Republicans Party of cold war hawks gives way to Putin-isation

In a speech that ran for 100 minutes there was one moment when Donald Trump drew more applause from Democrats than Republicans.

- David Smith

As the president told Congress last week how the US had sent billions of dollars in military aid to Ukraine, his political opponents clapped and unfurled a Ukrainian flag - while his own party sat in stony silence.

It was telling insight into Republicans' transformation, in the space of a generation, from a party of cold war hawks to one of "America first" isolationists. Many Republicans have obediently followed Trump into the embrace of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin - with massive implications for the global democratic order.

"The reversal is dramatic and the willingness of the Republican party to go along with it continues to be breathtaking," said Charlie Sykes, a political commentator and author of How the Right Lost Its Mind. "At least for a while it appeared that Republicans were still going to be supportive of Ukraine. But now that Trump has completely reversed our foreign policy there seems to be very little pushback."

Last month, Trump set up a peace process that began with the US and Russia's top diplomats meeting in Saudi Arabia - with no seat at the table for Ukrainian officials. He branded Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a "dictator", a term he has never applied to the authoritarian Putin.