realpolitik

The realpolitik calculation is simple: policymakers are largely unresponsive to the political needs and demands of these average Americans and are instead hyper-responsive to the most wealthy.

This reflects into the Faustian pact implicit in Kissinger’s brand of foreign policy realism — realpolitik in the original German — with its empty promise that if we treat other countries badly, America will benefit.

Juvenile power fantasies are now meeting realpolitik and power.

“India is in many ways the epitome of the ‘realpolitik state’ in today’s world, meaning it has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests.

In an email, Norman Ornstein, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a prominent pro-democracy voice, offered a dose of realpolitik.