U.S. Republicans morph from cold warriors to Trump-led isolationists

Republicans used to be the party of cold warriors, democracy-building, and movies showing patriotic Americans tackling the Russian bear. Today? They're more likely to trade "Red Dawn" for isolationism and even fawning over Vladimir Putin.

The remarkable transformation can be seen daily -- from Donald Trump expressing support for Russia invading NATO members who don't pay enough to conservative media star Tucker Carlson sitting with Putin for two hours of softball interview questions.

Most tangible of all, Republicans are blocking renewal of US aid for Ukraine's beleaguered military as it fights for survival in year three of a Russian invasion. It's a long way from the 1980s, when Ronald Reagan's Republicans led the way to Western victory in the Cold War.

The party is at a "critical crossroads," Rachael Dean Wilson, former communications director for late Republican senator John McCain, told AFP.

Hawkish public diplomacy stalwarts like McCain remain in the Republican ranks, she said, but their momentum is diminishing as the old guard is steadily being replaced by incoming lawmakers less obsessed with keeping Moscow in check.

"I'm... incredibly concerned about the growing isolationism, sympathy for authoritarians like Vladimir Putin, and an apparent willingness to abandon our allies," said Wilson, managing director of the Alliance for Securing Democracy at the Washington-based German Marshall Fund. "It's antithetical to what the Republican Party long stood for."

What happened?

The answer is Trump, said Richard Stengel, under secretary of state for public diplomacy in the Obama administration.

"The fealty to one man more than anything else is determining the isolationism of the Republican Party," he told AFP.

- Crumbling bulwark? -

Reagan inherited a party ideology born under Dwight Eisenhower, who in 1952 defeated Republican isolationists, won the presidency and dragged his country into the role of global leader.

But the party once synonymous with battling "commie" spies and demanding astronomical military budgets to repel the "evil" Soviet empire now shrugs at Kyiv, a democratic ally in a life-or-death struggle with the Kremlin.

"We must fix our country before devoting more resources to Ukraine," Republican Senator J.D. Vance said, summing up the new isolationism.

Biden expressed amazement. "The way they're walking away from the threat of Russia, the way they're walking away from NATO... is just shocking," he recently told reporters.

Liz Cheney, a senior Republican congresswoman expelled for opposing Trump, went even further, casting the November election in a CNN interview as a moment to make "sure the Putin wing of the Republican Party does not take over the West Wing of the White House."

And Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk reflected the growing anxiety in parts of Europe this month over Republicans stalling the Ukraine aid, saying Reagan "must be turning in his grave."

- 'In their DNA' -

Most Americans backed military aid to Kyiv when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.

But last month a Chicago Council on Global Affairs poll found just 29 percent of Trump Republicans believe military aid to Ukraine has been worth the cost, compared to 46 percent of non-Trump Republicans and 59 percent of Democrats.

Iowa State University political science professor Steffen Schmidt points to globalism fatigue.

"A big chunk of the GOP base has become quasi-isolationist" after decades of US blood and treasure spent in Afghanistan and Iraq, he said.

"I'm not sure there's admiration for Putin so much as exhaustion with foreign aid and entangling alliances."

Stengel also pointed out that an isolationist strain has long run through the Republican Party, including in the early 20th century and the run-up to World War II.

For the remaining Republican internationalists in Congress, times are increasingly lonely.

"The world is watching," Senator Susan Collins told the chamber, "to see if the United States is still the leader of the free world."