457 | Jacob Heilbrunn: From Isolationism to America First - Does the American Right Have a Foreign Dictator Problem?

The Realignment

Technology, News Commentary, National Security, Marshall Kosloff, International Relations, News, Public Policy, Economics, Politics, Saager Enjeti, U.s. Politics, Policy

4.8 • 2.5K Ratings

🗓️ 22 February 2024

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Jacob Heilbrunn, Editor of The National Interest and author of America Last: The Right's Century-Long Romance with Foreign Dictators, returns to The Realignment. Jacob and Marshall discuss how the American right and left cozied up to foreign autocrats during the 20th century, why he believes the far-right's sympathies with autocrats are more relevant to today's policy debates than the left's sympathy with communist regimes, the differences between good faith skepticism of the U.S. foreign policy establishment and bad faith sympathy towards autocrats, and the parallels between modern day isolationists and the Bush-era Neoconservative movement.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Marshall here. Welcome back to the realignment.
0:04.8	Today's episode is all about the rights realignment when it comes to US foreign policy.
0:13.4	I'm speaking with Jigo Halbren.
0:15.2	He is the editor of the national interest.
0:18.0	And he has a new book out today.
0:19.3	It's called America Last, The Rights Century Long Romance with Foreign Dictators.
0:25.0	Now before you just dismiss this book as just another Trump is Hitler or, you know,
0:30.1	Russia Gaye book from the 2010s. Jacob has been something really interesting here.
0:34.2	He has taken for granted the obvious fact
0:37.1	that during the 20th century,
0:38.5	there are plenty of people on the left
0:40.2	that were way too credulous or naive towards communism, socialism, and the Soviet Union,
0:46.0	and taken that same lens when it comes to a vulnerability and applied it to the right from
0:51.6	World War I all the way through the end of the Soviet Union. the right
0:53.3	and the right from World War I all the way through the end of the Soviet Union.
0:54.6	There were plenty of people on the American right
0:56.5	that were just as friendly to foreign authoritarian right-wing
1:00.2	dictators as someone on the left were friendly towards left wing dictators.
1:04.7	So he's taking this theme of a right wing pension for foreign dictatorship and applying it
1:09.8	to the foreign policy debates of the 20-20s.
1:13.3	You're seeing this in the category of going beyond just critiquing NATO
1:18.0	and the Iraq war and the US foreign policy elite,
	...

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