Generally speaking, there is a great deal of stigma attached to the Republican party overseas. Here is an incomplete list of reasons:
- The GOP tends to take on a less cooperative and conciliatory tone when handling foreign affairs; for example, the Bush administration's handling of its efforts to invade Iraq were met with widespread derision, and there was a general appreciation of the fact that Bush was determined to go ahead with military action regardless of what the international consensus would be.
- The GOP espouses an economic policy that is transparently spiteful towards the poor, favorable towards the rich, and uninterested in goals that advance the wellbeing of society (i.e. universal health care, which is a common sense policy, is a nonstarter in the Republican party).
- The GOP, while not officially racist, is the party of the racists.
- The GOP routinely nominates presidential candidates who appear to have no appreciation of the fact that people living in foreign countries are actually human beings (i.e. Goldwater wanted nukes deployed in Vietnam, Reagan wanted to start a space war, McCain wanted to invade several more countries in the Middle East).
- The GOP is the party that is more favorable towards the widespread availability and ubiquity of firearms, which is viewed at best as an uncomfortable quirk and at worst a sneak peek at the consequences of unchecked nihilism as a political ideology.
- The GOP actively nurtures an anti-intellectual streak.
- The GOP continues to deny the effects of humankind on the climate, which is already having disastrous ramifications for Pacific island nations and other areas of the planet.
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