GOPers Have More Solidarity with Foreign Conservatives than other Americans
For Republicans and their international counterparts, the advancement of their ideology takes precedence over their own neighbors.
A news item that caught my eye this week was President Donald Trump conditioning his recently announced $20 billion aid package to Argentina on whether or not far right president Javier Milei gets re-elected in the upcoming midterms in the South American country.
"I'm with this man because his philosophy is correct, and he may win it," Trump said ahead of a White House lunch with Milei Tuesday. "He may not win, but I think he's going to win. And if he wins, we're staying with him. And if he doesn't win, we're gone."
The aid, and Trump's mission to prop up Milei's failure of an administration in the midst of a US government shutdown and yet another Republican-triggered economic recession on the horizon here at home may seem at odds at first blush, but it fits in perfectly if you've been paying attention to international Republican actions over the course of the last several years.
US Republicans have way more solidarity with international conservative officials than with their own American neighbors.
If you look closely enough, it's everywhere. Trump conditioned tariffs on Brazil on how that country treated disgraced former President Jair Bolsonaro, who is currently on house arrest for plotting a coup in 2022 in order to stay in power after losing that year's election.
We see it again with Trump openly admiring Hungarian strongman Viktor Orbán, who years ago ran a similar playbook as what Trump's regime is running today in order to seize authoritarian power. We can add to this discussion Trump's well-documented admiration for Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.
But this goes well beyond Trump. I first became aware of this phenomenon back during the first Trump administration, when a group of Hungarian government officials held a 2019 conference in the US for Republican policymakers to discuss policies that would encourage white women to have more babies. A few years later, conservative media darling Tucker Carlson ran a fawning interview with Orbán then he did it again. Suddenly he was everywhere in conservative media.
The Conservative Political Action Conference, once an annual get together in the DC suburbs, suddenly expanded to hold conferences internationally. Its first stop? Budapest. In Hungary.
Now it's a travelling political roadshow, with stops in every (white) international conservative hotbed.
The close relationship between US Republicans and the European and South American far right has been flirtatious for years, but it's finally being consummated under Trump. And early signs show just how bad this relationship is for Americans.
While American soybean farmers are getting screwed by Trump's trade policies towards China, who are typically the number one importer of US soybean exports, Argentina just signed a lucrative trade deal to export soybeans to the Asian superpower. Instead of protecting American farmers, Trump rewards the country undercutting those farmers. As long as conservatives stay in power.
As Trump's regime goes around promising cuts to "Democrat programs," while keeping "Republican programs" funded, Trump conditions trade policy and foreign aid on the ideology of whatever foreign government he's working with.
You saw it again with Trump's early decision to allow South African apartheid supporters to easily seek refugee status in the US, while brutally cracking down on any Black, brown, or even Asian person even suspected of being in this country without documentation. They have even gone so far as to arrest numerous American citizens for being brown and/or protesting against the administration.
Trump and the people under him clearly have no loyalty to the US, or even to Americans, and could clearly not care less about the constitution, at the same time they are eager to offer assistance, goodwill, and cold hard cash to those internationally with the same politics.
For all the conservative bluster about "globalist" Democrats sabotaging the American way of life, it's Republicans who have embedded themselves with an international gang of conservatives who all deem themselves above the law of their given countries. They bleat on and on about putting America first, while propping up a failing Argentina government while our own farmers get fucked by Argentinian conservatives.
I'm so tired of the phony patriotism of American conservatives. Conservatives only care about their own power, and the power of conservatives elsewhere. As our soy farmers are now learning, even voting for American conservatives won't get them off the hook within this international right wing power grab.
It's time for everyone else to wake up and smell the soybeans.
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-Katelyn
