****Another draft I wrote before Sunday’s announcement****
For a person like me that has a degree in international relations and the coming election I took a look at a Trump presidency…not a big fan at all.
Now to be fair I will take a look at Biden’s world view (and another view I do not like)…..
The Democratic Party is waging its 2024 electoral campaign by focusing on two themes: first, a denunciation of all that Trump proposes to bring to the presidency, centering on the destruction of American democracy if elected, and secondly, a positive domestic record of the Biden years with several notable benefits for the American people including jobs and wages, climate, energy policy, social protection, gun control, and a stock market at record highs.
What is missing from this rosy picture of America and even more so from Democratic Party advocacy is neither claims nor explanations of foreign policy, only a deafening silence. It is as if the leadership of the Democratic Party wants the voting public to forget that there is a world out there beyond national boundaries. And it has good reasons to adopt this evasive approach, especially in an election year.
And yet this national posture seems strange as the US has so heavily invested in military capabilities to secure its global dominance in the decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union over 30 years ago. And as a consequence, finds itself currently engaged controversially in the wars raging in Ukraine and Gaza. It appears that even Biden is reluctant to claim credit in national settings for US support of Israel and Ukraine, and prefers to speak in generalities about the greatness of America as a country whose future is bright except to the extent dimmed by the threat advent of Trump and Trumpism. This tendency to ignore the world should be more troubling to American voters than even Biden’s refusal to leave the presidential stage in light of his thinly deniable disabilities of age and mental health that have put his 2024 candidacy in peril. Such an evasive pattern gives voice to absurdly grandiose, yet distorting, assessments of the present broad political situation.
US has got the world addicted to its aid both cash and weapons and Biden is the main pusher after inheriting the ‘business’ from Obama and now Harris will inherit.
I do not see the US coming to championing democracy and peace with a second Biden (read Harris) administration….
I have serious reservations about another Biden presidency. (Reservations solved)
Looking at it from an international perspective….do you foresee any change in our forever wars with another Biden presidency and now a Harris presidency?
I do not if anything I see more of the same and even a possible expansion lurking just offshore in East Asia.
Any thoughts?
I Read, I Write, You Know
“lego ergo scribo”
I cannot see Harris changing a single existing policy. But she might appeal to those who want to have a female president for the first time. That worked well for Margaret Thatcher. (Sadly)
Best wishes, Pete.
Did not work so well for Hillary…..this will be interesting at least from a writing point of view. chuq
My only thought is, that as a woman Kamala Harris might be lkess inclkined towards sending the young of america off to die in foreign wars and might be more inclined towards finding peaceful solutions to those in play currently. Obviously there will still have to be room for America to sell weapons to all and sundry or the military complex will have her removed……..terminated with extreme bias I think the term is.
Whatever happens I think she is a better choice by far than Trump and Project 2025 plans for the future of America and the rest of the world. Hugs
She is heads above Trump but that is not saying much….she will still be in the pockets of big money. chuq
I think being heads above Trump is saying a lot, and I also think few politicians are not in the pockets of big money, though some try to remove some of the big money to pay a share of Taxes. She may be the one that can succeed in levelling the different strata of society and bringing fairness in law for everyone. Who can say? Hugs
I will hold my tongue….for now….LOL chuq
I hate to say this but IMO what they just did with this is put Trump in the Whitehouse. I hope I’m wrong, but I don’t think Harris has a chance in hell of betting Trump at this late date. The election is in just 3 months, and the campaign has been going on for, well, damn near forever, it seems like. Technically we don’t even have a democratic candidate for president, and we won’t until after the convention.
There are also all kinds of legal questions going on here now, especially concerning campaign money, but hopefully the republicans won’t think of that.
I fear you are right….will hold my comments until I see her running mate….GOP will not shine a light on the money for they get more than the Dems. chuq
Addendum: It seems I was right about campaign money. The GOP is now muttering that Harris has no right to touch Biden’s campaign money and is making legal threats.
Addendum 2: One of the democrats’ biggest fund raisers has just announced he has no confidence in Harris and will not engage in fundraising for her.
This is starting to look like it’s going to turn into a sh*t show.
She has raised $80 million in 24 hours….and yes a sh*t show is a good way of looking at it. chuq
I saw that about her raising the money. That info hadn’t come out yet when I wrote that up there. That’s certainly encouraging.
But on the other hand the Heritage Foundation is lawyering up. They’re claiming that Biden can’t withdraw. They claim that here in Wisconsin the candidate can’t withdraw from a race once their name is on the ballot or something like that? Here in Wisconsin and in a few other states. Apparently Speaker Johnson is climbing on board that bus too and is making similar threats.
The problem with that is they don’t seem to understand how selecting a candidate for president really works. At the moment the Democrats have no legal candidate for the office of president. The candidate is selected by a majority vote of the delegates to the national convention, not by the primary elections. The primaries bind the party delegates to a specific candidate. But under certain circumstances the delegates are released from that obligation and can vote for whoever they damn well please. Since Biden has withdrawn, the delegates who were bound to him are released and they are free to vote for someone else.
But then again, considering what the Supreme Court is like these days…
So that is where con man Vance got that line of thinking….they are reporting that she has the votes she needs for the nomination but like you say….not legal until the convention and their actual vote of record. chuq
Being a capitalist I tend to think global markets help peaceful if not reluctantly cooperative global policies. But we are cruising through another sway of the nationalist pendulum in many countries, including ours. Always cyclical and generally dangerous. But we’ve been here before. As for Harris… I would think we should be concerned about making Trump lose, regardless who runs against him.
That ‘lesser evil’ thinking has got me on the ropes….I will post on it after the convention. chuq
Think of it this way, old buddy… we managed to survive the chaos of four years of Trump. So four years of managing with anyone who beats Trump this time will likely be a cake walk by comparison.
Perhaps but what about the world around us as we ‘cope’? chuq
The world around us seemed to cope when Trump was running (ruining?) the show… and Trump was the most gawd-awful schmuck at international diplomacy. Consider this.. if Harris brings on PA gov Shapiro there’s some executive experience there, although not a lot of international.. yet… Shapiro is Jewish. Honestly, I dunno what the hell that even means.. but.. it might carry its own weight down the line. Harris could hang on to Blinken as State for some continuity of policy because international politics is shy of great changes. I tend to feel that Harris in being female, there could be a natural reluctance to sending our military in danger on impulsive escapades. Pure speculation on my part of course. History shows that more often than not international events many times just occur and the crisis of the moment dictates a response. We already know Putin doesn’t not think all that well regarding female leaders given he’s pretty much male-centric. I am sure that Turkish autocrat likely thinks the same way. Female leaders normally do not present a strong assignment of power in international diplomacy (although Thatcher came close). But maybe having a person that carries a measure of stability rather than an image of power is enough to carry the day. Obviously I am just guessing.
Blinken is just a shill for the War department….he should not have his nose in war other than trying to find solution without being a cheer leader….personally she if she wins clean house completely…..Sec of war spends more time in hospital than at Pentagon….think FBI boss needs to go as well….just my thoughts chuq
MAGA people want that too. Do we need to worry about you, chuq? 🙂
It’s you right? chuq
MAGA people want to do that too, chuq. Do we need to worry about you? 🙂
She needs her people in those position as does any president…..loyalties you know. chuq