A Referendum on Despotism • NC Newsline

It’s been a long time since foreign policy issues played a major role in the outcome of an American presidential election. George W. Bush’s quagmire in Iraq clearly played a major role in Barack Obama’s 2008 victory. But we probably have to go back to Ronald Reagan’s campaigns in 1980 and ’84, or perhaps even the Vietnam era, to identify a time when debate over America’s commitments and relationships abroad served to differentiate the major candidates—let alone hold sway with voters.

Americans have a not-so-proud history of insularity when it comes to these matters—see, for example, the Hitler-sympathetic America First movement that tried to keep the country out of World War II—as long as they remained comfortably separate from one another and protected from conflict and/or oppression.

And it is also true that the demands of realpolitik have led presidents of both parties to accommodate and cut deals with all sorts of repugnant leaders and regimes over the decades. One of Reagan’s top foreign policy advisers, the neoconservative godmother Jeane Kirkpatrick, even helped coin the acronym “MRAG” to describe the “moderately repressive authoritarian regimes” she believed the United States should ally with to combat communism.

That said, it’s hard not to see the current situation in foreign policy, and in particular America’s relationship with another country. terribly repressive authoritarian government (a QUESTION if you want to call it that) is crucial in the nine weeks remaining between now and Election Day.

It is, of course, Vladimir Putin. If there is one question that more clearly divides the two leading candidates and the dominant approaches to American foreign policy this fall, it is: “What to do with Putin?”

While one side seems to view Putin as just another political boss with whom the US can partner and make mutually beneficial deals, the other side sees the former KGB agent turned dictator for life as the leader of a brutal and criminally corrupt regime – or, as the late John McCain succinctly put it, “a murderer and a thug” – whom we must stand up to.

The facts certainly favor the latter assessment. Topping the list of Putin’s countless crimes against humanity is, of course, the murderous invasion of Ukraine.

No, Ukraine was not and is not a perfect country. The former Soviet republic has endured much internal strife and unrest in the 33 years since it declared independence. But it has also made great strides in embracing Western-style, democratic government and a fair degree of freedom and human rights. And it is clear that this reality played a key role in Putin’s decision to launch his invasion—a murderous and often chaotic blitzkrieg that has claimed the lives of as many as half a million people.

For Putin, the conquest of Ukraine is just the latest chapter in what is clearly an ongoing campaign to restore the Russian/Soviet empire with himself as de facto emperor. And it is also key to his efforts to destabilize the rest of Europe, diminish American influence, and inspire other would-be autocrats.

Simply put, Putin operates like a mafia boss on steroids. Power is his goal and murder and terror are the means he uses.

That is why he repeatedly killed and imprisoned Russians who challenged him, even if they lived in exile.

That’s why he has once again organized fake elections reminiscent of the Soviet Union.

That is why he has put an end to all freedom of the press and open debate in Russia. He has created a modern version of the gulag to lock up dissenters.

That is why, like so many authoritarian dictators, he has allied with far-right religious figures and persecuted women and people of different races, religions and sexual orientations.

All of this begs the question: What can Putin sympathizers in the US see as redeeming in this man or his actions?

Ninety years ago, when left-wing Americans were briefly seduced by Stalinist talk of a supposed commitment to building a better society, they at least had the excuse that they had good motives and were not sufficiently informed.

Nowadays there are no more excuses.

Modern tyrants like Putin (and China’s Xi, North Korea’s Kim, Iran’s Ali Khamenei, and dozens of others like them around the world) may still occasionally try to hide behind talk of broader motives like religion or nationalism, but as even the briefest honest look confirms, what really sets them all apart is a commitment to maximizing their own power and privilege by curtailing human rights and resisting modernity. And thanks to modern communications, most of their crimes are there for all to see.

And so it is that, despite the debates on so many critical domestic issues, the 2024 US election is in many ways a momentous referendum on global despotism. Whatever choice Americans make—to reaffirm the country’s longstanding resistance to Putin and his ilk or to abandon it—it will send a powerful message to the rest of the world that will reverberate for decades. We can only pray that the majority of voters will understand what is at stake.