When the U.S. supposedly promotes democracy in other nations, the result is invariably antidemocratic. From James Bovard at lewrockwell.com:
The Trump administration has slashed federal spending for democracy promotion efforts around the globe. That rollback of U.S. meddling is perhaps the most positive foreign-policy reform of the Trump presidency.
Since 1946, the U.S. government has intervened in more than a hundred foreign elections to assist its preferred candidate or party. Democracy is so important that the U.S. government refuses to stand idly by when foreign voters go astray. Rather than delivering political salvation, U.S. interventions abroad more often produce “no-fault carnage” (no one in Washington is ever held liable).
In 1983, Congress created the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). In 1984, Congressman Hank Brown (R-CO) provided a single sentence that should have nullified NED’s right to exist: “It is a contradiction to try to promote free elections by interfering in them.” In a 1985 piece for the Oakland Tribune, I hailed NED as “one of the newest, most prestigious boondoggles on the Potomac.” But there were plenty of scoffers early on: “NED has been called many things — an International Political Action Committee, the Taxpayer Funding of Foreign Elections Program, and a slush fund for political hacks who like to travel to warm climates in cold weather. In less than two years, NED has lived up to all these epithets.” My op-ed concluded, “The sooner NED is abolished, the cleaner our foreign policy will be.”
But that is a paltry argument compared to “jobs for the boys” —or perpetual government subsidies for Washington hustlers.
