A conservative American who had slipped into a coma earlier this millennium and woken up today would be confused watching his favorite news channel. The patient, a card-carrying Republican, would have lost consciousness at the time when then-powerful Vice President Dick Cheney demanded, before entering a hotel room, that the TV was already tuned to Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News.
The bewildered spectator would be suspicious of the drugs he was prescribed when he heard anchor Tucker Carlson, the Murdoch family’s pet journalist, say “Why would we side with Ukraine and not Russia? Who owns the energy reserves?”
The demagogue Carlson has aired daily segments in defense of Russian military aggression, with blatant lies about NATO’s presence in the region. The difference between 2014, when Vladimir Putin annexed Crimea under Barack Obama’s nose, and 2022, when he can, if he wants, snatch more chunks of Ukraine’s territory, gives a measure of the radicalization of the party that claims credit for defeating authoritarianism. communist under Ronald Reagan.
Until the emergence of Donald Trump — cultivated by Moscow since the 1980s, not as a spy but as an unscrupulous and easily corruptible buffoon — Washington political folklore cast Republicans as anti-communist hawks and Democrats as left-wing doves of the United States. peace.
Two years before Putin invaded Ukraine, Barack Obama was caught over an open mic telling pole president Dmitri Medvedev that when re-elected in November 2012 he would have “more flexibility” to accommodate Russia in arms talks. The naive American’s gaffe was avidly exploited by Republicans who disagreed with his foreign policy as well as the color of his skin. Medvedev was just warming up his chair for Tsar Vladimir’s return.
A March 2014 news visit shows Republicans attacking Obama for his lack of firmness after the invasion of Ukraine. But it also points to Moscow’s possible success in exploiting dishonor in the ranks of conservatives.
During the 2016 presidential campaign, Republican Representative and now Trumpist Kevin McCarthy was overheard telling fellow House Speaker Paul Ryan, “I believe Putin pays at least two people: Rohrabacher and Trump.” Dana Rohrabacher, a Kremlin poster boy, left Congress in 2018. Ryan asked those present to be sworn to secrecy about the conversation, which was leaked the following year.
Trumpism disinhibited Republicans from widening their romance with autocrats. Former Trump national security adviser General Michael Flynn, indicted for lying about secret contacts with the Kremlin, published an article on Ukraine on a far-right website Wednesday that could have been dictated by Vladimir Putin.
Tucker Carlson’s show is back in Hungary, where he likes to fervently flaunt his fascination with anti-Semitic Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
The anchor is the most powerful and amplified voice of the Republican Party in the US today, as the party leader remains banned from social media and reduced to far-right media appearances. Carlson’s power, cited as a possible presidential candidate, is greater today than at any time during the Trump presidency.
Following the example of the swindle that deformed Brasilia’s diplomacy under Ernesto Araújo, foreign policy is no longer being state policy in the US.
