When a state pursues selective regime change (claiming narrow goals like counter‑narcotics) while ignoring or pardoning nearer actors, public perception of hypocrisy can accelerate distrust in governing elites and drive political realignment toward domestic economic populism. The result: foreign interventions cease to be only geostrategic acts and become catalysts for electoral backlash and reordering of coalition priorities.
— This reframes interventionist policy as also a domestic political gamble—the way regime‑change is justified and who benefits determines whether it strengthens or erodes popular legitimacy and party coalitions.
Francis Fukuyama
2026.01.11
82% relevant
The article criticizes a cynical, oil‑first approach that abandons democracy promotion while using force to extract resources—an example of the hypocrisy thesis that such interventions undermine liberal legitimacy and reshape domestic and international political alignments.
John Carter
2026.01.08
67% relevant
The author notes the symbolic politics of decapitation and the hypocrisy/rhetorical flips that follow (e.g., promises to rebuild vs. threats to execute), echoing existing observations that regime‑change maneuvers create durable domestic political effects and credibility costs.
Ben Sixsmith
2026.01.05
71% relevant
Sixsmith’s example of rapid endorsement of a 'power grab' shows how selective regime‑change actions can be reinterpreted politically at home, creating the dynamic captured by this idea: interventions produce domestic polarization and recalibrate which elites and voters back or condemn force.
Rod Dreher
2026.01.05
100% relevant
Rod Dreher’s piece weighs a tentative defense of Trump’s Venezuela action while cataloguing critics’ points (Marjorie Taylor Greene tweet, questions about why Mexico wasn’t targeted, pardons), illustrating how perceived hypocrisy could drive younger voters toward anti‑intervention, economic‑first politics.