leftist thought in the US because it got
associated with the Soviet Union, the same thing's going to happen in reverse.
The authoritarian right-wing mindset is going to be upended.
The rhetoric is going to be upended, because now that's the bad guy.
They'll be the ones in front of the House Committee on Un-American Activities or whatever,
and nobody wants that.
Anyway, it's just a thought. Y'all have a good day.
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