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For the last several decades, public perceptions about the parties and international affairs were inflexible: Republicans were seen as the trustworthy party when it comes to foreign policy.
Dan Drezner, pointing to a 2012 exit poll, noted the extent to which old assumptions are facing new challenges: President Obama "won the foreign policy question pretty handily."
Only five percent of respondents thought that foreign policy was the most critical issue in this campaign -- but of those five percent, voters went for Obama over Romney by 56% to 33%. Voters were also more likely to trust Barack Obama in an international crisis (57%-42%) than Mitt Romney (50%-46%).
This is the first exit poll in at least three decades where the Democrat has outperformed the Republican on foreign policy and national security. And I guarantee that whoever runs from the GOP side in 2016 will not have a ton of foreign policy experience. The GOP has managed to squander an advantage in perceived foreign policy competency that it had owned for decades.
There are competing explanations for this -- I suspect much of it has to do with the spectacular failures of the Bush/Cheney era, and the Romney/Ryan habit of pretending foreign policy and national security aren't important -- but this shift is likely to carry consequences.
After all, in recent decades, polls have shown the American mainstream looks to Democrats for domestic issues like health care and education, but preferred Republicans on international affairs and the military. It's what helped create the often-silly "mommy" party/"daddy" party dynamic
But for the first time in my lifetime, the GOP's advantage in this area is slipping away, leaving Republicans with ... not much.
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There's not much left when your policy is shoot first aim second, let's play with our war toys, and might makes right!
Now we just use drones to take out a car on the other side of the planet. I guess at least we aim first with our war toys.
Drones, bombs, guns whatever... We shot first in Iraq and see what happened! The GOP would have us involved in all kinds of wars without the preliminary work done to avoid war.
Some GOP policy:
Going off half cocked, shooting your toe off, or if you don't like it shoot it? How about if it moves shoot it or shoot first ask questions later. How about the man with the biggest gun wins. The list goes on....
news,
I do agree that the Republicans were pretty much cowboys with guns, but I am just tempering that with the fact that we still may be viewed as such - maybe to a lesser extent - by people in countries that have cars blown up in their towns (including some locals killed by collateral damage) without warning. At least a suspected terrorist that is caught in this country still gets due process, but if you are outside the borders of the U.S. we often try, convict and execute within minutes - kind of what you mention in your post above: shoot first ask questions later. I do not understand how some progressives do not have a problem with this tactic.
The GOP has actually never had a clue about what to do with foreign policy. Everything they did made things worse. Every time. The Spanish-American War, withdrawal from the League of Nations, America First, John Foster Dulles You're-With-Us-Or-Against-Us Cold War policy, Nixon's "Secret Plan to End the Vietnam War", Reagan's Rescue of Grenada and his previous intervention in Lebanon, good old Iran-Contra, Gulf War I, Gulf War II, Afghanistan. An undiluted record of incompetence. Like they're incompetent at everything else - like Skippy demonstrates.
Yes TC the Republicans are the ones sending out the drones now. In your mind obviously that is good foreign policy. OK.
The only things the GOP has left are the only issues they care about: God, Guns, Gays and Abortion as their domestic agenda
As for their foreign policy it extends as far as the idea that Israel is never wrong under any circumstances and must be defended to the death and a bizarrely schizophrenic trade policy that swings wildly between 19th century protectionism and lessez-faire free trade.
I would suggest for your consideration that the voices crying 'God, Guns, Gays and Abortion' are the canon fodder of the real power controlling the snake oil salesman behind the curtain (remember Boss Tweed: "You can always hire half of the poor to kill the other half.'). The real power, the people who have the money, could care less about God, guns, gays or abortion except as ways to make a few fast bucks.
The wealthy backers of the Taliban/Teaparty/Republican party believe in the golden rule (He with the most gold, rules) and ignorant enough to kill the goose for the golden eggs.
A thoughtful business will properly maintain its physical assets, i.e. plant property, machinery and livestock (including the health, education and training of its workforce). Ralph Reed, the Koch brothers, et al, are TOO SHORTSIGHTED AND SELF SERVING TO UNDERSTAND THIS! Their failure to grasp this basic facet of business is due their inability to think beyond immediate personal gain.
RNOHB
I agree with your perception about big business. I read an article many years ago in the Reader's Digest about three things invented by Americans that American business wanted nothing to do with. Those Americans took their little inventions to another country called Japan which Japan accepted and those products are still being sold today. I give you, Nike, arcade games, and another one which I can't remember now (old age does that), but I think it had something to do with computers.
The point being, if American big business can't make millions on something TODAY, they don't want to bother to invest in it because they refuse to look towards the future. They come up with hula hoops and pet rocks. They invest in fads and not in the future. Yet they claim to be job creators.
First thing the GOP will need to do is recognize that there IS a world outside the geographical borders of the United States.
Second thing they will need to do is recognize that those other countries are perfectly capable of running their own countries without American war toys.
Third thing they will have to acknowledge is that not everybody on the planet wants to be an American.
The world from the US' point of view would be a much better place, functional and understandable, if more people in the US actually had foreign experience (and a week in Paris doesn't count.) Peace Corps has done so much for the US in making people aware of how the rest of the world thinks and why they think that way, and to no great surprise, often the way other people think makes more sense than what we are fed. When Fischer and Graham are spouting their hatred of Moslems, you wonder how many Moslems they actually know. It would have been better for all concerned if they had lived in Kosovo for a year and gotten to know actual Moslems.
Mommy and Daddy parties, indeed.
Like their views on "science", GOP Foreign Policy plays by a different set of rules. Atilla the Hun vs the Sun Tzu.
"The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting." Women know this, men have yet to learn it.
The consequences of the "Ignorance is Bliss" philosophy of foreign policy.
For the last, I dunno, 10-15 years, the rule on the Right has been that candidates must disavow any knowledge or recognition of anything foreign...Our products and government and laws and people are better than everyone else's, no questions asked. Why would we bother with anyone else? We are the leaders, they are the followers. The air of superiority is palpable.
The GOP struts around expecting others to follow. But now, looking behind themselves, nobody's following. Because really, they aren't leading.
Amen and amen.
Our world is a lot more complicated than "we rule, everyone else sucks."
the unintended hilarity is that when the 'mommy'/'daddy' idea is applied to the realities of the two parties today we get a very reasonable, if sad, truth:
America is a single parent household. Daddy left to tilt at Socialist, voter fraud, etc windmills... there's only one party willing to play the role of adult now.
The GOTP has "squandered" what little credibility that they had partly due to W.'s blind imperial hubris, but also because of the party itself. They have shown themselves to be mean, ignorant, churlish and childish none of which are qualities necessary when dealing with foreign nations/international affairs! Romney/Ryan were seen as extensions of W. on steroids - which would have been disastrous for US as a nation. And while President Obama didn't have much foreign policy experience going into office, what he does show is a willingness to think about the long term implications of his policy decisions on not just America but on our allies as well.
All true. It's another consequence of the years 2000-2008 have lost their advantage in foreign policy. Quite implausibly, the Romney campaign hoped that, if they never mentioned W, then people would just forget those years. That's why they offered basically the same package as W: tax cuts for the wealthy at home, bluster abroad. Fortunately, enough people remembered how it worked out the first time.
Actually, the supidity began in 1868 with the election of Grant. Outside of the "fluke" of Teddy Roosevelt, they've been incompetent failures elsewhere. Eisenhower wasn't really one of them.
The Republican party just cannot accept the fact that George Bush was a terrible president: corrupt, careless and destructive. This failure is killing the party, and for it it deserves to be killed.
sooner the better.....
In their attempt to dumb down America the GOP has actually dumbed down themselves. With these extremists the only foreign policy they think they need is the "Jesus" Treaty.
After the Iraq debacle where GOP leaders ignored all available wisdom it is difficult to find any republican who is credible on foreign policy much less intelligently perceptive.
The Domino Theory was a lie. VietNam was corporate influenced. Nixon feared the Pentagon Papers (good read) because they showed the deceit leading to our involvement. Iran Contra is still effecting our standing in South America and the Middle East. GHWB's Kuwait excursion felt righteous. GWB and friends wanted to go to war, not a normal desire for a thinking person. I was too young to judge Ike on foreign policy but history seems kind. So, credibility on foreign policy was just a gop talking point, sold and oversold until it sounded true.
Dems: We have a big tent with room for all
GOP: I got mine, F*CK YOU!
That is there problem
The juxtaposition of the cowboys of the Bush-Cheney years who managed to screw up two countries (not counting our own, that is!) and the ruthless effectiveness of the Obama national security team should convince practically anyone.
What I don't understand is why anyone believes the Republicans are the better party with respect to budgets and fiscal responsibility. They used to be that party...back in the 1970s and earlier. I was a Republican then. But I left the party with Anderson when the party went for voodoo economics.
I'm definitely on the side of It's-W's-True-Legacy. If Dems are now seen as the more competent with Domestic and Defense policies, a leader in Foreign policy, will the Repubs circle around the Economy? Can they do so without raising taxes on the wealthy? If they aren't seen as credible there, what's left? They can't rely on a single, shrinking segment of the populace. They couldn't increase their hold this time doing that; it'll only get worse unless they get really serious and really inclusive, now.
If Obama gets rid of Grover once & for all he will make the Dems heros! I want to see ideas addressing this. He has got to go!
It's about time. The Republican advantage on foreign policy has been an illusion all along.
The republicans are upset because Obama always has to stop in the middle of his campaigning and take care of grief. Each time he has run for office, whether it be his family, or a hurricane, he has had to stop. Uncanny really. Maybe planned
Sandy was first called frankenstorm because every meterorologist will tell you that Sandy was manmade. Aerosol aluminum and barium and liquid iodide and HAARP the ingredients used to create her, as told by Dr. Benjamin Livingston, the man who created weatherized warfare. So did Obama have that storm created so he could take his sabbatical of sympathy one more time?? You betcha. 96 people died because of that Hurricane. Obama needs to be impeached for crimes against humanity. This is where it is going Rachel, there is a class action lawsuit brewing against the us government by meteorologists contending that the white house had to give the military the order, to create Frankenstorm. Just a heads up for whats coming. If Obama isn't impeached for creating the Frankenstorm, then he might be impeached for the murder of Ambassador Stephens. Either way, He divided this nation. He played filthy politics to do so. And the republicans want their revenge. You hear obama speak to the latinos and blacks, vote to get revenge. Well 88 percent of white people voted for Romney. And they lost. The white majority which was the middle class power in this country is dead. This is why The Donald has demanded revolution. Obama has stolen this country from the white man. By totally disdaining the white vote, and concentrating on illegals latinos, and blacks. The lines have been drawn. It will be a bloody revolution, if The Donald has his way.
Mr. Benen, I hate to bust your theory about Republicans slipping on this issue, but here goes: an incumbent president is always going to win on the foreign policy issue because he's the only one running a foreign policy at the time of the campaign (unless, of course, the incumbent faces a challenger with a strong military background). Since Republicans have held the presidency for most of the past 30 years, you only have to look at Clinton and who he ran against in 1992 and 1996.....George H.W. Bush, and Bob Dole....both military men. In 2008, Obama had to run against another military hero, John McCain. But this time around, as incumbent, he faced Romney, who doesn't have the military credentials.