Foreign diplomats: America exits, stage far right

Even in diplospeak, it's not hard to read between the lines

Jim and Sara Nuttle illustration from “America’s New Map”

So much has been written about Donaldus Targaryen as a breaker of norms — both domestic and international. But, in truth, his primary political accomplishment has been to provide populist top-cover for a Republican Party that has elevated partisanship to a level of national self-destruction quite damaging to both our national security and global stability.

Lest that sound like a far-left complaint — from this expert who tends to vote Dem but has worked overwhelmingly for Republicans across his career, let me direct you to an truly excellent piece of reporting by Nahal Toosi at Politico. In the piece, she relays the cresting concerns of diplomats from across the world (but based in DC) that America is willfully destabilizing the world right at the moment when our decades-long scheme to encourage a peacefully-risen multipolarity has peaked in a fragile form still desperately in need of American leadership — or at least an American presence not wholly consumed by internal partisanship.

The charge: every foreign policy decision by America right now is exquisitely subject to the worst possible, most highly charged partisan treatment almost solely in pursuit of zero-sum domestic political gains. The prime example: linking the funding stances on both the Ukrainian and Israeli conflicts to US border security and, by doing so, basically perverting both the consideration and conduct of our foreign policy in each instance.