The Downside of Being an International Pariah

The United States is just catching up with the rest of the world in it's feelings of repugnance for the Bush administration. Having rejected Bush and his war, the American public now is trying on new leadership from the Democrats. That's precisely what happened four years earlier when the rest of the world was repelled by the bullying arrogance of Bush and Cheney and began seeking alternative leadership from France, Russia, and China.

Yesterday, gay, conservative English emigre Andrew Sullivan posted this lament (via TPM) about the long-term effect of the Iraq War on public opinion of the United States in England:

"What's more telling is how unpopular the war is in Britain, and how an entire generation of Brits have now grown up thinking of the United States as a bullying, torturing force for instability in the world. That's not the America I love - but it is the image of America that Bush and Cheney have built for the largest generation of human beings ever to grow up on the planet. In Italy, the government has fallen because there is no longer support for even a minimal presence in Afghanistan, let alone Iraq."

There are many things that are unfortunate about the increasing unpopularity of the U. S. in Europe, Australia, and other parts. Here, I want to focus on the downside in American political debate. Unfortunately, American unpopularity in places like Great Britain will probably lead to further emigration of British right-wingers to the United States. If conservative British intellectuals like do not feel at home in anti-American Britain, they could follow the examples of Sullivan and Niall Ferguson and emigrate to the United States where their smug pronouncements will be lapped up by American right. Just what we need.

Maybe we should limit immigration after all.