“Politics can and should influence foreign policy, and hopefully always will”

UncleScoopy

Mick Mulvaney said this. I know what you are thinking: “We already heard that.”

Yes, but he repeated it again today, after the articles of impeachment were announced.

3 thoughts on ““Politics can and should influence foreign policy, and hopefully always will””

  1. That statement would be more defensible if Mulvaney worked for a different president. In a sane world, people have different ideologies and those ideologies affect the foreign policy they support. As different ideologies tend to be embraced by the different parties, ideological differences become political differences. Of course then, the political beliefs of the administration in power is going to influence foreign policy.

    Many people say that politicians should put what’s best for the country ahead of what’s best for their party. That’s hard to argue with, but it is easy for a politician (or a partisan activist) to make the intellectual leap from “I believe my party’s ideological policy positions are what’s best for this country” to “my party having power is what’s best for this country,” to whatever is best for my party is best for this country, “to in the case of a politician or staffer “what’s best for ME personally is best for this country.”
    I generally subscribe to the first two beliefs. The problem is that Trump seems to only believe in the last one. When (particularly domestic) politics influences foreign policy into a “wag the dog” type situation (or a trade of foreign aid for political dirt situation), it is at least theoretically possible (though incredibly unlikely) a president might end up impeached. That last bit was sarcasm…

  3. Somebody needs to explain the difference between regular politics and Trump’s politics to Mr. Mulvaney. One is national, the other is personal. One is legal, one is not.

    George Orwell once remarked how the English ruling class had had to make themselves stupid so they would not see the injustice involved in holding onto their privileges. The Republicans are demonstrating that again, in real time, on a scale that is stunning, or hilarious, or both.

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