The direction of these policies largely depends on the incoming administration’s appointees, particularly within the Treasury and Commerce departments. However, President Trump’s unpredictable nature adds another layer of uncertainty. How these priorities will play out remains open to speculation.

Some administration advisors support tariffs as a negotiating strategy, while others prefer a more aggressive approach. These tariffs could greatly impact American consumers and businesses, raising inflationary pressures, disrupting supply chains, and increasing costs for goods. Proponents believe such measures could help revitalize American manufacturing and create blue-collar jobs. The administration’s stance on this issue will be crucial as it formulates its trade policy.

The Impact of Trumponomics 2.0 on Growth and Global Relations

The second Trump administration faces numerous challenges, including a divided House of Representatives, existing bureaucratic resistance, and pressing concerns like inflation and immigration. The effectiveness of Trumponomics 2.0 will depend on the administration’s ability to harmonize differing interests and deliver results. While deregulation and tax cuts have the potential to stimulate growth, the threat of trade wars and tariffs could pose significant risks to businesses and consumers. Businesses and individuals must adapt and plan strategically to navigate this volatile economic environment. As such, understanding the political landscape will be crucial to seizing opportunities that arise.

As the United States enters this uncertain economic chapter, domestic and international consequences are at stake. The global community will closely monitor how Trumponomics 2.0 will affect international relations, trade agreements, and geopolitical dynamics. The administration must carefully balance ambitious goals and the complexities of a highly interconnected world. The impact of its economic policies will resonate beyond U.S. borders, influencing global markets. Ultimately, the long-term effects of Trumponomics 2.0, whether they promote prosperity or amplify challenges, remain to be seen.

[Peter Choi edited this podcast and wrote the first draft of this piece.]

The views expressed in this article/podcast are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Making Sense of the New Trumponomics Starting in 2025 appeared first on Fair Observer.

Democratic US presidential candidate Kamala Harris has never won a single primary vote in the 2020 or 2024 elections, so at least she would be consistent, but if she loses the 2024 election, it will boil down to five main issues and one sleeper issue that will have collectively proven insurmountable.

“Word salad city” and lack of clarity

Harris is well-known for not doing her homework and then berating staff. The word “insecure” often pops up in descriptions of her. On occasion, so, too, does the word “ruthless.”

Whatever the reason, her word salads in speeches, debates and interviews have become infamous. So much cringe. Her predilection for tautologies and phrases that verge on mysticism comes across as far more corny and sophomoric than profound or philosophical. Phrases like, “You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you,” run in circles and say nothing to voters.

Harris’s October 23 CNN town hall was not a winner either. Her word salads extended even to predictable questions like, “What weaknesses do you bring to the table, and how do you plan to overcome them while you’re in office?” or “Is there something you can point to … that you think is a mistake that you have learned from?”

This is not a new phenomenon. Even as Vice President, she often, in the Bard’s words, “speaks an infinite deal of nothing.” In a question about war crimes, she had this to say: “But we all watched the television coverage of just yesterday. That’s on top of everything else that we know and don’t know yet, based on what we’ve just been able to see. And because we’ve seen it or not doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened.” What in heaven’s name is she saying?

She has also spoken of her belief that optimism will “inspire us by helping us to be inspired to solve the problems.” This is sheer nonsense, and it makes you wonder what kind of gerbil wheel is running in her head. Or what about the word “holistic,” which she deployed in mind-numbing succession to ultimately say nothing about the question she was asked about housing. Harris’s Mobius strips of bullshit led to a brilliant skewering on The Daily Show in which a fictional “holistic thought advisor” helps Harris develop Harris-shaped “idea voyages.”

Harris knows this is a weakness, which is why she avoided interviews as much as possible and only speaks to the press pool off the record. She even skipped the National Association of Black Journalists — a decidedly friendly crowd. This is President Joe Biden campaigning from his basement 2.0.

Harris’s unwillingness to go an inch off script has led people to doubt her authenticity, and many voters say they want to know more about her policies because her scripted moments talk endlessly about aspirations and dignity rather than policy. Much of what Harris plans to do remains a blank slate.

David Faris, in an October 24 Newsweek op-ed, put it bluntly: “Harris has unwittingly leaned into everything that independent voters hate about D.C. politics — the inauthenticity, the refusal to answer direct questions, the casual jettisoning of past policies and stances in a mad dash to chase public opinion around as if she has no power whatsoever to shape it.” He went on to say her approach was to “basically renounce the person that she had been throughout her entire time in the U.S. Senate and to walk back the positions she staked out when she sought the presidency in 2019 one by one.”

Flip-flops over past policies

Harris’s word salads are well-known, but she is also “unburdened by what has been” with respect to her past policy positions. Coconut trees and joy are not enough. Calling Trump a fascist is not a plan, nor can platitudes replace policy. Comparing Trump to Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler is a losing argument because it demeans those considering him. Besides that, Jews, understandably, do not appreciate the comparison.

Unfortunately, Harris’s platform looks like Swiss cheese. She has flopped and flipped on virtually every position she held when she last ran for president. Her Etch A Sketch proposals are made all the more curious in the absence of any explanation of why she has made the drastic revisions, but it doesn’t take a genius to answer that question: It’s political opportunism.

Harris papered countless 180s on policy over with the whimsically empty explanation that her “values haven’t changed.” This damaged her credibility. While some evolution is to be expected, the about-faces make her look too much like a product of polling with no real convictions. Beyond winning and a likely reversion to her earlier, California progressive positions, there’s not much to make us believe the new Harris is anything but a temporary retread. Trump may be a lot of things, but people know he’s the real McCoy.

For those who enjoyed the calm days of Black Lives Matter protests, Harris was there supporting them and tweeting about a bail fund for those arrested in riots. We all fondly recall the days when she was with the “Defund the Police” set and said, “It is outdated, wrong and backward to think more police creates more safety.” If you peruse her record in the Senate, she was in line with all the right-thinking people. Adam Nagourney at The New York Times notes that truncating the race has allowed Harris to “coast past some of the scrutiny and detailed policy debates that candidates usually experience on the path to the nomination.”

Harris is no longer in favor of a lot of things she swore by. Getting rid of Immigration and Customs Enforcement? Not a part of her plan. Gone, too, is her commitment to press for Medicare for All (the abolition of private insurance) and the College for All Act. A fracking ban is supposedly out. Rather than confiscating guns, she now rushes to tell us about the one she owns. Packing the Supreme Court is ducked and dodged. She doesn’t want to talk about it. Decriminalizing illegal border crossings? That’s no longer her position, and one assumes she doesn’t want to mess with the food pyramid to get Americans to eat less red meat, as she mused some years ago.

Harris hasn’t said much about an EV mandate, though in 2019 she co-sponsored a bill that would have required automobile manufacturers to produce only electric and hydrogen-powered vehicles, completely phasing out the gas-powered ones Americans like by 2040. Race as a factor in college admissions isn’t spoken of by Democrats during this election cycle, though they are strongly in favor of it. Race reparations also don’t merit mention, though Harris supported that idea in 2019 as well.

Harris’s past positions now appear in the media as a “404: Page not Found.” In one case there is quite literally no page retrievable. Going into her first presidential campaign, GovTrack ranked her the most liberal senator in 2019. Mysteriously, or perhaps not, that page was taken down shortly after Harris became the 2024 candidate. I guess we know how this self-described “non-partisan” “transparency” group is voting. So much for “mak[ing] our government more open and accessible.”

However, they still have a page up that lists Harris as the most left-leaning and least bipartisan Democrat Senator for the entire Congress of 2019–2020. Senator Bernie Sanders occupies a different category as a self-declared independent, and he edged her out in a squeaker for the most lefty senator overall. However, Harris’ lefty positions can still be spotted. During an online campaign event, her running mate said, “Don’t ever shy away from our progressive values. One person’s socialism is another person’s neighborliness.”

If staff is policy, look at Harris’s advisors. Gene Sperling, once Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama’s economic advisor, is now with Harris. Harris’s climate engagement director raised a ruckus by saying the candidate doesn’t really mean what she’s saying about fracking. These are not “change” advisos.

Why would they be? The about-face is a trompe-l’œil. As economist Oren Cass noted in an op-ed for The New York Times, when Harris was asked on October 16 about her former advocacy for giving driver’s licenses, college tuition and free healthcare to undocumented immigrants, she replied, “Listen, that was five years ago.” You can change your mind, but you can’t do a wholesale makeover of who you are in a few years.

So what (theoretically) are her (current) policies? Harris mostly offers vibes, teleprompter remarks about gauzy ideals and attacks on Trump. The problem, of course, is that only 25% of Americans believe the country is heading in the right direction, and only 39% of likely voters think Harris was the best candidate the Democratic Party could have picked. That makes it hard to run on her record.

The other problem is that Bidenomics is Kamalanomics, but in a twist, Kamalanomics pairs the massive spending and regulatory overreach of Bidenomics with the price controls of Nixonomics. To address inflation, Harris is going to institute price controls to tame grocery bills. Even as the media claims these are not actual price controls, I don’t know what else to call it when the Federal Trade Commission and each state’s Attorney General gets to “punish” whoever transgresses the profit rules made up in Washington. As though a government bureaucracy would know the price of kale.

Or how about giving $25,000 to home buyers, which would only raise house prices and stoke demand, a point she acknowledges when she pledges to build three million more homes. How will she build these houses? Details to follow. Economics 101 question: What will giving $25,000 for every homebuyer do to house prices? If you said raise them, then you and the average high schooler know more about economics than Kamala Devi Harris.

The Washington Post said regarding Harris’s economic plan, “The times demand serious economic ideas. Harris supplies gimmicks.” They go on to note that “‘price gouging’ is not causing inflation. So why is the vice president promising to stamp it out?” No one seems to know why, and no one can even say what excessive profits are. The Post again questions how this would even be established. “Ms. Harris says she’ll target companies that make ‘excessive’ profits, whatever that means.”

When considering her proposed programs, there is a decided funding hole. Where is the money coming from? In the understatement of the year, Harris’ campaign, “otherwise light on policy specifics,” proposed a $5 trillion tax hike.

Harris is a blank slate on Biden’s proposal to tax unrealized capital gains, but everyone in the media wants you to know that her ordinary capital gains plan is a big break from Biden’s proposed higher rate. 

“Kamala the moderate” is the word of the day. The New York Times tells us this is “one of several moves meant to win over business owners” and that she is “friendlier than Biden” on taxes. Hooray. Harris added in a platitude-laden announcement, “Let us understand, then, that when we say ‘fight,’ it is a fight for something, not against something. It is for something. That’s what we’re talking about when we talk about a new way forward. This is for something.” She declined to go much into what that something is.

I will say it is a fight for something. Once you include Harris’s proposed surcharge on investment income, the fight is for returning to the highest capital gains rates since 1978, a decade few would recall as a time of low inflation and flourishing small businesses. It’s also worth noting the 1978 tax cut was signed into law by President Jimmy Carter, a Democrat, not Ronald Reagan. Harris’ policies are full-on stagflation material more reminiscent of the “secular stagnation” Obama years until his successor showed there were plenty of animal spirits left when you cut regulation and let people spend their money as they see fit.

I hear a lot about the rich paying their “fair share,” but how much should the 1% pay? I want an actual number. Currently, the 1% pay 40% of all income taxes. Should 1% of the population pay more than 40%? Is it 60%? 100%? Alas, you never get a number, and Republicans never ask the question.

Blind loyalty and Harris’s current record

For those in fraternity houses, a good drinking game during the Democratic convention was to take a drink whenever you heard Trump’s name. Those in Alcoholics Anonymous could safely commit to taking a drink any time they heard Biden’s name. On the first night, Biden himself landed that plum spot everyone jockeys for as a speaker at the convention: 11:30 PM. The party is running from the man, but Harris is sticking with his policies.

Harris tries to say she would govern differently from Biden, but she gives no specifics. Were she to distance herself on at least an issue or two from the present administration, or even point out that the vice president doesn’t have much pull, that might resonate; as things are, she refuses to mark any territory where she would diverge from the current path.

In the softest of softball interviews, Harris sat on a panel with the left-wing ladies of The View. When asked what she would change about the last four years, she gave a stunning answer. “There is not a thing that comes to mind,” she began. Really? Not on blowout, multi-trillion dollar bills that stoked inflation, immigration, or, I dunno, the Afghanistan withdrawal?

After saying she couldn’t think of a single change she would make, she continued, “And I have been a part of most of the decisions that have had impact.” She effectively said, “I’ve seen the polls and know you’re unhappy about things, but I’m not going to change current policies because I was behind them.” Trump seized the moment and ran with the clip.

Harris’s pollsters have to know Americans are not happy with the direction of the country, but she couldn’t articulate one thing she would do differently while also claiming stewardship over the last four years — thereby negating the “I’m only VP and have no decision-making authority” argument most Democrats have been making for her. 

Harris has not departed on a single issue. When asked another time about voters’ desire for change and what she would do differently from Biden, she said, “I’m obviously not Joe Biden.” Well, no shit, Sherlock. Then, of all things, she went on to distinguish herself from Trump with the same vacuity before rounding it out with more talk of an “opportunity economy.” Unfortunately, it will take more than the media elite telling everyone about the current “glorious” economy to make voters forget they aren’t happy. Meanwhile, Trump reminds people at his rallies of the Reagan question: “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” 

It’s not just that people feel overburdened; it’s that they feel they don’t get much for their tax dollars. When the government spends $7.5 billion dollars on charging stations to, more than two years later, produce exactly 8 stations, you have a problem. Whether the money is still in the planning stages or is waiting around is beyond the point. Why is it taking 2 years to just get going? Why isn’t the government working? This is why much of Trump’s rhetoric about government inefficiency and his promise to tap Elon Musk to address that problem resonate.

Everyone else seems to be running away from the mistakes Harris can’t summon to mind. Democrat incumbents trying to keep their Senate seats have some misgivings, and watching Senator Bob Casey’s ads you’d think he’s as MAGA as they come. There’s only one problem: he’s voted with Biden 98.5% of the time. That’s true too of Wisconsin’s Tammy Baldwin (95.5% with Biden). Michigan’s Elissa Slotkin, who is a three-term Representative bucking for a promotion to the Senate, votes with Biden 100% of the time. They’re now all running away from that record.

In Harris’ case, she promises to have a Republican in her cabinet, and she makes unsubstantiated promises to be a president for all Americans if elected, but many suspect she remains a California liberal at heart and will not reach across the aisle and build coalitions as promised. An NBC interview question on October 22 about abortion is instructive.

Q: “What concessions would be on the table? Religious exemptions, for example, is that something that you would consider with a Republican-controlled Congress?”

Ms. Harris: “I don’t think that we should be making concessions when we’re talking about a fundamental freedom to make decisions about your own body.”

That same spirit of working with people extends to Harris’s dealings with her own staff. Even as vice president, she has had a 92% staff turnover in her first three years. This goes back to her Senate days. Actually, it goes back to her San Francisco district attorney days.

House Democrats are even running ads accusing a Republican of “turn[ing] his back on President Trump” during one of his impeachments. This is playing with fire if you think Trump is Hitler — so why would they do this? The same reason they supported pro-Trump Republicans in the last two election cycles: politics. That, and as I’ve said forever, Democrats don’t really think Trump is truly dangerous. They just need their voters to think he is.

Most notably, Harris continues to stand behind Biden’s diminished mental acuity. This is ridiculous. The coverup is now obvious in hindsight, yet she stands by her belief that Biden is as sharp as a tack.

Even before the January 6 Capitol Hill riots, there was a large cohort of “Never Trumpers,” yet the party was labeled spineless for not standing up to him. Few outside of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and George Clooney had the courage to tell Biden to his face that he couldn’t hack it. Certainly, Harris went along for the long con. Where is the cohort that casts as being of little character the person who spent the most time with the president but resoundingly declared him fit? And who flipped every policy to win the presidency out of naked ambition? If character is an important quality, then the voters might have had reason to believe Harris didn’t possess it.

Failure to pick Josh Shapiro

Polling by Emerson College at the time of Harris’ VP pick found the following:

Regarding Vice President Harris’ selection of a running mate, a plurality of Arizona voters prefer Senator Mark Kelly (36%), 27% of Michigan voters prefer Gretchen Whitmer, 40% of Pennsylvania voters support Josh Shapiro, while 14% of Wisconsin voters support Bernie Sanders and 12% Pete Buttigieg. 

• Among just Democratic voters, in Arizona 42% prefer their Senator Mark Kelly, in Pennsylvania, 57% prefer their Governor Josh Shapiro and in Michigan 36% prefer their Governor Gretchen Whitmer. Georgia and Wisconsin saw Democrats split among candidates with no one having more than around 20%.

Given Pennsylvania is considered a, if not the, must-win state of the election, and given the state’s own voters had much stronger feelings for having “their guy” as Harris’ running mate, her choice of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz over Pennsylvania Governor Shapiro amounts to political malpractice. While a centrist as a congressman, Walz as governor played to the left. Further, Minnesota is a blue state, so Walz does not bring a swing state into the fold. Harris will also not be able to rely on Biden’s Pennsylvania roots this time around. Her San Francisco chops have zero credibility in the Mid-Atlantic.

Shapiro’s Jewish heritage was thought to be a liability with growing protests over Gaza, particularly in the swing state of Michigan. The widely rumored concern he would outshine Harris spoke only to insecurity and a willingness to go along with the base no matter what. Shapiro claimed, “We are the party of real freedom,” at the Democratic National Convention after being passed over for running mate for being a little too Jewish.

Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight fame thinks picking Tim Walz rather than the popular Shapiro, who has sky-high approval and is governor of a must-win state, might cost Harris the election. Silver also points out that 47% of poll respondents think Harris is too liberal/progressive, while only 32% think Trump is too conservative. Over half of those polled (52%) aged 45 and up think she’s too liberal/progressive, which is a problem since older voters tend to be the ones who show up to vote. Now it seems Silver’s gut suspects Trump will win. The New York Times’ 61 focus groups suggest to Patrick Healy that Trump has the edge on the usual issues of inflation, the economy and immigration.

Not only does Harris have a problem with Pennsylvania’s 400,000 Jews who likely wanted Shapiro as VP, but she has a Catholic problem as well. The last presidential candidate not to attend the annual Al Smith dinner, held in New York City to raise money for Catholic charities, was Walter Mondale. As the Archbishop of New York, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, noted, “This hasn’t happened in 40 years, since Walter Mondale turned down the invitation. And remember, he lost 49 out of 50 states.” Instead, Harris sent in a video, Catholics noted her absence, and none of this was well-received.

Exit polls from 2020 show 30% of Pennsylvania’s voters are Catholic. That’s above the national average of 22%. In 2020, Biden (a Catholic himself) narrowly edged Trump in the Catholic vote, 50% to 49%, yet a Pew survey has found Harris trailing Trump among Catholics by five points, 47% to 52%. In other worrying news for the Harris camp, Democrats have seen their voter registration edge in the state cut in half since the last presidential election to the tune of several hundred thousand voters. To put that in perspective, Joe Biden won the state in 2020 by 80,555 votes, or 1.17%

Social issues and indecisive foreign policy

Ruy Teixeira, a progressive think tanker, has said for years that social issues are an Achilles’s heel for Democrats. Liberal condescension has worn thin, and even the sainted Obama faced recent backlash when he gave black supporters a tongue-lashing. He told “brothers” that maybe they’re “not feeling the idea of having a woman as president.” Maybe another thing they’re “not feeling” is being told they’re misogynists if they don’t vote for Harris.

Others aren’t feeling a lot of the trendy social issues the Left has extolled for years. Perhaps this is no clearer than on the US government policy of paying for sex changes for prisoners and illegal immigrants. Harris is running from the issue, but her record is clear. The lefty factcheck.org says that “Harris went on record in an American Civil Liberties Union candidate questionnaire as supporting medically necessary gender-affirming care for federal prisoners and immigrant detainees, including surgical care. She also expressed support for gender-affirming surgery for California state inmates on other occasions during her 2019 presidential run, taking some credit for working ‘behind the scenes’ to get access to these surgeries for prisoners.” This has become a sleeper issue, and it’s playing out prominently in swing elections.

Trendy social issues are out, and Harris’ 2019 introduction during a CNN town hall leading with “my pronouns are she, her and hers” is starting to sound like a relic. Not that such issues ever polled well.

Across the country, green policies, dear to Harris’s heart by all accounts, are now scarcely spoken of. Liberal condescension and gender politics are left to proxies, and no one wants to defund the police with rising crime rates. Diversity statements for professors are on the wane, and diversity, equity and inclusion are less prominent in corporate hiring and shareholder reports. “The woke burnout is real.”

Interestingly, Democrats have traded in their “blame America” duds for a freedom theme. This seems to be largely a reaction against a sense that more and more people feel less free, but who thinks Democrats are the party of greater freedom?

Democrats are also less patriotic. 39% of US adults are “extremely proud” to be American, which is essentially unchanged from last year’s 38% record low. The numbers of those who think less well of America are overwhelmingly Democrats. The combined 67% of Americans who are now extremely or “very proud” (28%) skew heavily toward Republicans.

Foreign policy is also a sticking point with some voters. The world simply feels less safe with Israel, Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, Ukraine and Russia fighting. China continues to press for regional, and even global, hegemony, and even North Korea’s troops are on the march in Ukraine. Foreign policy rarely registers as a top voter concern, though it does figure in when people consider how secure they feel overall.

On most foreign policy issues, Harris would rather not say. But we do know she skipped Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address before a joint session of Congress. No word was given on what Harris thought about the protestors in Chicago, including one in a Swastika-bearing “FUCK ISRAEL” T-shirt, but I wasn’t holding my breath for any clarity. She continues her contradictory stand on the absolute right of Israel to defend itself and the absolute necessity of a ceasefire. It’s anyone’s guess where she really is on that issue.

Breaking the filibuster

Breaking the Senate filibuster is perhaps where Harris’ goals are most dangerous. Currently, a senator can use his or her privilege to speak in order to delay or kill a bill. To end such a filibuster, three-fifths of the Senate (60 out of 100 senators) must agree. Lately, Democrats have toyed with ending this rule, effectively allowing legislation to be passed in the Senate by a simple majority.

By breaking the filibuster, Democrats could pack the Supreme Court with friendly judges, pass a national law on abortion and usher in nationalized healthcare. There’s also the real prize: statehood for the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Statehood has nothing to do with “taxation without representation,” as DC license plates say. The real goal is creating four new Senate seats that would enshrine their majorities.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has mused about this move openly. During the August Democratic convention, he said, “We got it up to 48, but, of course, [US Senators Kyrsten] Sinema and [Joe] Manchin voted no; that’s why we couldn’t change the rules. Well, they’re both gone.”

Harris is fully on board with the norm-shattering maneuver.

The death of the filibuster would send every progressive constituency scrambling for their own carve-out. Henceforth, every time the House, Senate and White House aligned, there would be tectonic shifts in policies from taxation to abortion. Nothing would be sacred, and it would be a free-for-all.

There are as many, if not more, unknowns in this final day of voting, and no one with any sense is stating with certainty what the outcome will be. However, as the coddled elite get ready to counsel students who have mental health breakdowns over the election, it will be worthwhile to recognize the problems the campaign and candidate had — if she loses.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post If She Loses, Part 2: Kamala’s Campaign Didn’t Resonate appeared first on Fair Observer.

For starters, college counselors ought to have plenty of Kleenex on hand to blot the tears, and they’ll need a few more coloring books and therapy dogs for the safe spaces. Those college grads in suburbia and urban areas will stock up on Prozac and THC gummies to numb the despair as they book extra sessions with their psychologists. It will be a meltdown for Democrats of all stripes. 

The liberal press, with palm to forehead, will wonder how the electorate could not have taken their socially, morally and educationally superior advice. (There’s even a chance Trump may win the popular vote, which would add insult to injury.) Still, I doubt there would be much introspection. It would be beyond their comprehension that America is more like Trump than Harris, so stories of how good Americans were duped by a conman will proliferate, and the “The end is nigh!” countdown will begin. 

Yes, I could talk about Trump’s liabilities, but he’s a known quantity. His personality, behavior and governing style are not new to voters. If Kamala Harris loses, on the other hand, her political obituary will be written on the subjects of risk aversion and policies. Everyone knows the chief election issues are and have been immigration, the economy and inflation, which have left Americans sour on Democrats, but Kamala’s loss will stem from other factors as well. So, we’re going to tackle this in two bites: first off, the main issues everyone knows, and then the issues the party couldn’t overcome with Harris in particular as the candidate. I will deal with the second set of issues in a later installment.

What do the data say?

One note: The US does not elect presidents based on the popular vote, but rather on an electoral college that awards votes to candidates that win in each state. All US states, excluding Maine and Nebraska, have a winner-take-all system in which electoral college votes are awarded to the candidate who wins a majority of individual votes in the state. Most of the other states lean decidedly toward one party or the other; we can be fairly certain that Harris will take California, with its 54 votes, and that Trump will take Texas, with its 40 votes. There are only seven states that are “swing” or “battleground” arenas. Thus, Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin effectively control the outcome of the election. For our purposes, we’ll pay attention to a few of these, most notably Pennsylvania and Michigan, where Harris’s liabilities are the clearest.

Recent omens bode poorly for Democrats. The Wall Street Journal found that most people (54%) think Harris would continue incumbent President Joe Biden’s unpopular policies. That shifts to a three-to-one ratio for undecideds. Trump has also chipped away four points from Harris’s advantage on the issue of abortion, which is Harris’ strongest campaign plank.

The Journal’s Alyssa Finley points out that “three surveys in the past week show that voters rate [Trump] more favorably than Kamala Harris.” According to Gallup, Trump is now viewed favorably by 50% of US adults. This is remarkable. Even in 2016, the year Trump won the presidency, he only held a 36% approval rating.

In non-news of note, The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times decided they wouldn’t issue endorsements that would have reliably gone to Harris. Cue the beltway cries of cowardice, though such endorsements may have little impact for a press that now plumbs historic lows in trust at 31%. 

The media pile-on of Trump and his supporters may have led Joe Rogan, Spotify’s number one podcast host, to say, “The rebels are Republicans now. They’re like, You want to be a rebel, you want to be punk rock? You want to, like, buck the system? You’re a conservative.” He continued, “The liberals are now pro-silencing criticism. They’re pro-censorship online. They’re talking about regulating free speech, and they’re regulating the First Amendment. It’s bananas to watch.” Rogan has tens of millions of listeners, principally young and male. These folks would largely go for Trump anyway, but Harris declined the invitation to make her pitch.

The main election issues

Moving on to the individual issues, inflation and wages may be the biggest of the election, and the Democrats are in difficult territory here. Wages have been flat or below inflation for most of Biden’s presidency, and voters feel it. It takes a while for growing wages to catch up to what was lost when your paycheck was inflated away, and inflation sticks in voter’s minds for a long time even if wages are rising. People flat-out don’t like paying $4.99 for berries when they were $3.99 a couple of years ago. If we look at the difference between inflation and wage growth, Americans are only now getting back to par.

Via Statista.

Home prices are a problem. Analysts at Florida Atlantic University earlier this year showed that the top three areas with overpriced housing are, in order, Detroit, Michigan; Atlanta, Georgia; and Las Vegas, Nevada. All three of those are major cities in swing states. 

Interest rates have dented home sales, and people who have low, locked-in mortgage rates are loath to move, which has reduced housing supply. Even where a suitable house may be found, and even if people can take the interest rate hikes, house prices themselves have leapt up, leaving many unsure if they will achieve the American dream of home ownership.

Via Federal Reserve Economic Data, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

Housing prices and rents have soared in Nevada, but it gets a double whammy with the highest unemployment rate of any state. In that state, Las Vegas has become an eviction capital along with Phoenix in the neighboring swing state of Arizona.

Auto worker jobs are an issue in Michigan. Interest rates have affected purchases of homes, but they also impact car sales. However, the bigger problem might be electric vehicles (EVs). EVs require fewer parts to assemble, and many of those parts are made outside the US. As EVs are more broadly adopted, fewer employees will be required for assembly. By some estimates, EVs require 30–40% less labor than gasoline cars, which is a problem for Harris since she has been a supporter of Environmental Protection Agency rules that carry an effective mandate for EVs. 

That effective mandate requires that nearly 70% of vehicles be EVs by 2035, as the rules forcibly phase out internal combustion engines. T A 2018 study by the United Auto Workers said the number of jobs lost to EVs may rise to 35,000 as these cars are adopted or forced down the throats of customers. This issue has made the US Senate race in Michigan a toss-up. Even the Socialists have been in a tizzy over this.

That’s probably why United Auto Workers union members increasingly vote against their leadership. In other cases, even the leadership is waffling in its historic support of Democrats. The Teamsters, who received tens of billions to shore up rickety pensions courtesy of Biden (and the taxpayers), did not endorse anyone.

Finally, Michigan has the largest Palestinian population in America, and those voters are unhappy with the Biden administration’s support of Israel. Over 100,000 votes in the Democrats’ primary featuring Biden were marked as “uncommitted.” Trump’s 2016 margin of victory in the state was less than 11,000 votes, so the holdouts really matter.

Immigration has surged to all-time highs during the Biden years, and the issue now stands as most people’s number one or two concern. Harris has previously been in favor of decriminalizing illegal migration into the US, and during the Biden administration, she was the point person for addressing border problems. Almost four years later, voters have tired of southern border lawlessness, and city budgets across the nation have strained to accommodate the migrant flows.

This issue has voters hoppin’ mad. The media have gone into overdrive to say she never held such a position. Even though Axios called Kamala the “border czar” early in the administration, they decided that never happened. But if she had been the border czar, there were also folks who wanted you to know she did a great job. It kinda makes you wonder what she was doing for the last three and a half years. I guess she’s veep exclusively for abortion?

Related Reading

FO° Talks: US Immigration Policy Has Now Reached a Complete Impasse

Energy is a swing state issue, and the Biden administration has done its best to staunch domestic fossil fuel production. Yes, US production is at an all-time high, but that’s largely in spite of what the administration has done. There are a million ways to strangle energy production, including halting LNG exports, and I can show you at least 225 very specific ones under the Biden administration.

In probably the most crucial state of Pennsylvania, the extraction of fossil fuels by hydraulic fracturing (fracking) is big business. As the New York Post reports, “In 2022, the industry employed 121,000 Pennsylvanians with an average salary of $97,000, according to FTI Consulting. Fracking also generated $3.2 billion in state and local tax revenue, and more than $6 billion in royalty payments to landowners that year.”

If you look at some helpful graphics from The New York Times, you’ll see that “Blue Wall states fared relatively poorly” when looking at “percentage change in jobs from 2019 to 2023, by county.” This is particularly true of Pennsylvania, where job losses hit the northwest of the state particularly hard. The hard-hit areas are precisely those areas where Pennsylvania maintains the most oil and gas wells.

Oil and gas workers remember that Harris was previously in favor of a fracking ban. Do you think they want to lose their jobs in a tough market? With oil and gas as a major employer in struggling western Pennsylvania, left-wing climate change crusading is a fool’s errand.

Harris now claims she’s against a ban, but during her ill-fated 2020 presidential run, she said, “There’s no question I’m in favor of banning fracking.” Not a lot of nuance there. Even now, Harris’s climate director, Camila Thorndike, has been winking at the pro-ban crew.

Addressing her remarks to “voters who care about climate change” in an interview with Politico, Thorndike noted that Harris “is someone that not only movements can work with, but she has championed these causes, and that we know who she is.” The former Bernie Sanders staffer who is given to calling oil and gas folks “murders” and fossil fuel CEOs “dictators and oligarchs” backtracked, but her point was clear: Kamala never explains why she no longer favors a fracking ban because at heart she remains firmly against fossil fuel production.

Harris has also been trying to sell herself as “the tie-breaking vote on the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which opened new leases for fracking.” Bollocks. This provision was the price West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin exacted for his crucial 50th vote to pass the bill into law, and it prohibits the government from holding offshore wind sales without holding offshore oil and gas leases. Harris can take all the credit she wants, but to mix metaphors, voters should know the Biden-Harris administration fought Manchin’s line in the sand tooth and nail.

These are all messy policy issues for the Harris campaign, and endless talk of dreams, aspirations and “joy” is wearing thin. Voters say they don’t know where she stands on the issues, and they want to hear more than the 9,000th retelling of her mother at a yellow Formica table. Along those lines, I will delve into the more personal issues of what may have undone her bid for the presidency. If she loses.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post If She Loses, Part 1: Kamala Wrong on the Issues appeared first on Fair Observer.

The first attempt came on July 13 by Thomas Matthew Crooks, a bright, quiet 20-year-old who had recently graduated with an associate degree. His motives remain uncertain, but he conducted searches for public appearances of a variety of political and governmental figures leading up to his attempt and death.

Crooks attempted to join his high school’s rifle team, but they rejected him. Years later, he climbed up a building and crouched on the roof, where several people noticed him before his assassination attempt. A split second before Crooks fired his first shot, Trump was saved by a turn of his head as he referred a graph behind him just as the first bullet nicked his ear in one of eight shots taken. Soon after that, police killed Crooks with a single sniper shot.

A mere two months later, on September 15, Ryan Wesley Routh was chased and then captured after a Secret Service agent noticed a gun barrel sticking through a chain link fence as Trump golfed at one of his courses. Routh had been a rebel in search of a cause, with much of the last few years ineffectually presenting himself as an ally to Ukraine and coordinator of foreign recruits. Souring on Ukraine, he then pivoted to Taiwan, claiming on Twitter last year that he could supply thousands of “economical NATO trained Afghan soldiers to help defend Taiwan” as part of a foreign defense force. His other positions included pro-Palestinian and anti-China rants in his self-published book.

A restless and disturbed soul, he sought meaning in his life. “I would tremendously enjoy the invitation to join any monumental worthy cause to bring about real change in our world,” according to Routh’s LinkedIn profile. “I am certainly free to relocate to any remote location on the planet that might render the most positive impact.”

The repercussions

The media coverage, President Joe Biden’s statement and Democratic candidate Kamala Harris’s statement on the attempt focused on the Secret Service and its funding. Admittedly, more robust Secret Service protection is now necessary for presidential candidates, but recruiting, training and deploying Secret Service resources in the brief weeks before the election will be a serious strain on resources if not impossible. Little addressed underlying causes and the possible consequences that would have followed had the assailant been successful. 

For starters, how would an election proceed? At this post-convention point, party rules allow the Republican National Committee (RNC) to select a new candidate. How, then, would that new candidate, so near election day, become familiar to voters or develop and explain policies? How would he or she make a pitch to voters? Simple answer: the task would be impossible. The result would be the most partisan election ever, with impulse buys right and left to determine the leader of the free world.

As though that weren’t bad enough, a Harris win by a sizable margin after a neck-and-neck race against Trump would be viewed as wholly illegitimate by many. Having secured no votes in the primary from her party and with the opposing candidate dead weeks before the election, she would have no mandate to govern, and half the country would see her as effectively unsanctioned. Some would feel her rhetoric precipitated the murder. The mood in America would be raucous. 

A new sotto voce election theme would arise: kill the other candidate close enough to the election and you have a better chance of winning. Death threats to Harris would be overwhelming. Political discourse would be the least of our worries. Democrats emphasize that democracy is on the ticket, but the country would erupt if either candidate were killed and democracy were entirely removed from the ticket.

The causes

Trump blames the rhetoric of Harris and others, and the left has indeed long disparaged him as a threat to democracy itself, often styled possessively as “our democracy.” For a period, “threat to democracy” was the albatross Biden and then Harris hung around his neck and hoped would carry them to victory. On January 5, 2024, Biden said, “We’re living in an era where a determined minority is doing everything in its power to try to destroy our democracy for their own agenda.” On July 3, a mere 10 days before the first assassination attempt, Harris posted on her Facebook and Instagram page, “It’s simple: Donald Trump is a threat to our democracy and fundamental freedoms. With your vote, we will stop him this November.” 

By decrying Trump as the end of America, it’s not difficult to understand how those seeking a cause might find appeal in the immortalizing notion of the man (in these cases) who single-handedly saved the republic.

Meanwhile, the justification for violence to achieve social or political ends has become the norm. Everyone recalls the January 6 riot, which elicits no lack of disgust in yours truly, but the institutions held. The mobsters came nowhere near altering the course of the election, yet the coverage continues to this day. Almost no one reported on three days of riots in May of 2020 that saw 60 Secret Service agents injured near the White House during George Floyd protests. Even where the event was reported, Trump was to blame. The Guardian quickly pointed out in its subheading, “Trump has inflamed tensions as protests rage across the US,” before noting, “the unrest has come to Donald Trump’s doorstep.” Few mentioned the broken bones sustained by the Secret Service or that the “protesters flung rocks, urine and alcohol at them.” Political violence is not the exclusive domain of one party, and it needs to end across the board.

The normalization of political violence

Politicians are no better in their choice of words. Many use wild language and then condemn the violence as though it were a get-out-of-jail-free card. They toe the line, something happens, they say something like “political violence has no place in America,” and claim they have “distanced themselves” from what they incite. In such cases, I feel people have become like Ricky Bobby, thinking the phrase “with all due respect” washes everything away and, in this case, entitles them to threaten others.

Such incendiary, hyperbolic language is bound to elicit passion in some and murderous psychosis in others. It was a notable low point when Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) told conservative Justices of the Supreme Court, “You have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.” Justices have life tenure. What was going to “hit” them? Since his remarks, there have been multiple attempts on the lives of sitting justices. Justice Amy Coney Barret was sent home one day in a bulletproof vest.

I could go on with such examples, but politicians, judges and even voters are now “threats.” Aside from the “threat to democracy” comments about Trump, there are the ad nauseam misrepresentations of his statements that make him sound not merely objectionable but malign. “Dictator on day one,” “bloodbath,” and “very fine people on both sides” comments have all been wholly taken out of context by the media and politicians for votes, views, and clicks.

My point is not to say Democrats behave worse than Republicans. My point is that you cannot represent someone as an existential threat to the country’s existence without expecting irrational people to take action. While I am staunchly in favor of free speech, we should appeal to our better angels and use the First Amendment to speak about ideas rather than engage in overwrought vilifications. Allowing the public to decide which ideas are better is how this country has governed itself from the beginning, and ideas should be the focus rather than the relatively unpersuasive politics of personal enmity.

I can’t argue against those who call Trump a convicted felon. Still, virtually no one who yells about his felonious transgressions can explain the novel two-step legal theory or other aspects of his conviction. For them, the Queen of Hearts will do: “Sentence first – verdict afterwards.” All that matters is that he is a convict.

Treasonous, too, is something used to describe Trump, but Special Counsel Jack Smith has refiled a revised indictment that does not include such a charge. Only the original four claims are in the document: conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of an attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights. Even so, there hasn’t been so much as a trial date set.

The end of reasoned debate

The question arises as to why political violence has become the norm such that an attempted assassination of a former president and current candidate is news for one day. Why is the focus on Secret Service personnel and not who we have become and why? How has there not been a more significant examination of what we invite should an assassin be successful?

I’m not saying Trump is a puppy dog or that he doesn’t bear blame for escalating rhetoric, but the recent past did not bring claims of an existential threat posed by a single nominee who nevertheless has the ear of a lot of voters. Hillary Clinton called a group of voters “deplorables” and said they were “basically irredeemable.” Okay, not a good look, but she didn’t point to one person and say it’s all over because of him. I also recall the past chants of “Bush lied, people died.” It was a bit simplistic, but that was not about the end of the US. Portraying Mr. Trump as Hitler, as The New Republic did on its June cover, paints an ominous future using unambiguous imagery that metastasizes this country’s fury without informing.

When you portray someone as the singular manifestation of all that is wrong with the country, when every ill is concentrated in a sole personification, when you present an entire system of government that hangs in the balance but for an individual, you invite lunacy. Reasoned debate should prevail, and while individuals may bring a litany of problems and concerns to the feet of various politicians, the end of the country should not be among them. If we continue down these paths of Mephistophelian metaphors, by our own hands and not by policy positions the country may eventually “run out of lives here.”

[Liam Roman edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post How Much Longer Will Donald Trump and American Democracy Survive Political Violence? appeared first on Fair Observer.

Harris’s strategy for winning key voter support

During her 2020 presidential campaign, Kamala Harris promoted a progressive platform with proposals for single-payer healthcare, defunding the police and a ban on fracking. Over time, however, she has walked these positions back. Instead of advocating for full single-payer healthcare, she now supports a more gradual approach to expanding access. Her focus on policing has shifted from defunding to reforming practices. On fracking, Harris now backs restrictions rather than a complete ban. Despite these adjustments, she remains dedicated to progressive values, especially in environmental protection and social justice. Still, she risks being labeled a flip-flopper as she attempts to make herself more acceptable for a national audience.

Harris’s path to victory in the upcoming election depends on her ability to appeal to voters in key swing states like Pennsylvania, Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin and Nevada. Voters in these decisive electorates do not necessarily have the same concerns that the average voter does nationwide. While Harris enjoys strong support in blue states like California and New York, she must win over voters in these swing states to secure the presidency. 

The Trump campaign has already launched attacks against Harris, focusing on her record as a prosecutor and her stance on immigration. In response, Harris released an ad highlighting her efforts to pass immigration reform and blamed Trump for obstructing these efforts. However, her role in managing immigration policy for the Biden administration and her previous support for decriminalizing border crossings may make it difficult for her to distance herself from the current administration’s handling of the border, which has drawn fire from both sides of the aisle. This is a big hurdle, as voters currently (and, historically speaking, unusually) rank immigration as their top concern. 

Her exceptional fundraising skills, strong appeal to minority voters and substantial experience as a prosecutor and senator strengthen Harris’s candidacy. However, she faces challenges, including perceived inexperience in foreign policy, a history of staff turnover and concerns about her preparedness and consistency. Addressing these issues will be key to enhancing her campaign’s effectiveness and broadening her appeal.

A progressive vision for change amidst political challenges

If elected, Kamala Harris would champion a progressive agenda emphasizing environmental protection, social justice and healthcare reform. Her focus on climate change would likely drive initiatives to reduce carbon emissions and promote sustainable energy. She might pursue reforms in social justice to address systemic inequalities and support marginalized communities. Her healthcare reform efforts could include expanding access and affordability through measures like improving the Affordable Care Act. However, Harris would face significant opposition from Republicans, particularly regarding her proposed tax increases and her foreign policy positions on Israel and Ukraine. Overcoming these challenges will require strategic negotiation and bipartisan cooperation.

There will not be enough money to fulfill every item on the progressive wish list, so Harris will have to prioritize if she is elected. As president, she would likely pick a Green New Deal and single-payer healthcare as spending priorities. It is probable that she would raise takes, especially for specific population segments, to finance these programs. This aligns with her past support for big government programs and her identification as the most liberal senator. 

The election outcome will depend on various factors, including the state of the economy, the effectiveness of campaigning and the candidates’ ability to connect with voters. Harris’s success will hinge on her ability to moderate her progressive stances while still appealing to her base and distancing herself from the Biden administration’s less popular policies. 

The 2024 presidential election promises to be a closely contested race, with Harris facing a formidable opponent in Donald Trump. The outcome will have significant implications for the future of the United States, both domestically and internationally. 

[Peter Choi edited this podcast and wrote the first draft of this piece.]

The views expressed in this article/podcast are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Make Sense of Kamala Harris. With $200+ Million Now, Can She Win? appeared first on Fair Observer.

Vice President Kamala Harris has succeeded Biden as the presumptive Democratic nominee. She rapidly amassed broad support from donors and party leaders. Still, although the party is trying to broadcast a message of unity, the struggle between party leaders has revealed a cleft between factions.

On the Republican side, Trump survived a brush with death after an assassin’s bullet missed his skull. A million-dollar photograph of Trump, bleeding from his right ear, pumping his fist with Old Glory in the background has galvanized Republicans. Trump’s popularity increased further after the Republican National Convention, which resonated with his core base. Meanwhile, Silicon Valley entrepreneurs like Elon Musk and the Winklevoss brothers pledged significant financial support.

Trump has selected Senator J.D. Vance as his running mate. The inclusion of the Ohio native and author of the bestselling memoir Hillbilly Elegy strengthens his appeal among working-class voters. Vance, whose wife has Telugu roots, may also pull in support from parts of the Indian diaspora. This will be still more important now that the Democratic candidate is an Indian-American.

Personality, policy and identity politics

Harris is doing well in the polls, but popularity is not everything. In the US, the candidate who wins the most votes does not win, but rather the candidate who wins the most electors, which are decided state-by-state. This means that votes in solidly Republican and Democratic states have little influence on the outcome. Instead, a few key swing states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and possibly Arizona or Nevada will be decisive. Doing well in national polls does not necessarily translate to doing well in these heterogeneous regions scattered across the country. The candidates’ success depends on appealing to voters in these states, focusing on issues such as the economy, immigration, and social concerns.

Voters identify economic concerns, particularly inflation and the cost of living, as key issues influencing their decisions. Across party lines, pundits expect immigration to play a significant role. While social issues like abortion and green energy matter to specific voter segments, economic issues will likely be the primary focus of the election.

Aside from policy, however, personality and identity politics will also have their impact on the election. Trump’s bombastic, controversial and idiosyncratic personality and Harris’s multicultural appeal as a Indian- and black american could influence voter perceptions. The candidates’ positions on issues like Israel and India could also affect their support among specific diaspora communities.

Despite Trump’s modest current advantage in the polls, the recent changes in the Democratic landscape make the outcome hard to predict. Harris faces challenges regarding her track record and perceived weaknesses. Still, he has shown an ability to secure funding and unite the Democratic base. The candidates’ ability to address key issues and mobilize voters in crucial swing states will determine the outcome of a probably closely contested election.

[Peter Choi wrote the first draft of this piece.]

The views expressed in this article/podcast are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Making Sense of the Mad 2024 American Election appeared first on Fair Observer.

Related Reading

Arsenal Of Genocide: This Is What the US Is Supplying Israel

The summary talks about Israel’s “bloody invasion of Gaza” without a peep about how this started. As Bill Murray’s character asks in the movie Ghostbusters, “Where do you think all of this is coming from, the sky?” Where is the discussion of crimes, war or otherwise, of Hamas’s brutal, indiscriminate attack on kids at a concert and private citizens on kibbutzim?

Alas, these points aren’t raised; the questions aren’t asked. We’re just told Israel is lousy and doing all kinds of scary-worded things with US assistance. I don’t mind a difference of opinion, but when you call something a genocide, and particularly when you do it in your title, you kinda have to prove genocide.

The numbers do not support a genocide

The only piece of data they provide for their horrific claims is the 35,000 deaths cited from the Ministry of Health in Gaza. Guess who pays the salaries there? Hamas. The numbers are propaganda, and I wish the media would stop credulously citing them. In a virtually unremarked admission, Hamas said they can’t account for 10,000 of their own number. If you want to say those are merely unidentified, well, it may be, but then you have to explain why, mathematically, the books are cooked. They simply don’t add up, and yet every media outlet dutifully reports this nonsense.

The headline everyone always grabs is the total number of deaths or how many women and children have been killed, and while I’m sure some women are Hamas fighters, most are men. By definition, the balance will be women and children. With that said, see the aforementioned math problem. Even if we assume these numbers are correct, which seems far fetched, how many are Hamas fighters? Whatever it is, that number isn’t zero. Hamas isn’t interested in the subject, but Israel maintains at least one third of the dead are Hamas soldiers/militants. 

As for the “genocide” supposedly occurring, if at least one-third of the dead are militants, as per Israel’s estimates, and if we give Hamas the benefit of the doubt with it’s estimate of 35,000 total dead (seems a fair trade), then by removing the terrorists from the death tally, civilian deaths represent at most 1% of the Gaza Strip’s 2.3 million population.That’s a much lower civilian casualty rate than America achieved in Iraq and Afghanistan. Considering Hamas cowardly cloaks itself with women and children — in particular using the “triangle” of schools, mosques, and hospitals — I see restraint in those numbers rather than genocide.

CODEPINK’s narrative assumes malicious intent

If it’s genocide, then why has Israel assisted with the delivery, prior to the US-led Gaza pier operation, of half a million tons of assistance to a war zone where even America has found aid distribution difficult? If it’s a genocide, why warn refugees of violence and drop fliers and make social media posts showing where the fighting will occur? If it’s a genocide, then why now? In 1967, the population of the Gaza Strip was a little more than 350,000. By 2024, Gaza’s population has grown by more than a factor of six. 

John Spencer, a chair of urban warfare at West Point, recently said, “Israel has done more to prevent civilian casualties in war than any military in history.” Israel’s approach to the war, he says, is “setting a standard that will be both hard and potentially problematic to repeat.” If this is a genocide, it’s a damn poor one.

I’ll give CODEPINK’s Medea Benjamin and Nicolas Davies research plaudits and the benefit of the doubt as to the quantity and types of weapons the US supplies, but their narrative is wild and unsubstantiated. It’s also illogical. The authors quote a retired US colonel who says existing Israeli stocks suffice for the Rafah assault and actually could “level” the place. This quote is to suggest the US need not give Israel any more arms or related materiel. This suggestion is simply untrue.

If Israel’s goal was genocide, it could have simply leveled Rafah. In fact, Israel probably wants other munitions to avoid that very outcome. Certain kinds of missiles permit more targeted strikes. Apparently, it didn’t cross the authors’ minds that they and the Israelis might be on the same page.

Also, mayhap the Israelis don’t want to exhaust their stores and be vulnerable to Hezbollah’s 150,000 to 200,000 rockets to the north. Or what about Iran’s weapons? The Houthis have been taking potshots at Israeli and US vessels in response to the war in Gaza. Does anyone think these groups aren’t working in coordination? If you do, notice that attacks on US forces from Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and Syria ceased during the November 23–30 ceasefire.

Israel is surrounded by enemies, and it cannot let its citizens be raped, murdered and kidnaped without a response. The authors seem to have forgotten who is the David and who the Goliath in what is effectively a regional war. If so, a glance at the star on Israel’s flag or the yellow patch Jews were once made to wear would serve as a reminder of both the odds Israel faces and the strength of Jews to persevere and prevail.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post On Gaza, CODEPINK Now Engages in Yellow Journalism appeared first on Fair Observer.

Rowdy protestors joined, and Duncan, as The New York Times reported, “was relentlessly heckled and traded barbs with students. He tried to power through his prepared remarks but was unable to speak more than a few words without interruption.” As for the “traded” barbs: Among other things, the students yelled “We hope your daughters get raped.” The judge called them “juvenile idiots” — not exactly a fair “trade.”

Duncan asked for an administrator to restore order, as a video and the transcript show, but one of the five administrators present had already decided to cast her lot with the protestors beforehand. Tirien Steinbach, associate dean for diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) at Stanford Law School, proceeded to give a tendentious harangue using prepared remarks that asked rhetorically, “Is the juice worth the squeeze?” This phrase implicitly asked whether Duncan’s speech at the invitation of Federalist Society students was worth the “harm” it caused and the tumult the protestors chose to create. A classic heckler’s veto.

Never mind that Steinbach spoke for students, yet was not one of them, attended a rally she did not have to attend, was not a member of the group that invited Duncan. I could add that she clearly did not speak for those law school students who wanted to hear what Duncan had to say.

Why did she encourage the protestors rather than simply let everyone have his or her say? Quiet the students, create time for the dissenters and let the band play on. Fomenting the whole thing with a citrus-squeezing metaphor made a hash of the proceedings, and you have to wonder if the privileged students in the room understood her meaning. After all, isn’t squeezing juice the job of the maid?

Liberal campuses are illiberal with conservatives

This kind of thing is nothing new for conservative lawyers speaking at Federalist Society events. In another example of such behavior, Yale students used vulgarities to shout down a speaker on a panel discussing free speech, only to claim quieting the heckler infringed on the protestor’s free speech. Does it get any more Orwellian? Is it any wonder conservative judges are now saying they will not hire from certain schools for coveted clerkships?

On American university campuses, “Do as I say, not as I do” has long been the idea of DEI, and woe betide anyone who disagrees. The screaming hordes will label you a racist/sexist/body-shamer and declare that no one should associate with you. It’s a way of achieving by might what has not been won through effort or argument.

When the subjective standards are that silence is violence, speech is violence, but pronouncing orthodox beliefs that cut off, intimidate or even result in physical harm count as speech, there are no grounds for reasoned debate beyond how one feels. How one feels is, of course, justification for whatever is demanded and then it’s just a matter of volume and how many on your side show up to bring the thunder. You know who behaves this way? Children.

Learning how to be an adult, or as some might say, “adulting,” is the age-old social justification for college. Yet that’s not what’s happening on campuses these days. In watching the protests, child psychology — not adolescent psychology — is the most instructive lens. Why is that? There’s nothing prefrontal cortical about the protests. Universities have turned into infantilizing places where students of a certain political persuasion get to have their cake and eat it too without listening, articulating at less than a shout or disciplining themselves.

I have news for these kiddos: In the real world, you shouldn’t expect acquiescence and acceptance when you rail at the world and scream at people you don’t like. You also don’t get to cry for a teddy bear and safe spaces when someone says something mildly upsetting. Actually, I take that back. You do get to do that — up until the age of 4, and even then it’s not a pretty look.

Along those lines, barricading yourself in an administrative building you have “liberated” doesn’t mean you effectively get Uber Eats courtesy of the university. Even the media had to laugh at that one. Asking for “humanitarian aid” (you have to love the terminology) as you squat in a building where you don’t belong and that you’re free to leave at any time is like a child threatening to sit in a Build-A-Bear until a stuffed critter is in the offing. Parents generally don’t respond to this kind of thing by waltzing to the cash register unless they want to raise an entitled little brat. The protestor’s approach is more Tricks for Trustfunders than Rules for Radicals, and the rest of the US watches with skepticism and disgust.

God give me one sentence more

Maybe I just gotta get suspended more?

Hashtag it, get mentions for it

Make you love it, get it trending more

— Chance the Rapper, in the movie Juice

These young people don’t like something, and they will shout and tweet and get suspended and arrested in front of cameras until they get it. They want a cookie (their demands) and a participation trophy (news cameras and friendly ink declaring their bravery). They also don’t want to take exams. But something was rotten in the State of Denmark from the get-go, and the stench wafted up to DC. At a hearing before the House of Representatives, Ivy League school presidents (two of whom are now former presidents) were not even able to say before the US Congress whether calling for the genocide of Jews constitutes bullying and harassment. Congress and the public disagreed. Such “speech” by mobs setting up tent cities on campuses is defended as free and rightfully given. Such actions misunderstand the First Amendment, but that’s a discussion for another day. 

In all of this, a question arises: By allowing and thereby tacitly condoning these masked and misbehaving masses at universities, “is the juice worth the squeeze” for parents, students, administrators, donors and Democrats (the protestors’ principal supporters) in general?

I think we lost them.

— Tupac Shakur, Juice

Protestors are turning most Americans off

The protestors have enjoyed favorable press in certain circles, but their display has turned off most Americans. Among them are many parents who saw their college tuition going to institutions where classes went online, graduation ceremonies were canceled and even exams and grades were drawn into question because of rebellious squatters. Look no further than a recent “cold open” for the sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live — a program not renowned for its conservative bent — in which a parent working multiple jobs says “I am supportive of y’all’s kids protesting, not my kids. My kids know better.” He goes on to say his daughter “better have her butt in class” for his $68,000 dollars in tuition. His daughter, he assures the other parents, “ain’t talkin’ ‘bout no free this, free that. Cause I tell you what ain’t free — Columbia [University].”

The narrative of elites flaunting their privilege in the evergreen warrens of universities, far removed from the day-to-day concerns of working-class stiffs has shifted moderates away from President Joe Biden’s party. Everyone and their dog knows it’s not Republicans building these encampments, and the long-running shift of the Democratic base from blue collar workers to suburban elites has come into sharp focus. Liberal indulgence of students at elite universities who shout down others in the name of “harm” but claim unmitigated free speech stemming from snowflake victimhood cuts against the grain of “checking your privilege.” Contradiction much?

The revolution will be catered, but the voters won’t be persuaded. In fact, the protests appear to be helping Trump as the narrative of Republican dysfunction in the House gives way to one of Democrat disunity and fecklessness. Yet Democrats are more worried about alienating voters in Michigan than they are about losing moderates in the rest of the country. As for the pro-Palestine arguments made on campus, no less than Hilary Clinton had a few words to say about the “ignorance” of the protestors. For this crime, she was cast from the bosom of the online woke.

School presidents and other administrators are also learning a thing or two about the peril of having, in Duncan’s words, “prisoners now running the asylum.” After the aforementioned congressional hearing about the protests, the presidents of the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard were both forced out. In the case of Harvard’s president, accusations of plagiarism and the shock, shock of her suddenly discovered thin academic record made the ousting more palatable to the academic class.

But what about higher education’s value? Heaven knows students are rethinking it, and Gen Z is already opting for cheaper university diplomas and becoming the “tool belt generation.” Beyond debt aversion, there’s a litany of reasons for declining enrollment, and whether it’s demographics, cost, confidence in the diploma or the reasonably strong economy, there are fewer people going to college.

Cyclical and immutable factors aside, the most damning problem is the loss of faith in the value of a college diploma. Last summer, prior to the protests, Gallup found strong evidence of the growing disenchantment, reporting that “Americans’ confidence in higher education has fallen to 36%, sharply lower than in two prior readings in 2015 (57%) and 2018 (48%).” Unsurprisingly, Republicans tend to resent the indoctrination they pay handsomely for, and between 2018 and 2023 “confidence once again fell across the board, but Republicans’ sank the most — 20 points to 19%, the lowest of any group.” Just wait until their kids come back wearing the college couture of keffiyehs and sunglasses.

University enrollment is declining in part due to demographics but also as a percentage of 18- to 24-year-olds. Maybe it’s because the parents and kids are wondering what they get for the money and effort. Few debate whether there’s a proliferation of useless degrees out there, and the protests have onlookers scratching their heads as to how the students have so much time for lounging in the quad with ornate signs. Don’t they have papers to write and classes to attend? I guess my question is, what’s an education worth when elite universities dole out A’s like Tic Tacs? Harvard and Yale give 80% of their students A’s. Grade inflation began in the early 1980s, but now it’s ridiculous. If you crush the entrance exam, all you have to do is sit back and wait for the fancy diploma and job offers from Wall Street and McKinsey. The educational-industrial machine has turned into a rubber stamp.

Then we have the donors, the Big Kahunas of the postsecondary racket. Ken Griffin is done with Harvard and the “whiny snowflakes” it produces who are “lost in the wilderness of microaggressions, a DEI agenda that seems to have no real end game.” Not to knock the guy while he’s down, but if giving half a billion dollars to a school doesn’t improve academic achievement, more dollars are unlikely to change the outcome.

Pardon the pun, but the exodus of billionaire donors to university endowments has been astonishing. There are only so many people with pockets deep enough to plunk down checks that even register on these schools’ war chests, and they’re mostly searching for the exit doors. One can argue that endowments in certain places can afford to tell donors to go fly a kite. Would that it were so and that money found its way into the coffers of schools focused on education, not politics, as a profession. Ruth Gottesman donated a billion dollars to a Bronx school where no ivy springs, but good work is done. That school is named after no less than Albert Einstein — a Jew.

Posh American universities will do fine but their luster is dimming

Even if Harvard’s early admissions dipped 17% this year, Ivy League schools will do fine. Applications to elite universities are up; however, how much are employers interested in these kids? Perhaps less than you might think. Conservative judges fleeing these graduates are one thing, but a recent Forbes article has this to say: “Among those in charge of employment decisions, 33% said they are less likely to hire Ivy League graduates than they were five years ago”. Ouch. There’s no sense in crying over spilled juice, but we definitely need a mop on aisle five.

At JP Morgan, Jamie Diamond wants people who will take responsibility for mistakes. “Do you take the blame” he asks, “because very often, it is your fault.” I guess the entitled are out. The House of Morgan wants hungry people, not diplomaed jackanapes.

Lastly, is it worth it to the integrity of student populations? Many of these campus protests were fomented by or succumbed to outside influences. As solid numbers of unaffiliated people get arrested at campus protests, it’s becoming clear that outside actors trained and, possibly, financed the protests for their own reasons. New York City Mayor Eric Adams had no problem saying it, and the numbers don’t lie. According to Hizzoner the mayor, nearly 30% of the people arrested at Columbia and 60% of the arrests at City College were unaffiliated with the respective schools. As much as places like NPR would like to call “outside agitators” a trope, 50% of the people arrested in the Big Apple’s campus protests weren’t students. The media has been covering down for some of the unaffiliated like Nahla Al-Arian, a woman who is married to a fellah who pled guilty to, and was deported for, aiding a terrorist organization — but regardless of who they are, aren’t they outside protestors by any definition? No school affiliation? You’re clearly not a student protestor, and you’re getting in the way of students who want to get an education.

Certainly, claiming the police “caused” riots and demonstrating an unwillingness even to acknowledge the atrocities Israel endured at the hand of Hamas on October 7 last year were obtuse at best, while comparing New York’s Finest to the Ku Klux Klan makes clear diplomas in histrionics are not bound with marketable skills. For Pete’s sake, even Google knows it. And taking down Old Glory to fly the Palestinian flag is a disturbing education in campus patriotism. University of North Carolina Interim Chancellor Lee Roberts said enough is enough, but the protestors screaming him down sounded nothing so much as crying children. Enough is enough, and shouting, screaming and replacing this country’s flag with another betrays not only a poor moral compass but misplaced educational priorities.

Days ago, the Harvard Jewish Alumni Alliance published a striking report that shows what it’s like to be a Jewish student at Harvard. It also reminds readers that Harvard’s protests began before Israel had even launched a response, effectively making these demonstrations an exercise in cheerleading the massacre of Jews rather than a response to Israel’s reaction. The groupthink and antipathy against Jews by faculty, speakers and students shows the ivory tower needs to practice what it preaches. Tolerance, empathy, understanding and humanity are the stakes.

The malcontents on campus have rendered a loss to all, aside from the terrorist group Hamas, which found their protests “useful,” and as the protestors leave for the summer break, they are also asking if anything was accomplished. If we judge the protests by outcome, the universities, students, administrators, donors, parents and politicians suffered. As for Tirien Steinbach, the Stanford DEI associate dean, she left Stanford and with it her six-figure salary. One has to wonder if even she is now questioning whether the juice was worth the squeeze.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Student Protests in America Now: Is the Juice Worth the Squeeze? appeared first on Fair Observer.

Contrary to popular belief, not all of the immigrants entering the US do so illegally. Many migrants use legal immigration methods to enter the US, only to overstay their welcome as provisions time out. So the biggest question is not why so many people are crossing the borders. Rather, the big question is why current immigration policies are failing. The answer lies in the incentive for both Republicans and Democrats to keep the issue open for the parties’ own agendas.

The sudden flood proves things need to change

While it isn’t clear exactly why so many immigrants are making the journey, it is clear that elements of current immigration policy need to change. Neither President Joe Biden nor his predecessor Donald Trump seem to have made great progress in fixing the issue. Biden has fought to overturn strict Trump-era policies such as the Remain in Mexico policy and Title 42. Yet the Biden administration seems to have de facto opened the borders up wholesale, saturating the country with both legal and illegal immigrants. US cities and states are not prepared to deal with the influx.

Thus, the Republican party blames the inundated border on Biden. Yet the party, which controls the lower house of Congress, has blocked several bills and deals that could potentially change immigration policy. Why? Republicans want the issue to stay open because it gives them ammunition against the Biden administration. As long as the issue stays open, they can accuse Biden of creating chaos. At least until the coming presidential election in November of this year, the Republicans have little reason to close the show early.

The border is an issue that resonates with the voter bases of both parties. Many Democrats care deeply about immigration and want to see an administration that is welcoming to migrants and does not repeat the harsh scenes, like widespread child detention, they witnessed during the Trump years. Yet Biden is caught between pleasing his base on the one hand and the need to appear effective and in control on the other.

What’s the deal with the current deal?

One thing is clear: There is very little consensus on Capitol Hill on how to move forward. It is clear that immigration needs to change somehow, but no one has yet given the definitive answer as to how.

US immigration policy has had a long development. The 1924 Immigration Act set up a quota system for arrivals on the basis of national origin. The 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act abolished this system, instead selecting immigrants on the basis of professional skills, education or family relationship to current US citizens. Immigration policies have shifted over the decades with the ever-changing political landscape. However, they now seem to have reached a state of stasis.

John McCain and Ted Kennedy collaborated on a bipartisan reform bill, the 2005 Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act. Yet it never became law. In recent decades, Democrats and Republicans alike have killed potential immigration deals. They are incentivized to keep the issue front, center, and far from conclusion. Manipulating the issue is a far better option for both parties. Today, Democrats hope to gain a larger voter base, and Republicans hope to undermine the Biden administration. The US is beginning to face the consequences of this two-party game. 

An immigration deal is currently making its way through Congress. It seems like the bill is practically gift-wrapped for Republicans. Because of the political pressure the Biden’s party is facing to act, Democrats are resigned to altering asylum and parole provisions in order to get a deal that will reduce the flow of people. Yet the bill continues to hit walls. Since the time of recording, a version of the bill died in the Senate. Yet Biden is continuing to urge Republicans to revive the legislative effort.

The stasis has generated both push and blowback on the state level. Texas in particular, along with its governor Greg Abbott, is the leading charge in state-level anger. Texas had begun busing migrants into Democrat-run cities. There is a sort of political genius in this plan. Texas has finally made the “migrant problem” an issue for the northern states that have denied the severity of the situation. Abbott declared a state of invasion, claiming that the vast number of illegal migrants has forced his hand.

Related Reading

Republican Governors’ Revolt Tests Biden’s Willpower Over Illegal Immigration

Twenty-five Republican governors signed a petition supporting his decision. A standoff in Shelby Park between Texas state militia and Border Patrol over border protection methods has put pressure on the Biden administration’s image. At time of writing, the standoff is still ongoing.

The outlook is beginning to look bleak

Republicans see this as a win-win situation. Either Biden will do something about immigration, or his government will need to punish Texas. Both choices will make the president look weak. Had he done something earlier, he would have retained some credibility. However, any “tough” stance on immigration he takes now would be a betrayal against his party and most notably against his platform. Republicans are keen on capitalizing on the issue to cripple Biden’s chances at reelection. 

Yet even if Biden does run on a tougher platform, Republicans would still have the upper hand. Trump’s strict immigration policies resonate with much of the population. To voters, it seems like he might have the answers to the border issue. But if Trump were to win, Democrats would no longer be interested in a deal. Without the fear of losing reelection pushing them to fast-forward the current bill, Democrats would begin to fight for more provisions.

In short, the US might not get a deal like the current one again. The clash over the border question will continue as long as a bill is on the table. Democrats claim dictators for the flood of immigrants. Republicans claim a weak administration. One thing is clear: There incentives and reasons why the status quo remains as it is. And as long as there are incentives, there will be stasis.

[Cheyenne Torres wrote the first draft of this piece.]

The views expressed in this article/video are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post FO° Talks: US Immigration Policy Has Now Reached a Complete Impasse appeared first on Fair Observer.

Haley served as governor of South Carolina and as the US Ambassador to the United Nations. She presents a unique profile within the Republican Party. Her tenure at the UN showcased her as a tough, outspoken diplomat, while her governorship highlighted a pragmatic approach to governance.

Despite these credentials, Haley’s candidacy raises questions about her ability to consolidate the Republican base, which is staunchly loyal to Trump. Critics argue that her positioning as a more traditional conservative may not resonate with the populist wing of the party. Additionally, she harshly criticized Trump for his role in the January 6, 2021, riot on Capitol Hill that sought to overturn the result of the 2020 election. Haley later walked these comments back, giving the impression that she lacks steadfastness, which may have diminished her appeal.

Haley’s challenge lies in striking a delicate balance between the traditional conservative wing of the party and the populist wave that still engulfs the GOP. The viability of Haley’s candidacy will depend on her ability to close this gap in a field where Trump’s enduring presence still dominates.

The enigma of a second Trump term

Trump is currently undergoing a range of civil and criminal cases, ranging from business fraud to his alleged role in the Capitol riot. Despite the legal storms, Trump’s base has demonstrated remarkable resilience and loyalty. This unwavering support underscores the deep-seated cultural and political divides within the US. However, the question of sustainability looms large. Will these legal challenges eventually erode Trump’s base or impact his eligibility for office?

The enduring popularity of Trump within the party raises questions about the true influence of legal troubles on his political standing. While investigations may raise doubts, Trump’s ability to maintain a loyal following suggests that, for now, his legal woes haven’t significantly dented his political fortress. However, the long-term impact remains uncertain, making the upcoming election a critical juncture for Trump’s political future.

Observers often discuss the Republican primary as if Trump’s nomination were a foregone conclusion. His enduring popularity and the absence of a strong, unifying challenger contribute to this perception. However, the certainty surrounding Trump’s dominance may be premature. The political landscape is dynamic, and unexpected candidates could emerge, challenging the assumed trajectory of the Republican primary.

Speculation about Trump’s potential running mate adds an additional layer of complexity. Analysts mention figures like Senator Tim Scott, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy or Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. The selection process will not only signal Trump’s priorities but also introduce dynamics that may shape the general election in unexpected ways.

What might the future look like?

Predictions about a second Trump presidency are fraught with concerns about the direction he may take the country. His first term was characterized by unconventional governance, and a potential second term could see an emboldened Trump pushing his agenda without the constraints of re-election. This prospect raises questions about the potential impact on domestic and foreign policy.

The protectionist policies of Trump’s first presidency have already left a significant imprint on the global economic order. Biden’s reaction to these policies becomes a crucial point of contention. Critics argue that Biden has failed to articulate a clear alternative that addresses the shortcomings of globalization while protecting American interests. With a possible second Trump presidency on the horizon, worries about further erosion of democratic principles and the exacerbation of polarization worldwide are mounting.

Finally, many are concerned that Trump, with a freer hand in his second term, would endanger democracy not only abroad but also at home. Without the check of another election, Trump might pursue more radical policies and executive actions, potentially leading to significant consequences for the rule of law and the balance of power within the US government.

As the nation inches closer to the next presidential election, the unfolding dynamics will determine the course of American politics in the years to come.

[Peter Choi edited this podcast and wrote the first draft of this piece.]

The views expressed in this article/podcast are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Donald Trump and Nikki Haley Challenge Republicans to Define Themselves appeared first on Fair Observer.

Election denial?

Republicans are not the only ones who are confused. Diplomats from some of America’s Western allies have expressed concerns over the choice of a speaker who denies the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election.

Schell explains that Mike Johnson is not as simplistic as he’s been made out to be by the media — a sort of one-dimensional conspiracy theorist. His concerns are a little more subtle than that. 

At the time of Texas v. Pennsylvania, one of the most notable Supreme Court cases that dealt with the validity of the elections in 2020, Johnson filed an amicus curiae brief with the Court. The primary concern that he expressed in the brief was that local governments were making decisions about voting procedures with little or no legislative oversight. This lack of legal process created the bad appearance of illegitimacy, even if no outright tampering occurred — something which Johnson did not claim.

So, the anxiety about Johnson being an “election denier” is somewhat overblown. He did not endorse conspiracy theories about election tampering. He did question the legal legitimacy of some results, although he has even walked that position back somewhat. As far as the near future is concerned, in Schell’s opinion, American democracy is not in peril.

Other diplomats, hailing from the Global South, talk about the optics of Johnson’s speakership. How does the United States look, holding the Summit for Democracy in March and then choosing an election denier for a speaker in October?

Schell responds that this is not a material concern. This summit was inaugurated by President Joe Biden and is not longstanding US policy. Furthermore, the House of Representatives has very little to do with US diplomacy. So, President Joe Biden can hold his summits without worrying about who is sitting at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.

The unstable Republican speakership

Johnson’s predecessor as speaker, Kevin McCarthy, had struggled to attain his nomination. It took him an unheard-of 15 ballots to finally win a majority in January 2023. He was only able to do so by making deep concessions to his party’s right wing. In particular, he agreed that a single member could initiate a “motion to vacate” and potentially oust him from his office.

The US at the time was about to reach its debt ceiling, and the House, which has the power of the purse, needed to authorize further borrowing. McCarthy was forced to compromise with House Democrats in order to pass a deal to allow this. Because of that compromise, Representative Matt Gaetz exercised the right to initiate a motion to vacate. On October 2, in a historic first, Republicans threw their own speaker out.

No clear successor was waiting in the wings. Without a leader in the House, Republicans had no one to gather around and form consensus for bills. So, the Republican-controlled House was adrift. If Republicans had not elected another speaker by tha ( deadline of November 17, they probably could not have avoided a government shutdown. This would have been a disaster for the party, as every news source would have called it a Republican-led shutdown. Not only that, but Congress would not have been able to take any other action, such as authorizing more aid for Ukraine or Israel.

So, with such a high cost to not electing a speaker, is it true that anyone would have been better than no one? One hesitates to say yes, but it is true that nearly anyone who could pull off the job, at least temporarily, would be a sheer necessity given the circumstances.

So who is Mike Johnson, anyway?

Mike Johnson may not be the most notable man on Capitol Hill, but he is not just anyone, either. So, who is he? Where does he come from, and what does he believe?

A Louisiana native, Johnson studied business administration at Louisiana State University and earned his law degree there, too. An evangelical Baptist, he spent the better part of his legal career defending religious causes.

Johnson represents the 4th district in the state’s west. Steve Scalise, the House Majority Leader, also hails from Louisiana, representing the 1st district, which covers New Orleans’s suburbs. The Republican caucus considered but passed over Scalise for speaker, judging him to be too much of an insider. They similarly considered and rejected Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan. Tom Emmer, from Minnesota, lasted two hours before dropping out. Finally, Johnson became the caucus’ fourth nominee and won.

Unlike fellow Louisianan Scalise, who is more moderate, Johnson is firmly on the right wing. He is a staunch religious conservative and a pro-lifer. While he has strong convictions, he is not a strident, talking-point ideologue; in fact, he is something of a policy wonk.

Quite popular, Johnson ran unopposed in his last election and received unanimous support from his own party in the speakership vote. This is notable, given the shaky support behind the previous candidates for speaker.

Johnson does not always follow the party line. The adoptive father of a black child, he forcefully condemned the killing of George Floyd at the hands of police as “an act of murder.” This statement caused some consternation among his fellow party members, who viewed it as a liberal narrative.

Immediately after becoming speaker, Johnson declared war on the nation’s debt. He has made addressing the solvency of the federal government’s entitlement programs — chiefly Social Security and Medicare — a key part of his policy.

Johnson has little to no experience running a legislative agenda, which is an asset for him as Republicans did not want an insider. He is not exactly a newbie, as he is on his fourth term, and he previously chaired the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government. As far as insider connections and personal Capitol Hill loyalties go, though, Johnson is beholden to no one and is thus an unknown quantity.

Significance of a Trump-supporting speaker

Let us turn now to the broader significance that Johnson’s election has for broader American political culture. Donald Trump, the previous president, is now undergoing no less than four felony trials. Yet, the new speaker is an election doubter and a firm Trump supporter. In many other countries, politicians would not tolerate even a whiff of criminality surrounding their allies. So do Republicans tolerate Trump and his friends?

Schell is not sounding the alarm bells yet. It would be a bigger problem, perhaps, if Johnson had supported Trump out of personal loyalty. But his concerns about the election were principled, not personal. So they are no evidence that corruption is seeping into the House.

Likewise, many point to the fiasco of McCarthy’s ouster and the subsequent scramble for a new speaker as a sign of growing chaos in the Republican party. But in Schell’s view, this was the doing of eight radicals, not of the party. Notably, Gaetz and the other members who helped to oust McCarthy were not rewarded with the speakership themselves. Indeed, most House Republicans are furious with them. So they should not be taken as representative of the party as a whole.

So, while the razor-thin Republican majority empowered some Republicans to punch above their weight, the institutions themselves have not been subverted. And they can even be strengthened. Hopefully, Republicans will get rid of the single-member motion to vacate and perhaps add a new rule to allow for an ousted speaker to continue until his replacement has been found. In any case, Republicans now have a speaker who is more popular and thus in a surer position than McCarthy was ten months ago.

Where do we go from here?

Johnson is likely to push for a stopgap measure to keep the government funded for a few months. This will buy his party time to negotiate the traditional annual budget, which is passed as twelve separate bills to allow for greater legislative scrutiny. This avoids cramming the entire budget into a single omnibus bill, which Republicans wish to avoid as such a process makes scrutiny more difficult and thus encourages overspending.

Johnson is a strong supporter of aid to Israel but opposes further aid to Ukraine. There are some signs, however, that he is willing to negotiate on the latter point. Democrats may persuade him to package aid to Israel and Ukraine together in a single bill.

Democrats may perhaps be displeased that they can no longer lambast “Republican chaos” in the House. Some are taking the opportunity to portray Johnson as the far-right speaker of a far-right party. But, in truth, it is too early to tell whether or not Johnson will be a man that Democrats can work with. His values are known, but his legislative style is not. Will he be a fighter, or a negotiator? We will just have to wait and see.
[Anton Schauble wrote the first draft of this piece.]

The views expressed in this article/podcast are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Who Is the New US House Speaker, Mike Johnson? appeared first on Fair Observer.

Semiconductors are a natural dual-use technology. If you study the history of semiconductors, the military is a natural first user before the technology entered the commercial domain. The Russia-Ukraine War has also taught us the value of semiconductors on the battlefield: from sensors and communication to precision-guided munitions.

Why Semiconductors Are a Really Big Deal

Semiconductors first came to the fore in the 1991 Gulf War. In a matter of days, the US decimated Iraqi forces. US military supremacy was based on semiconductor chips. These enabled precision-guided missiles to hit their targets unerringly. Effective use of semiconductors in its military weaponry is a huge technological advantage for the US.

It is for this reason that the US has slapped trade restrictions on China. These aim “to slow the Chinese industry’s ability to produce advanced node semiconductors.” The US Congress has also passed “the CHIPS Act of 2022 to strengthen domestic semiconductor manufacturing, design and research, fortify the economy and national security, and reinforce America’s chip supply chains.” Semiconductors are now a national and even international security issue.

India has lived in a state of technology denial for far too long. It is imperative that India’s national security is built on its own semiconductor capabilities. The country is home to the world’s largest number of chip designers. This is a perfect base to build Indian intellectual property serving India and the world. 

Why Semiconductors Are a Really Big Deal

The Indian government is finally making moves to improve both economic and military security. It has two flagship programs with a natural convergence: self-reliance in military technology and the India Semiconductor Mission. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has stated India’s ambition to be a net security provider, which is only possible when India becomes a net technology provider. 

In the semiconductors industry, a fabrication plant is a factory where devices such as integrated circuits are manufactured. Generally, these plants are called fabs. Sometimes, they are called foundries. Fabs/Foundries need large capital investments that can range in the billions of dollars. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) is the world’s most valuable semiconductor company that specializes in fabs/foundries. Fabless companies design microchips but contract out their production. NVIDIA and Qualcomm are classic examples. India needs both fabs/foundries and fabless at home.

The views expressed in this article/video are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post FO° Talks: Semiconductors and Indian National Security appeared first on Fair Observer.

US Debt Ceiling

The debt ceiling is in the news again. Fundamentally, the US has a legal mechanism that caps the total amount of debt that the US Treasury can issue. Congress has to approve spending beyond the debt ceiling and this sometimes causes friction with the president.

Republicans have a majority in the House of Representatives. They want the government to cut costs. Democrats in the White House want the House to raise revenues by raising taxes. If the two cannot agree, the government  can grind to a halt and it has in the past.

This podcast examines the hullabaloo about the debt ceiling and makes sense of it all.

Russia-Ukraine War

The Russia-Ukraine War has been in a stalemate for a while. In the early phases of the war, the Russians got a beating. Then, they regrouped and made some advances. For months, there has been a stalemate.

With spring thawing the snow, a Ukrainian offensive seems to be in the offing. Some believe that Ukraine has the advantage. After all, the country will be getting F-16 fighter jets. The US is still pouring in aid and arms. Others argue that there are too many different weapons needing different types of ammunition. The Russians are using prisoners as cannon fodder and killing the flower of Ukrainian youth.

The next few weeks might be a critical period of this war. 

The Arctic Great Game 

Once, great powers played the great game over Afghanistan. Now, it has shifted to the Arctic. As Atul Singh wrote in an earlier piece, “The melting of polar ice caps opens up new opportunities for resource extraction and sea routes. This has sharpened rivalries between the US-led West and a China-backed Russia. Tensions are increasing and so are the possibilities of conflict.”

Russia has used the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) astutely to claim the continental shelf. Note that the US does not recognize UNCLOS. Other Arctic powers such as Canada, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Iceland have been late to the party. So, Russia has the legal lead.

At the same time, Russia is building military bases in this region. As Singh wrote, “Russia has seven nuclear-powered icebreakers and around 30 diesel-powered ones. The US and China have just two diesel-powered icebreakers each in operation. The US is the global superpower but Russia is the Arctic superpower.”

China claims to be a near-Arctic power and is funding Russian military development. China is looking to bypass two choke points that could cut off its energy supplies, block its exports and bring its economy to a standstill. These choke points are the Suez Canal and the Straits of Malacca. China desperately wants another sea route.

The melting of the Arctic is opening up new trans-Arctic routes that China desperately craves. In the past, a Russian tanker sailed from Norway to South Korea in 19 days. A passage through the Suez Canal would have taken over 50 days. As the factory of the world with an insatiable appetite for commodities, the oil, gas and minerals along with a shorter sea route is China’s wet dream. No wonder the stage is set for yet another great game.

The views expressed in this article/podcast are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post The Hot Mic: US Debt Ceiling, Ukraine and Trouble in Arctic appeared first on Fair Observer.

Peter tells us “De Santis [sic] has already taken measures to ensure that his state has on its books the kind of politically useful laws that empower him to carry out his aggressive crusade in defense of the increasingly maligned truth of what he and his voters think of as ‘real America.’ Or, stated with more accuracy, white America.” He goes on to say “ingrained racism is still a feature of the American psyche,” which appears to be the prism through which Peter filters his rationale for why the AP course didn’t pass muster.

It seems in Peter’s mind DeSantis’ popularity is due to racism, specifically white racism, even more specifically we’re talking about white, Republican racism. This is a facile argument I increasingly hear, and it’s unlikely. Let’s start off with the numbers.

DeSantis’ Political Rise

Numbers can be contorted into “lies, damned lies, and statistics,” but they’re helpful. Florida has a total of 14,596,866 active voters. Of those, 5,325,589 are Republicans and 4,969,377 are Democrats. An additional 4 million have no party affiliation, and a few hundred thousand are with a minor party. The sum of the two main parties is 10,294,966 people. If we just take these and their 10M+ voters, the split is 51.73% for Republicans and 48.27% for Democrats. In terms of partisanship, this is hardly California.

Oh, and those DeSantis voters who Peter thinks are driving DeSantis’ pandering about “real America,” which is really code for “white America”? It’s worth noting that not even half of the Republicans in Florida are white. It would be tough to win a racist landslide election with fewer than 2.7 million white, Republican votes.

And by “tough” I mean “really tough,” and by “a landslide” I mean “an ass whooping.” If we look at the last election, there were all of 7,720,523 votes cast, so only about half of Florida’s registered voters went to the polls. Of them, Ron DeSantis got a total of 4,614,210 votes for 59.37% of the vote, and the hapless, perennially flip-flopping Charlie Crist got a total of 3,106,313 for 39.97% of the vote. That’s a 19-point spread. What a drubbing Charlie got from the racists! 

To get to these kinds of numbers with Peter’s assertions, we must make some pretty wild assumptions about the ratio of Republican to Democrat-affiliated lever-pullers. If only those registered with the respective parties showed up on election day (or cast mail in ballots), you’d need 86.64% of the Rs versus 62.51% of the Ds. This assumes a purely heads up between the parties, and since some of the unaffiliated would have voted, we have to assume that crowd has a bunch of dyed-in-the-wool racists who majorly sided with Republicans. Or maybe some of the Democrats went racist on their own party. Talk about going rogue! None of this is remotely probable.

To be fair, it’s hard to love Charlie Crist. He floats with the breeze and seems to possess few principles beyond a strong personal sense that he should be in elected office. As the only person to have lost statewide Florida elections as a Republican, an Independent, and a Democrat, the man is a party opportunist, with pretty much any policy position up for negotiation. In this case, he was soundly defeated even with his bend-with-the-breeze positions. Some have argued there was an enthusiasm gap that justified such a shellacking, but the rest of the national races don’t bear that out. Democrats were fired up to vote after Roe v. Wade was overturned, and the “red wave” never materialized. There clearly is something more to DeSantis’ popularity than racism.

If you want to buy the idea that “racist” Democrats voted for DeSantis, I have another fly in the ointment for you: black moms might be the reason DeSantis became governor in the first place. In 2018 the Wall Street Journal reported: “Of the roughly 650,000 black women who voted in Florida, 18% chose Mr. DeSantis, according to CNN’s exit poll of 3,108 voters. This exceeded their support for GOP U.S. Senate candidate Rick Scott (9%), Mr. DeSantis’s performance among black men (8%) and the GOP’s national average among black women (7%)… [I]n an election decided by fewer than 40,000 votes, these 100,000 black women proved decisive. Their apparent ticket splitting helps to explain why the Florida governor’s race wasn’t as close as the Florida Senate race…”. That certainly is awkward for the DeSantis-as-racist crowd. Maybe he turned into a big-time racist after he became governor?

The Advanced Placement Brouhaha

It would be worth noting what was originally in the curriculum of this AP class that so many people are discussing, but Peter’s piece never goes there. If it’s so racist to shut it down, why not discuss the class itself? It does have merits, though I would likely find fewer than Peter would. Let’s have that conversation. Or what about the letter the Florida Department of Education sent? I admit it offered few clues about what it didn’t like about the course, but might we deduce something from that letter and the reaction of the board that designed the class? I don’t know if others have looked at the original curriculum, but I did.

There are certainly a lot of questionable topics. As for the educational value of “quilting traditions,” “the Black national anthem,” and “gender” (the last one mentioned 17 times), it’s debatable. If you’re looking for critical race theory, this course had it. There was at least one ivory tower, jargony reading I attempted to wade through by Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham on race and its “powerful, all-encompassing effect on the construction and representation of other social and power relations, namely, gender, class, and sexuality.” Of course, we have a reading by Ta-Nehisi Coates, and no points for knowing where that one goes. It’s all race, class, and identity. Ditto for bell hooks and her “gimmicky thing.” There was also a bit in the course about black queer studies (more on that in a minute), which “Explores the concept of the queer of color critique grounded in Black feminism and intersectionality as a Black studies lens that shifts sexuality studies toward racial analysis.” The original course liked the idea of “intersectionality” and mentioned it 15 times.

There has been some discussion that this is all about avoiding black history of any kind in Florida, but that’s rubbish. Florida has statutory language saying it’s required.

“The history of African Americans, including the history of African peoples before the political conflicts that led to the development of slavery, the passage to America, the enslavement experience, abolition, and the history and contributions of Americans of the African diaspora to society. Students shall develop an understanding of the ramifications of prejudice, racism, and stereotyping on individual freedoms, and examine what it means to be a responsible and respectful person for the purpose of encouraging tolerance of diversity in a pluralistic society, and for nurturing and protecting democratic values and institutions.”

I also see a whole lot of talk in the course about African empires, but if you’re going to study history in high school, shouldn’t you know who Caesar or Alexander the Great were before you learn about the empires of Ghana, Mali, or Songhai? In terms of devoting classroom time to the dance moves of Beyonce, I assume the kiddos will get enough of that on TikTok. If you want to be an African specialist, by all means get your PhD and reside in the ivory tower, but I would rather the subjects in this AP course impartially ground students with less one-sided progressive indoctrination, particularly when the taxpayer is footing the bill.

David Coleman, the head of the College Board said, that “At the College Board, we can’t look to statements of political leaders,” but the state of Florida reimburses school districts’ course exam costs. Whoops, guess you do have to listen to what the elected politicians say since “Acceptance for the new curriculum is important to the College Board, a nonprofit, because A.P. courses are a major source of revenue. The board took in more than $1 billion in program service revenue in 2019, of which more than $490 million came from ‘AP and Instruction,’ according to its tax-exempt filing.”

Peter links to a BBC piece that calls the class “a new advanced-level high school course that teaches African American history.” But Ron DeSantis makes the point that “This course on Black history, what’s one of the lessons about? Queer theory. Now, who would say that an important part of Black history is queer theory?” And you know what? DeSantis is correct; it’s right there in the syllabus. Peter’s article never mentions anything about the course. It’s just taken to be a good thing (whatever the thing is), and we’re told racism motivated the rejection. Yet it’s worth asking if such a course would pass muster with Florida voters. Odds are long on that one.

AP Course: Rejection and Reconsideration

When the course was rejected, the Gov’s office said the syllabus “leaves large, ambiguous gaps that can be filled with additional ideological material, which we will not allow”. Okay, so submit a more thorough lesson plan. It’s not like the Department of Education won’t take another look. Quite the opposite.

The Florida Department of Education rejection letter noted “In the future, should the College Board be willing to come back to the table with lawful, historically accurate content, (the education department) will always be willing to reopen the discussion.” That’s vague but hardly “case closed,” and to be fair to Peter, he admits it. The Department spokesperson Bryan Griffin added: “If the College Board amends the course to comply, provides a full course curriculum, and incorporates historically accurate content, then the Department will reconsider the course for approval.” In a quick capitulation, the College Board quickly said it would revise the curriculum, so it’s not like the board itself is dying on this hill. In fact, perhaps feeling they had overstepped, they quickly revised the course, saying they had done so in December.

The suggestion that DeSantis is running a KKK dog whistle governorship doesn’t add up. While the Left hyperventilates about “eras[ing] Black history” in a “chilling precursor to state-sponsored dehumanization of an entire race of people” (whoa Nelly) and laments the excised material about “the relationship between race, class and feminism” (while also, naturally, “erasing Black history”), others will see it for what it is: a revised curriculum that may or may not yield a worthwhile course.

The revised version has no guarantee of passing muster, and even The New York Times admits “There are hints that the College Board is embedding some of the disputed material, without being explicit about it.” John McWhorter, a columnist at the same paper, says “to pretend that controversial views on race from the left are truth incarnate is being dishonest about race as well. It sacrifices logic out of a quiet terror of being called racist (or, if Black, self-hating). How that is progressive or even civil in a real way is unclear to me. In being honest enough to push past the agitprop, I hate having to say that in this case, DeSantis, of all people, was probably right.” Still, the two sides appear to be making progress of some kind.

Simplistic Narratives Miss the Point

The Left-wing narrative of Republicans as racists is turning into the boy who cried wolf. Seemingly every time we hear about a Republican gaining traction, the word “racist” is thrown out there. Often you hear loud, screedy shouts claiming said politician is a “bigot” (“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”), but this misunderstands DeSantis’ popularity.

Many of his policies are more popular than the progressive Left would like to believe. As I pointed out about the supposed “Don’t Say Gay” bill, a poll during the brouhaha when that law was a bill was conducted by Public Opinion Strategies and showed “Democratic voters support the law by 55% to 29%. Biden voters swing 53% to 30% in its favor. Even those who ‘know someone LGBTQ’ go 61% for and 28% against, and just to show that Disney is on the wrong side of this, parents like the law to the tune of 67% to 24%.” Unhappy with DeSantis’ popularity, success or both, Democrats have had to content themselves with polls showing Disney itself is more popular than DeSantis, whatever that’s supposed to prove.

Similarly, a New York Times morning newsletter recently had the headline “Fox News for Universities” with the subheading “Conservatives are trying to do to higher education what they did to the news media and think tanks” discussing Governor DeSantis’ recent higher education moves. Sounds scary, right? But the lead is buried: “The public appears to agree that [left-leaning higher education] is a problem: A majority have said that campus politics lean toward one direction and that there’s too much concern about protecting students from views they might find offensive, a 2019 Pew Research Center poll found.” The zinger comes as the piece continues, “So DeSantis is rallying not only his core supporters with this issue but potentially swing voters as well.” Democrats may be dismissing DeSantis and maligning his policies at their peril. 

Peter’s piece is, as Peter’s pieces always are, nicely written, but his premise is pure accusatory misinformation. Why do I call it that? Because Peter says that misinformation “concerns the distortion of information” by which “the complaint isn’t merely an objection.” When it does so, “It quickly takes the form of an accusation.”

[Fair Observer’s editorial piece made corrections to this piece on April 1, 2023 at 9.05 am Eastern Time.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Why Popular Ron De Santis Wins Big in Florida appeared first on Fair Observer.

The balloon’s travels ended at 14.39 local time  (19:39 GMT) on Saturday, February 4 when a US Air Force F-22 shot down what the US stated was a Chinese spy balloon. Meanwhile, the Chinese have maintained the balloon was a “weather monitoring device.” Not long after the first balloon was spotted, another hapless Chinese balloon was identified. The second zeppelin supposedly “seriously deviated” off course over Latin America and the Caribbean, but the proliferation of Chinese balloons seems to reveal broader ambitions. Nor have these ambitions sprung out of nowhere. In recent days, US officials have stated this was not the first time a Chinese balloon has entered US airspace, and they have recently identified at least four other occasions where the weather strangely coincided with large US military interests in Texas, Florida, Hawaii, and Guam. US officials have revealed that the downed balloon was 200 feet (about 60 meters) tall and carried an airliner-sized load of intelligence-gathering equipment. In the high stakes game of weather, size matters.

On Sunday, Rep. Mike Turner, the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said on NBC News’ Meet the Press, “If you ask somebody to draw an X at every place where our sensitive missile defense sites, our nuclear weapons infrastructure, our nuclear weapon sites are, you would put them all along this path.” The balloon transited, and at points loitered, over areas that included the 341st Missile Wing at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Billings, Montana, which is home to one of three US Air Force bases that operate and maintain intercontinental ballistic missiles.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken canceled his visit to China, China is miffed, with Beijing claiming the US used “indiscriminate force,” and everyone is curious about these enormous dirigibles.

What is the backstory of spy balloons?

China is not the first to use spy balloons. They first came into use in the late 19th century for military reconnaissance and observation. During World War I, Germany, France and Britain used unmanned balloons equipped with cameras to gather intelligence. 

During the Cold War, both the United States and the Soviet Union employed aerial reconnaissance balloons to gather intelligence on each other’s military capabilities. Even then, these balloons were often equipped with sensors and cameras to monitor troop movements and military assets. With the development of satellite technology, spy balloons became less common. However, as China just demonstrated, they still have niche uses in some military and intelligence operations, and many predict a resurgence in the value of such aircraft.

The Soviets used spy balloons extensively, which were equipped with cameras, sensors, and other monitoring equipment. Launched from Soviet territory, these balloons floated across the Arctic and then drifted across North America. The Chinese seem to be following a similar playbook.

Was the Soviet spy balloon program a success?

The Soviet spy balloon program was one of the largest and most sophisticated military intelligence gathering operations of the Cold War. Soviet balloons gathered intelligence for extended periods of time and provided valuable information about NATO military installations and movements of NATO forces.

Balloons were not without their vulnerabilities. Then, as now, they could be intercepted and shot down easily as the Chinese just discovered. Additionally, balloons of the past were affected by weather conditions, making it difficult to maintain a stable flight path and gather accurate intelligence. Technology has evolved, and the Chinese have increasingly taken interest in navigation tools and patents for dirigibles, making them more stealthy, stable, and reliable.

On the whole, the Soviet spy balloon program was a significant success. Balloons fell out of fashion because advanced satellite technology proved to be more reliable and less vulnerable. More importantly, the Soviet Union collapsed and its balloon program came to an end. Might China be starting off where the Soviets stopped?

[This article was produced with assistance from ChatGPT.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Is China Now Emulating Epic Soviet Spy Balloon Program? appeared first on Fair Observer.

With the benefits of the 2017 goods and services tax (GST) coming into play, India has finally become a common market. India has also brought in reforms such as the Real Estate Bill and the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code that have increased the formalization of its economy, bringing large efficiency gains. Furthermore, India is building infrastructure at a record pace that will have a massive multiplier effect on growth rates in the years ahead.

Incomes are rising, the middle class is growing, urbanization is increasing and the rural-urban divide is decreasing. This is boosting consumption and Indias are spending more on health, education, leisure, technology and lifestyle products. As of January 28, 2022, India is home to 85 unicorns with a total valuation of $287.89 billion.

At a time when geopolitical tensions between China and the West are rising, India is the only economy with the scale, the population and the markets to be a driver of global growth. This India story is yet to be understood fully and the panel at IIT Gandhinagar sought to make sense of it.

The views expressed in this article/video are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post FO° Live: India as a Driver of Global Growth appeared first on Fair Observer.

Consequently, DeSantis is in pole position to lead the Republican Party. Trump has not thrown in the towel though. He still fancies a third tilt at the White House. The stage is set for a gunfight-like showdown.

Donors are now abandoning Trump and lining up behind DeSantis. Stephen Schwarzman, a private equity billionaire, has bet on DeSantis as well. Trump launched his presidential campaign early to stave off the young pretender to his throne. Yet that tactic is not working. For donors, DeSantis offers all that Trump does in terms of ideology and policy positions without the brashness or baggage of the combustible former president.

Economic Trouble

In the US and the rest of the world, the economy is in trouble. Interest rates are rising and stock markets are falling. Fear of recession stalks the land. 

For years, central banks — in particular, the Federal Reserve — followed a policy of quantitative easing. De facto, they printed money and flushed liquidity into the economy. Furthermore, governments spent more than they earned, especially during COVID times. Loose monetary and fiscal policies were a toxic brew. When Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2021, the global economy suffered a supply shock. Inflation skyrocketed. Central banks had no option but to raise interest rates. This means higher mortgage payments, more expensive debt and rising cost of living.

India-China Border Clash

Even as the global economy stutters, two big Asian powers are clashing. China is a global superpower next only to the US. The Middle Kingdom has emerged as the workshop of the world. Yet, under President Xi Jinping, China has been overly aggressive, particularly with its neighbors. Its zero-COVID policy failed spectacularly and sent the Chinese economy into a tailspin. China’s reputation as a reliable global supply chain partner has suffered a major hit, especially during the COVID pandemic.

India has emerged as an increasingly more reliable economic partner for the West. That is why many American companies are looking to invest in and import from India. Most recently, India has become the new home for assembling iPhones. Indian and US troops have also conducted joint exercises together in Uttarakhand, a state bordering Tibet.

India has also been building roads and infrastructure along its border with China. It is modernizing its military. There is also the issue about the succession to the Dalai Lama and the future of Tibetan Buddhism, issues we will discuss in our next podcast.

Tawang Is the India-China Battleground for Tibetan Buddhism

In short, tensions between India and China are on the rise. Recently, their troops clashed near Tawang. This is the only area of traditional Tibet outside Chinese hands. Reportedly, Chinese troops intended to take over Yangtse heights but Indian soldiers beat them off. As his zero-COVID policy has failed and the Chinese economy has tumbled, Xi has stoked the fires of aggressive nationalism. This has increased tensions with Taiwan and now with India too. [Matthew Knudson wrote the first draft of this introduction to the podcast.]

The views expressed in this article/audio are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post The Hot Mic: Trump Trumped, Looming Recession and India-China Clash appeared first on Fair Observer.

Few in the US or the UK realize that Modi’s party has been increasingly successful with women voters. This year key Indian states went to the polls. The BJP did better among women than among men. In India’s most populous state of Uttar Pradesh (UP), 48% of women voted for the BJP in comparison to 44% of the men. Despite the BJP’s UP success, the BBC dryly asked “Are women really thriving in UP as PM Modi claims?” The article concludes with the quote “Women here have very little freedom. They are told who to vote for and they often vote along with the rest of the family.”

Data shows women exercise choice

The BJP is facing a common refrain: India is a misogynistic country that disempowers women, and women vote dutifully for the BJP because they are instructed to do so by their men. If that is true, how do we explain women voting for the BJP in greater numbers than men?

India’s Foreign Minister Schools Western Journalist

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According to a survey done by India Today-Axis My India (the group that most accurately predicted the May 2019 national election results), 46% of women voted for the BJP and its allies, 27% for the Congress and its allies, and 27% for other parties. In comparison, 44% of men voted for the BJP and its allies. The male vote lagged the female vote by two percentage points. Notably, this election marked the first time more women than men voted for the National Democratic Alliance, a coalition of the BJP and its allies, in a national election.

So what is going on here? Are women doing as they’re told more often than they’re being told to do it? Some have concluded the data suggest “women voters are perhaps making different political choices from the male members of their families.” If so, then why? The answer seems to lie in the BJP’s prioritization of women’s issues. From toilets and menstrual hygiene to piped water supply and cooking gas, the BJP has made women’s issues central to its agenda.

In 2020, Modi broke a longstanding taboo by addressing the issue of menstrual health in his August 15 Independence Day speech. He declared “Through 6,000 Jan Aushadhi centers, about 50 million women have got sanitary pads at [Rupee] 1 . We have worked for women’s empowerment. Navy and Air Force are taking women in combat roles…women are now leaders.” Note that one rupee is a little over one cent. This means that women can get sanitary napkins at the cheapest rate in the world.

Modi’s claim of putting women in positions of power is no empty boast. In Gujarat, he was succeeded as chief minister by Anandiben Patel, who is now the governor of UP. This year, Modi’s BJP has elected Draupadi Murmu as president. She is the second woman to hold that office. More importantly, she is the first woman who comes from India’s long-oppressed scheduled tribes to become president.

Modi’s outreach to women is part of a longstanding BJP tradition. From the very beginning, the party created Mahila Morcha, its extremely active women’s wing. It had strong female leaders such as Vijaya Raje Scindia and Sushma Swaraj, both of whom died after decades of public service. With Murmu as the head of state, the BJP is sending the signal to women from underprivileged backgrounds that they too can rise to the top.

Well-implemented schemes prove popular with women

Newly independent India’s socialist state proved adept at highfalutin rhetoric but poor at the delivery of public services. Since Modi came to power in 2014, these fundamental services have been prioritized with effective outcomes. Some schemes are noteworthy to understand what is going on.

• In 2014, the state of sanitation in the country was poor. Only around 40% of households had access to a toilet. With the introduction of Swachh Bharat Mission – Grameen (SBM-G), over 100 million household toilets have been constructed in rural India over the last six years.
  
  Toilets have led to improved sanitation and better hygiene for millions, especially women and girls. Household toilets ensure better menstrual hygiene, fewer bladder infections and better reproductive health. Women’s personal safety improves because they are not going out to the fields or the train tracks where they could be harassed or even assaulted by men.

• On May 1, 2016, the Modi government launched Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) to provide a clean cooking fuel: liquified petroleum gas (LPG). For decades, Indian women were using firewood, cow dung and other biomass to cook. Long term exposure to biomass as cooking fuel is disastrous. The disastrous effects of long-term exposure to biomass as a cooking fuel are well known: it damages lungs for life and shortens lifespans. 
  
  With the implementation of PMUY, the national LPG coverage has increased from 61.9% percent as of April 1, 2016, to 99.5% as of January 1, 2021. Academics rightly point out that this transition from biomass to clean cooking has faced challenges. However, it is also clear that the Modi government’s efforts are starting to pay off.

• Since Modi came to power in 2014, his BJP government has focused on the Jal Jeevan Mission. By 2024, the government aims “to provide safe and adequate drinking water through individual household tap connections to all households in rural India.” Access to clear water is a common problem throughout developing countries and causes deaths of millions. To Modi’s credit, he has focused on solving this problem for India.
  
  As recently as 2019, only 17% of Indian households had access to functioning tap water supply in contrast to 52% today. Strikingly, more than a third of India (35%) gained access to clean water in just three years. Hundreds of millions no longer have to trek to community wells or other water bodies away from their homes. Now, they can get water through the tap. Note that fetching water is an arduous job that is almost invariably done by women, who are delighted that the Modi government is delivering on something that matters to them.

• Launched in 2015, the Modi government’s Beti Bachao Beti Padhao (Save Daughter, Educate Daughter) has sought to change attitudes towards birthing and the rights of girls. Over the course of just a few years, the Sex Ratio at Birth (SRB) has improved by 16 points from 918 in 2014-15 to 934 in 2019-20. Some of this might be a feature of economic growth. 

The Old Woman and the QR Code

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The narrative of a fashionable, barrel-chested Modi may have an element of allure. It may even appeal to some voters. However, this narrative is woefully incomplete. Under Modi, the polls give a sense that the BJP has successfully delivered on issues that matter to women.

Cannily, Modi is cultivating his female voter base. Earlier this year, the prime minister declared: “Women…have blessed us – we have won splendidly in areas where women voters have dominated.” He went on to say, “It is our good fortune that BJP has got so much love, so many blessings from mothers-sisters-daughters.”

Women seem to have blessed the BJP, and a fair review of the data might reveal this fortune is no mere accident, nor the result of “toxic men” telling women how to vote, but because the Modi government has been successful in improving the domestic lives of women. As independent India celebrates its 75th birthday, western journalists and Americans should recognize India is a robust democracy. Honest assessments are fair and to be lauded, and no one should uncritically accept any narrative, but the recent stories in Associated Press, The Washington Post or The New York Times seem facile at best and dismissive at worst. Women from disadvantaged groups in India’s society are rising to better lives, greater hopes, and hundreds of millions have reason to believe a healthier, brighter future awaits them. If that’s not a democratic ideal, I don’t know what is.

[An earlier version of this article referred to the president belonging to the scheduled castes. This error was spotted by many readers and was corrected at 15:00 GMT]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Why Women Support Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi appeared first on Fair Observer.

The post A New Idea of India | FO° Talks appeared first on Fair Observer.

P.S. Each heading is a quote from something somewhere or other. To the person who emails me 11 correct identifications, I’ll buy you a drink at Martin’s Tavern…or we can have a friendly chat over the phone while I’m at Martin’s having a drink. Why 11? Because that’s how we play NumberWang around here.]

“Milton Friedman isn’t running the show anymore.”                                                
Joe Biden – April 2020

Glibly thus did then-presidential candidate Joe Biden describe his economic vision for America on the campaign trail in April 2020. Had he not so clearly delineated his economic approach against that of the Nobel Prize-winning economist of the Chicago School, comparisons between Republican policies and Democratic policies might be murkier. The results of Biden’s 2021 stimulus package are now in. As senior economists at the US Treasury warned him, this package was bound to be inflationary and has proven to be so. Good old Milton Friedman would have told him the same. It is clear now as to who is running the economic show.

When Biden spoke those words, I was reminded, as I am more so now, of the t-shirts that were in vogue in my youth that read:

“God is dead.”

                        -Nietzsche

“Nietzsche is dead.”

                        -God

President Pangloss might think the economy is going great guns. He might even think that Afghanistan was a success. Maybe the fanboys actually believe we have the “fastest-growing economy in the world” (not true) or that core inflation is down (wrong again), but most Americans are not quite as convinced. They’re worried about inflation and consumer sentiment plunged to an all time low. The Business Roundtable CEO Economic Outlook Index has declined dramatically in six months. After 18 months of Biden’s presidency, and amidst the January 6 Committee’s anti-Trump extravaganza, people prefer Trump to Biden in a head-to-head contest.

Given the dire state of affairs, this would be the time for the president to get serious, demonstrate clear thinking and come up with new ideas. Instead, Biden has published a rather curious op-ed detailing his plan to tackle inflation in The Wall Street Journal. Sadly, this plan amounts to very little. Biden grandly promises three things:

1. To leave the Federal Reserve alone,
2. To push green energy, and
3. To reduce the deficit.

To use this Irish Catholic president’s own words, this plan is malarkey.

“Don’t use three words when one will do, don’t shift your eyes, look always at your mark but don’t stare, be specific but not memorable, funny but don’t make him laugh, he’s gotta like you then forget you the moment you’ve left his sight…”

Biden’s op-ed is rather prolix. He uses a lot of words but says little and is utterly forgettable. There is another point to remember. The law prohibits Uncle Joe from playing footsie or getting handsy with the Federal Reserve. So, the president is promising not to do what the law tells him not to do. No shit, Sherlock!

In recent months, the Federal Reserve has not exactly covered itself with glory. The cover story of the April 23^rd-29^th edition of The Economist was “The Fed That Failed.” I agree. I’m not sure I have faith in the very people who ignored inflation as a “transitory” phenomenon. Yet I would prefer they deal with inflation instead of Uncle Joe.

Ah, dream too bright to last!

Ah, starry hope! that didst arise

But to be overcast!

Biden’s second promise kicks the fever dream of ideologues on the left. They believe that a Green New Deal would build infrastructure, create jobs, and bring down inflation at the same time. It would be a magic bullet or, even better, a bullet train to the Promised Land.

This green romance does not seem to survive first contact with reality though. Nickel prices may not be at the highs they soared to in March but they are still bloody high, and you can’t go green without Class 1 nickel. Even if we did have reasonable nickel prices, the US has a single nickel mine, the Eagle Mine in Michigan. There is simply not enough nickel to go green. 

Furthermore, as we learned from the energy crisis of the 1970s, it’s not great to put all your eggs in a foreign-sourced basket. This is what the Biden administration has ended up doing by canceling the mining leases of the Twin Metals mining project that was the other nickel mine in the US. 

Twin Metals claims it has 99% of US nickel reserves, yet Biden’s Interior secretary said she “can’t answer” if it will ever be allowed. We import a lot of nickel. In fact, Russia is one of the main suppliers of nickel to the US. So, nickel mines in the US make eminent sense. Instead, the administration seems to be hell bent on killing nickel babies in their cradles and putting clean energy security at the mercy of the likes of Russia.

It is not just nickel that is scarce. We have a single US mine for rare earths. China produces four times what we do and makes up 60% of the rare earths global market. There’s no way we can be a green energy powerhouse when China has six state-owned mining companies while the US has only one, single mine: Mountain Pass. We very much have a simple problem; the US lacks the raw materials to go green.

It is not just raw materials that are the problem. When it comes to solar power, 90% of all panels installed in the US come from China and Southeast Asia. Note that panels from the latter part of the world are manufactured by Chinese companies. These companies have been accused of dumping solar panels into the US market, undercutting American companies in the process. These companies petitioned the US Commerce Department, which launched an investigation into the matter.

Under the Biden administration, that investigation has been practically buried. So, China will continue to corner the market in solar and we will offshore our green energy to the Middle Kingdom. Under President Pangloss, we will build the entire US green economy around the kindness of strangers from sea to shining sea.

I would think that the key lever to control inflation would be to curb energy prices. Since February 24 when Russia invaded Ukraine, there has been a supply shock when it comes to oil and natural gas. For years, the Democrats have been squeezing domestic energy production and distribution in an idealistic and ideological pursuit of making the US cleaner and greener. They have killed offshore drilling, fracking, shale gas, the Keystone XL pipeline and the like.

Today, the US needs more domestic production and distribution if it is to control inflation and achieve energy security. Yet the Biden administration seems to be unable to dismount from its ideological high horse. The president is busily sending oil execs nasty letters, canceling oil and gas lease auctions, and doing his best to make sure the US doesn’t have any lease sales while he’s in office. 

Biden has anointed Amanda Lefton to draw up the US offshore energy policy. She has drafted a five-year leasing plan that was released on July 1, in a pre-July 4 holiday Friday afternoon news dump. This makes drilling all but impossible in the waters off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. If this does not tighten energy supply, I don’t know what else will.

Instead of producing more oil and natural gas, the US seems to be looking to import them from abroad, including Iran and Venezuela. Surely, it is unlikely that their production methods are cleaner than US ones. Also, why should US taxpayer money go to foreign ones, especially those with a history of hostility to Uncle Sam.

It is not only production but also refining capacity that needs to go up in the US. That would lower oil prices at the pump and bring down inflation. Yet Chevron’s CEO, Mike Wirth, recently said he didn’t envision a new US refinery ever. What is going on?

Refineries are capital intensive. As Wirth said, “You’re looking at committing capital 10 years out, that will need decades to offer a return for shareholders, in a policy environment where governments around the world are saying we don’t want these products.” Given the likes of Lefton in charge, it makes little sense for Wirth or any oil and gas executive to make capital investments in the US.

In the country of the motor car, Biden has promised to eliminate fossil fuels. He has turned up the rhetoric against oil companies. Recently, the president said, “Exxon made more money than God last year” before angrily telling the company “Start investing. Start paying your taxes.” For all its faults, it is highly unlikely that Exxon stopped doing either.

Few know that oil companies have to pay royalties when they drill on federal lands. These have remained flat for more than a century, but recently the Biden administration hiked up royalties by a whopping 50%. Given surging inflation, this is not exactly the best time to hike up royalties. Biden claims oil companies aren’t investing and are gouging consumers. It seems that the Biden administration is doing the gouging instead. Note that gasoline prices went up by over 40% during the first year of the Biden presidency. Blaming the “Putin price hike” for all the US energy troubles is a bit too clever by half.

Lately, I feel the haters eatin’ away at my confidence
They scream out my failures and whisper my accomplishment

Biden’s third promise is to reduce the deficit. In his op-ed, Biden’s claims that he has already done so. Yet the president feels that people do not give him credit for his many accomplishments. Is this true?

Let us just examine one of the accomplishments for which Biden pats himself on his back. The president claims that he has reduced the deficit this year. Given that he passed the $1.9 trillion COVID stimulus last year, a reduction in the deficit this year was not such a big deal. As pointed out earlier, economists in the US Treasury had told senior officials in the Biden administration that the stimulus would be inflationary as it has clearly proved to be.

Biden has also signed into law further spending of $1.1 trillion on “infrastructure,” which takes his total expenditure to $3 trillion already. Ironically, little of the money earmarked for infrastructure will actually be spent on infrastructure. Yet Biden has the cajones to tout his credentials as a deficit reducer. 

In reality there are three reasons why he isn’t increasing the deficit in a wild blowout. First, the US Congress has put the kibosh on Build Back Better, which originally planned to spend approximately $4.5 trillion over 10 years. Second, the COVID panic is finally over in the US. Third, tax receipts are way up because job numbers are up with COVID under control and inflation-triggered wage increases have put people in higher tax brackets.

At a time when the stock markets have crashed and people are feeling poorer, Biden makes another curious argument in his op-ed. He will dramatically increase the budget for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to collect “taxes Americans already owe.” As many others have done before him, the president is promising to reduce the infamous “tax gap,” the $600 billion that the IRS loses out on because of unreported payments (often in cash) and the sheer complexity of the US tax code. While I support collecting taxes that are owed, significantly increasing the size of a tarnished, partisan IRS at a time of economic and political uncertainty does not make sense.

While concluding this op-ed, Biden does what any good politician does in a campaign. He paints his Republican rivals as barbarians at the gate who would sack the US economy. Most Americans now no longer buy Biden’s shtick. They have lost confidence in his competence to run the economy and the midterms are likely to reflect that fact.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post This is Biden’s Inflation Plan‽ appeared first on Fair Observer.

US President Joe Biden and many Democrats have argued for a Green New Deal. They seem to emulate Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal that pulled the US out of the Great Depression. They believe that public investment in green energy and new technologies will fight climate change, create high-paying jobs in the US and boost the American economy.

We spoke to Contributing Editor Christopher Roper Schell, a Capitol Hill veteran who has also worked on the Pentagon, to make sense of the Green New Deal in the context of soaring oil and gas prices, and the prospect of blackouts.

Christopher Roper Schell on Joe Biden’s Energy Policy

(We have edited this transcript lightly for clarity.)

Is clean energy a mirage? 

Christopher Roper Schell: It depends on what you mean by clean energy. 

If you think windmills and solar panels are going to run the US electric grid, that’s not going to happen.

What we need is baseload power and baseload power is going offline primarily because of the economic incentives behind green energy in the United States. Interestingly, CO₂ has been declining substantially, primarily because natural gas is simply cheaper.

What we’ll have to concern ourselves with is to ensure that we do not have the blackouts we’re being warned against. A semi-regulatory body has issued a warning that up to 2/3 of America could experience blackouts this summer. That is simply unacceptable to Americans and a green energy future that eventually has blackouts is not going to transpire.

What is the significance of high gas and nickel prices? 

Christopher Roper Schell: For the Greens, high gas prices are the point: they actually want gasoline prices to go up. However, Americans have rejected this.

They’re getting a look at what a potential carbon tax would look like, and they don’t like it. The Biden administration has tried to suffocate traditional energy sources such as natural gas and oil. In fact, the Chevron CEO said last week that he didn’t envision another refinery ever in the United States.

There’s clearly a rebellion against high gas prices and also against nickel prices. Nickel goes into almost everything that’s green and the US doesn’t produce that much of it. There is one single nickel mine in the US.

And we’re seeing nickel prices that are at peaks that we have not seen for the last 30 years. America cannot go green without producing a lot of nickel cheaply, and that’s not happening. 

Watch the full video here

Is there a supply-side threat from China? 

Christopher Roper Schell: Yes, there is. China produces four times more rare earths than America does. China has six rare earths mining companies. America has one mine.

In terms of solar panels, most of the US solar panels that are installed come from foreign shores; about 90% in fact. 

Interesting story — Auxin Solar is this little bitty US domestic solar panel producer, and they have filed a complaint with the Commerce Department. The Commerce Department began investigating and the installation of solar panels completely froze in this country. Ultimately, the Biden administration stepped in and declared that there would be no new tariffs on imported solar panels to prevent the market from collapsing.

So in this rush to green utopia, the administration decided that it’s OK to support China and to essentially leave their own domestic suppliers out to dry. 

Is the Keystone XL pipeline the answer? 

Christopher Roper Schell: No one disputes that Keystone XL would have produced 830,000 barrels of oil a day. That’s a drop in the bucket in terms of global consumption.

The big problem today is that we just need to produce more oil and currently producers are not responding to price signals. Why? Because they’ve been punished.

Last week, Biden said of Exxon, pay your taxes. I didn’t know that oil producers had ever stopped paying taxes, but the president is using all sorts of regulatory methods to disincentivize the production of oil and gas.  Amongst other things, as I mentioned earlier, he’s not holding lease sales. I know he will say that there are already loads of outstanding leases, but that also means that they need permits. And oftentimes, the Biden administration has not allowed permits.

Either way, it’s better to get oil from places like the US and Canada via Keystone vis-à-vis places like Iran and Venezuela. 

Is the Green New Deal now dead? 

Christopher Roper Schell: Let me put it this way, no politician right now is saying if you like your new high gas prices, you can keep your new high gas prices. 

[There is now no appetite for] a carbon tax. The Green Deal is dead if it ever was alive. While people may virtue signal with their post-consumer cup or rich people may drive around feeling very fancy in their electric cars, the fact is that most people aren’t willing to make the major compromises they will have to make for a Green New Deal type future.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Why Joe Biden’s Green Energy Policy is Dead appeared first on Fair Observer.

00:00 Is clean energy a mirage?
00:58 What is the significance of high gas and nickel prices?
01:56 Is there a supply-side threat from China?
03:00 Is the Keystone XL pipeline the answer?
04:05 Is the Green New Deal now dead?

The post FO° Insights: Why the US’ Green Energy Policy is Dead appeared first on Fair Observer.

Listen to what Peter Beyer told us in our first episode of FO° Interview.

Peter Beyer, a Member of the German Bundestag (Mitglieder des Bundestages) from the Christian Democratic Union of Germany, answers questions about Germany’s military expenditure, security interests, and the needs of their NATO allies.

The post President Macron: “We must not humiliate Russia…” appeared first on Fair Observer.

Welcome to FO° Interview, a program where we interview interesting minds from around the world. I am Christopher Roper Schell, your moderator. I am Contributing Editor at Fair Observer and a Partner at Fair Observer Intelligence. My guest today is Peter Beyer, a German politician who has been a member of the Bundestag, the German federal parliament, since 2009.

Peter is a member of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the center-right party that, until recently, was led by Angela Merkel and, before that, was led by Helmut Kohl. Peter served as the coordinator of Transatlantic Cooperation at the Federal Foreign Office in the fourth Merkel coalition government from 2018 to 2021.

Peter is a lawyer by training with a keen interest in history. He is a foreign policy wonk with insightful views on the world. So, we are looking forward to an interesting conversation today.

Fair Observer is an independent nonprofit media organization that has published more than 2,500 voices from over 90 countries, including statesmen, retired military officers, former diplomats and leading professors, along with some of the brightest young public intellectuals from around the world.

The post FO° Interview: Peter Beyer, MdB (CDU) | Germany’s upcoming plan | Military Expenditure | NATO allies appeared first on Fair Observer.

Even as US President Joe Biden leaves for his inaugural Asia visit, American foreign policy is in turmoil in the aftermath of the disastrous Vietnam-like withdrawal from Afghanistan and the catastrophic Russia-Ukraine War. 

Therefore, we spoke to Contributing Editor Christopher Roper Schell, a Capitol Hill veteran who has also worked on the Pentagon, to make sense of Biden’s foreign policy.

Christopher Roper Schell on Joe Biden’s Foreign Policy

How do you rate Joe Biden’s foreign policy?

Christopher Roper Schell: Biden’s foreign policy is coalition-based but it is weak and naive.

Why? Because it doesn’t contemplate realpolitik. Some people don’t care about your rules-based order or the values that matter so much to you, or ideals that are inconsequential in the face of power. In many ways he is a lot like Obama 2.0. Biden doesn’t necessarily enforce things, he just states what cannot be done.

What must not be done? The red line in Syria comes to mind for Obama. And Biden seems to be making himself another version of Obama. Policy is based on the notion that this is who we are. This statement often employed by Biden and by Obama alike is utterly meaningless.

Perhaps the most ridiculous thing is that Biden is negotiating simultaneously with the Iranians as he seeks to curtail Russia. However, he cowers every time Russia mentions a nuclear weapon. Well, what do you think the Iranians and the others are thinking? Get a nuclear weapon as soon as possible and no one messes with you. 

Did Biden play his cards well against Russia in Ukraine?

Christopher Roper Schell:  Biden was initially strong out of the gate. His decision to reveal classified information relating to a supposed false incursion by the Ukrainians, which the Russians would then use as a provocation to retaliate, was a great idea, as was his decision to provide a list of names of the people Moscow could have used to run Ukraine. 

However, from thereon Biden’s will flagged. Indeed, he was dragged virtually kicking and screaming to impose sanctions. Once he saw that the Congress was going to act, Biden didn’t want to be left behind. Similarly, when the Russians withdrew from Northern Ukraine, we should have been arming Mariupol to the teeth. We did not do this.

So, there seems to be an absence of confidence or will to provide any real defense to the Ukrainians. For example, the MiGs out there should have been sent to Ukraine. If the US could not send the entire planes, why not chop them up into parts and send them to Ukraine? Or leave the keys in the car and say we don’t know who took them…

So we are left in a situation where there could potentially be a frozen conflict for a long time. Ukraine could be left as a rump state. And there doesn’t seem to be the will to ensure that Russia loses, as Biden claims he wants. 

What do you make of Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan?

Christopher Roper Schell: It was a masterstroke. It was brilliant. It was perfectly executed, no, I’m kidding you. It was a dumpster fire. It was a mess. Now I grant you Trump left Biden in a bad position. Right? Right? 

Withdrawal timelines being what they are, Biden didn’t have a lot of good options but I mean, really, this was the best you could make of this? I mean, the region is now a mess.

For the American side, there hadn’t been casualties in a year. We had 2,500 to 3,500 people there keeping the top on this. And we withdrew everyone on such an artificial political timeline like 9/11. 

That’s the day you decide that you’re going to pull out, and when that doesn’t work and you see it’s kind of sort of going south, you think, oh, I know this isn’t working out. Let’s like move the timeline up, ’cause that’s way better, right? No, no.

Biden wanted a triumphant political 9/11 20-year wrap up ceremony. Instead, he got Saigon and I guarantee you his advisers were like no helicopters on rooftops, no helicopters on rooftops. And when he got helicopters on rooftops, those same advisers were probably saying nobody’s falling from the sky. Guess what? He got bodies falling from the sky strangely reminiscent of 9/11, and it was an absolute debacle. And of course this also eroded American credibility. I mean, regionally, once again it’s a complete mess. So, dumpster fire!

How has Biden handled the Middle East?

Christopher Roper Schell: The Middle East is a mess. What else is new? However, the new caveat here is that Biden has absolutely infuriated the Saudis, and he’s done so on numerous and different fronts. I wrote about this in my first The View from the Carriage House.

And Biden has completely alienated the Saudis. They won’t even take his calls, and he’s asking them to pump more oil. Not going to happen. At the same time, Biden is negotiating a contract with the Iranians, the Saudis’ mortal enemy. So what do you think the Saudis are going to do?

You’re talking about delisting the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). You’re talking about giving the Iranians all sorts of goodies. We’ve already delisted the Houthis and we also wouldn’t even sell the Saudis Patriot Missiles. So they’re quite frustrated and the place is a mess and we don’t seem to be making any headway on the Iranian Deal.

It’s a wash-rinse-repeat cycle of negotiations, pocketed gains, going back to the negotiation table, so the Middle East in general is not going well at all. 

Has Biden done well with allies like France, Australia and India?

Christopher Roper Schell: France is America’s oldest ally, which is why it got a little bit awkward in the room when the Aussies decided to buy US submarines and not French submarines. The French seemed to be caught off guard by this and Biden was too. Biden claimed that honest to God he didn’t know that the French hadn’t been told.

Which kind of makes sense. I do think he probably was the last guy to know. Nonetheless the Aussies are getting serious. They were sanctioned by China in a pretty profound way and they have recognised that China is a threat. The French are OK, you know, some fences have been mended there.

Perhaps most interesting is the relationship with India, which is founded on the QUAD. And I think America has to come to a better understanding to get on top of India. The US has to recognize that India can’t just throw away 70% of its military hardware, which is Russian. It has to remember that the old non-alignment days weren’t truly non-aligned, that there was a bit more of a Russian influence, and the time has come to recognize India’s past but also forge a very strong relationship moving forward.

This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Making Sense of Joe Biden’s Foreign Policy appeared first on Fair Observer.

[We’re going to try something new here at Fair Observer. I live in a small, quirky carriage house in Washington, DC, and this column is my view of DC as I see things. If I don’t get too much hate mail, then maybe we’ll keep it rolling. On the other hand, if I get enough hate mail, maybe I’ll keep doing it “just for the sake of my own stupid pleasure.” Let’s find out.

P.S. Each heading is a quote from something somewhere or other. To the person who emails me 11 correct identifications, I’ll buy you a drink at Martin’s Tavern…or we can have a friendly chat over the phone while I’m at Martin’s having a drink. Why 11? Because that’s how we play NumberWang around here.]

“Water, water every where, / Nor any drop to drink.”

After spending trillions and trillions of dollars on COVID, much of it recklessly, Congress is digging through the couch cushions to find another $10 billion for actual COVID treatment. How did this happen? 

Start off with the fact that most of the money was thrown at transfer payments, not on treatment. To a degree this was entirely understandable, but the level of fraud that has come to light is staggering. Both parties spent like drunken sailors, but the most egregious was US President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion extravaganza as the pandemic was waning. That law, amongst other things, bought tremendous “relief” to the poor, pitiful state governments that are presently drowning in cash. We also had a million other things that were tangentially related to treating the coronavirus. Oh, and we bought inflation with that money. Maybe you’ve heard something about that?

I’m not saying the Republicans were any less scattershot, but they spent the money when a) the virus was a real unknown, and we were going into the lockdown blind, and b) we had not developed an actual, real, very good vaccine. When Biden splurged cash, several vaccines were already in production. The issue now seems to be whether to use unspent funds from other COVID programs to spend it on… wait for it… actual COVID treatment. What an idea! Yet here we are in a panic over what is, relative to other COVID spending, a drop in the bucket.

Speaking of panic… 

“It was like when you make a move in chess and just as you take your finger off the piece, you see the mistake you’ve made, and there’s this panic because you don’t know yet the scale of disaster you’ve left yourself open to.”

Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona must be in a panic these days. Around the turn of the year he was perp-walked into a volley of machine gun fire on the Build Back Better bill that failed, and his “yea” vote has come back to haunt him. Perhaps that’s why he’s so eager to embrace immigration sanity. 

Title 42 was a Trump administration program that prevented immigrants from entering the US during COVID. Lifting such a restriction is understandable now that the pandemic is on the wane. However, this does not jive with retaining restrictions that the Biden administration seems to be fond of. The Department of Justice is appealing the revocation of the public transportation mask mandate by the court. 

This inconsistency is largely immaterial relative to the burning issue of asylum seekers. The “Remain in Mexico” policy keeps asylum seekers south of the border while their claims are heard in the US. The Biden administration sought to end this policy, which Texas is currently enforcing. The administration’s lawyers took Texas to the Supreme Court on Tuesday, April 26. Clearly, immigration will be on the ballot come midterms in November.

The combination of “Remain in Mexico” and Title 42 prevented the spread of COVID and avoided a bum-rush to the US border. If both of them were to go, there would be a tsunami of immigration. The Democrats in swing states might find voters would like them to be giving a damn about this issue, which hits headlines as immigrants surge and families are inevitably broken up every summer.

“This is family business,
And this is for everybody standin’ with us”

And while we’re talking about dealing with families, there’s a distinct disjoint between the rhetoric surrounding Florida’s “Don’t say gay” law, a mischievously if ingeniously labeled piece of legislation, and its popularity. This law does not want kindergarten children taught liberal sex education. When told what’s in the law and not just spoonfed the hashtag du jour, folks seem to like it. Go figure.

Polite circles won’t mention this, but according to a poll by Public Opinion Strategies, Democratic voters support the law by 55% to 29%. Biden voters swing 53% to 30% in its favor. Even those who “know someone LGBTQ” go 61% for and 28% against, and just to show that Disney is on the wrong side of this, parents like the law to the tune of 67% to 24%. Disney brought a knife to a gunfight by supporting this law. 

Social mores may have brought “a whole new world,” but Disney seemed to have wished upon the wrong star, and its special treatment by the state of Florida is over. Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill into law that revokes the status of Disney’s independent district, Reedy Creek. There’s now even talk of taking away the entertainment behemoth’s preferential copyright treatment.

Turns out running your own independent “Magic Kingdom” is a lot less expensive than letting the government run the show. Sure, Disney could probably fix potholes and run emergency services and utilities better and cheaper. Once the new law takes effect, Disney will also lose control of land use, building standards, and environmental protection that it has enjoyed for decades. Insiders predict Disney will have to pony up tens of millions of dollars annually to the government now and join the hoi polloi.

If Disney is going to support progressive policies, what could be more progressive than letting government get more involved? Slate frets that Disney will no longer be able “to manage its own streets, permitting, bond issuance, and so forth.“ Wait, I thought corporate control over things government usually does was a great threat to “our democracy.” At least that is what left-leaning publications like Slate tell me.

But lo and behold, even Mother Jones is defending corporate personhood, an idea hitherto hated by Democrats, with a headline stating Disney’s Civil Rights were violated. To be fair, Mother Jones has said it stands against corporate personhood but dislikes Republican hypocrisy. However, the defense of Disney’s special privileges by blue-blooded Democrat-supporting publications certainly seems incongruous. However, there might be a way out of this Disney-Florida impasse. The law doesn’t come into force until June 1, 2023, so there’s plenty of negotiating to be had.

Part of the problem was the over-the-top language Disney’s CEO Bob Chapek chose when he called the Florida bill “yet another challenge to basic human rights.” Mr. Chapek, Bob. May I call you Bob? Bob, didja read the bill? This isn’t Bucha where basic human rights are being violated. No cluster munitions spray labeled “for the children” are being dropped. These are first world concerns at best. A pertinent section of the law reads “Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age-appropriate.” Bob, take a deep breath: this is not exactly a Nuremberg Trial transcript.

When I think of Bob’s situation, it reminds me of what happened to Rob Manfred, the commissioner of Major League Baseball (MLB). He moved last year’s All-Star Game from Georgia to Colorado in the wake of the supposed “voting rights” kerfuffle. He was then reminded of MLB’s cozy relationship with China and the fact that though he opposed showing ID to vote, you needed one just to work concessions at the game. So, Mr. Manfred was against IDs for the purposes of voting, but in favor of them if you wanted to hawk beer under his banner. Because… yeah, that totally makes sense. Finally, there was this gem. Turns out the Commish is a member of the tony Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia. Was he going to stand by his principles and resign from such a toxic Georgian institution? Apparently not. All of this over a bill he likely didn’t read or understand.

I have no horse in this race, except I wish companies would simply stick to their knitting and stop virtue signaling at every turn. For years companies figured it was worth the signal to prevent marches, employee walkouts, and internet shenanigans, and that more conservative minds would grit their teeth and get on with life, but that thinking may be coming to an end. Fine by me.

One of the underreported friends lost by the US is Saudi Arabia. Recently the Saudis have cogitated on the idea of accepting yuan for oil, thus undermining the petrodollar. Who can blame them? Biden has done everything possible to infuriate our ally.

Those in the Biden Administration scratch their heads and wonder why the Saudis won’t play ball and just pump more oil, but a quick recap leaves little to the imagination. Start off by campaigning with the friendly overtures of calling the House of Saud a “pariah.” Then declare that Saudi Arabia would “pay the price” for, amongst other things, having a government with “very little social redeeming value,” and you start to get the picture.

After such pronunciations, Biden went on to withhold support for Saudis’ defense against the Houthis and no longer designate this Yemeni group as terrorist. His administration withheld Patriot missiles from the Saudis, fundamentally breaking the long understanding that the US provided the Saudis defense cover while they dutifully pumped oil. Also of note was Biden’s decision to release a CIA report in February 2021 that said Mohammed bin Salman, AKA MBS, was responsible for the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Come September, MBS was so hot on the subject he started yelling at Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, when asked about the murder.

To top it off, the Biden administration has further inflamed relations with Saudi Arabia by trying to cobble together a nuclear pact with the Iranian regime, the sworn enemy of the Arabs. This project seems doomed. For all the humiliating US prostrations before Iran, including an offer to drop the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps from the terrorist list, the Ayatollahs appear unmoved. US flirtations with Iran might not have succeeded but it has caught the eye of Saudi Arabia, and it’s not winning Biden any friends over there. Even before recent Saudi-US tensions, the Asia Pivot under Barack Obama and the flaming dumpster fire left behind by Biden in Afghanistan were perceived as waning US interest in the Middle East.

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Having run an expensive election campaign, Biden should know that money talks. Beijing purchases 1.8 million barrels of Saudi oil per day and the Kingdom has become China’s top oil supplier. The petrodollar may soon be in limbo, and with it the old deal between the US and Saudi Arabia that originally propped up the dollar. Starting in 1974, Saudi Arabia agreed to price oil in dollars in return for Washington providing arms, oilfield security, and defense cover to Riyadh. Now we have a situation where Saudi and the United Arab Emirates won’t even take Biden’s call, won’t pump more oil, and MBS is yelling that the US should “forget about its request to boost oil production.” Hell’s bells.

HMU @: christopher.roper.schell@fairobserver.com

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post DC Deconstructed: The View from the Carriage House appeared first on Fair Observer.

Americans had just elected whom they thought would be a moderate, measured president, and what they heard from Senator Schumer amounted to a battle cry for a sea change.

Concerns were already heightened that Democrats would take a less measured approach in the wake of presidential election debates about eliminating the filibuster, a key minority right that prevents a bare Senate majority from passing major legislation. There had also been debate in Democratic circles about packing the Supreme Court.

America’s Afghanistan Fiasco: The Buck Stops With Biden

READ MORE

Recognizing Democratic vulnerability on these points and the broader issue of temperate governance going forward, Joe Manchin, of West Virginia, playing the most avuncular moderate on the Democrats’ roster, was trotted out two days later to declare that “whether it be packing the courts or ending the filibuster, I will not vote to do that.”

Senator Manchin assured all that he wanted to “rest those fears” and would stand as a bulwark against more extreme maneuvers. The charm offensive in conjunction with Donald Trump’s back-and-forth position on whether Georgia Republicans should bother to vote at all enabled Democrats to seal their razor-thin majority in the Senate.

Unrequited Democracy

However, Senator Manchin’s love for his party has gone unrequited, as has his fidelity to the principle of the filibuster. From the beginning of the 117^th Congress, he has been treated to a buffet of difficult votes and has had to take positions at times at odds with his party’s expansive legislative ambitions and, at times, at odds with his conservative home state.

Manchin was instrumental in cobbling together the $1.2-trillion infrastructure bill, yet he has received little praise for his efforts. But when he made possible Democrats’ control of the Senate and, thereby, the full legislative and executive levers of power, he might as well have painted a target on his back. Once he opened himself to the “talking filibuster,” effectively gutting the filibuster in all but name, he was never to be taken seriously again.

Sparing the Senate a painful fight and mixed press, Democrats quickly found they did not necessarily have to eliminate the filibuster but could use the available mechanism of budget reconciliation for passing massive legislation, albeit within certain limitations. This approach, coupled with Great Society ambitions on a threadbare majority, has led to the current predicament in which Senator Manchin finds himself.

Since the massive reconciliation bill was conceived, Democrats and the media have persisted in the narrative of an inscrutable Senator Manchin, who simply will not articulate what he wants in a deal, but his requirements have long been clear. Late last month, brought forth the revelation of a signed agreement between his office and Majority Leader Schumer, dated July 28. In it, Manchin outlined specific parameters for the reconciliation bill, yet the Democrats persisted steely-eyed when, on August 11, the Senate proceeded with their original $3.5-trillion bill.

Clearly, Manchin had not made his point, and he was consequently forced to put his foot down yet again in an article for the Wall Street Journal published on September 2 wherein he objected to the topline figure and pressed for a “strategic pause” in the reconciliation bill. Crickets again. Three days later, his assertion was met with an eye roll by President Biden’s chief of staff, Ron Klein, who said Manchin was “very persuadable.” Manchin’s barbaric yawp seemed to strike the powers that be as a whimper.

On September 29, Senator Manchin decided to release his own statement, writing, “I cannot — and will not — support trillions in spending or an all or nothing approach that ignores the brutal fiscal reality our nation faces.” He went on to tell reporters: “I’ve never been a liberal in any way shape or form. … I guess for them to get theirs, I guess elect more liberals. I’m not asking them to change. I’m willing to come from zero to $1.5 trillion.” Manchin claimed he wanted to avoid “changing our whole society into an entitlement mentality.” How much clearer could he have been?

Yet Manchin continues to endure slings and arrows from his own party. He has become the punching bag for progressives and has endured at least one public criticism by the president himself. Beyond the inaccuracy of the president’s claim that Senator Manchin votes more with Republicans than with Democrats (depending on how you slice it, he votes with the Democrats 61.5% of the time), this was hardly a thank you for his service to the party.

Tightrope Walk

This is not to say Senator Manchin’s goodwill is inexhaustible. Democrats have increasingly abandoned the coal country voters who once were the base of the party in West Virginia. Whereas some argue that coal production has somewhat receded in economic impact within the state, 91% of West Virginia’s electricity comes from coal, and cultural affinity for and pride in the hydrocarbon run deep.

This is at odds with today’s Democratic platform, where the fossil fuel and industrial agendas are at odds with green ambitions. As green priorities increasingly win out within the party, frustration grows with industrial voters.

Once untenable policies like the Green New Deal have taken root within the party, and, as a result, Democrats have been leaking blue-collar voters like a sieve. A common explanation for why these voters are migrating to the Republican Party is to imply there are racist motivations by middle-class whites, but Hispanic and black blue-collar voters continue to migrate to the GOP in equal percentages.

West Virginia is not only economically (energy and mining) aligned with the Republican Party these days but is culturally (guns, abortion, wokeism) more consistent with Republican stances, and there may come a time when Joe Manchin will have to change parties to remain viable. The question could be not if but when he leaves. In departing, he would surely endure the enmity of Democrats, though many would understand his decision.

On the positive side, were Manchin to fully uproot, he would no doubt be welcomed with open arms by his Republican peers and likely retain his seniority, making a very light-footed step from one majority to another overnight. Yet another possibility is to eschew the “D” label and become an independent, thereby curiously paring under that non-affiliation a left-wing Bernie Sanders and a left-of-center Joe Manchin.

As Gerald F. Seib observed in his excellent article, “It is probably no exaggeration to say that Mr. Manchin is the only Democrat in the country who could hold his seat for his party.” Yet he also notes that “even the formidable Mr. Manchin isn’t holding that seat comfortably; he won re-election in 2018 by a 50% to 46% count against Republican Patrick Morrisey.” Not only that, his increasingly vulnerable seat is in a state that Trump won by 39 points in 2020. In the future, keeping his seat as a Democrat will be quite a trick.

Manchin’s Dilemma

It seems that rumors of Joe Manchin’s defection abound, and even Mother Jones is in on the act. This last case, which occurred earlier this week, met with a strong response from Manchin, who declared the reports of his switching parties “Bullshit” (“with a capital B’’). Yet no matter how many times Senator Manchin says “bullshit,” it doesn’t engender fidelity to the party when, say, Bernie Sanders carpetbags an op-ed into Machin’s backyard that contains a strait jab at Manchin in the penultimate paragraph.

Interestingly, Sanders might have added to the pressure for Manchin to vote against the bill when he wrote, “This reconciliation bill is being opposed by every Republican in Congress.” (Note to Senator Sanders: Heavily Trump-leaning West Virginia voters don’t necessarily “Feel the Bern.”) Nor did Manchin particularly appreciate Vice President Kamala Harris’ attempt on local West Virginia TV to turn the screws on a vote for the $1.9-trillion COVID-19 relief bill earlier this year. This, too, did not meet with a dispassionate response from Manchin.

Sometimes it’s “bullshit” until there simply is no choice. For nearly a decade, I worked as a staffer for a man of humor, kindness, intelligence and practicality. A lifelong Democrat like Joe Manchin, my former boss eventually had to switch parties to continue doing what he did so well: represent his constituents.

Moments before filing for reelection, he weighed whether to run as a Democrat or a Republican. Heading out the door, he told his staff to file the Republican paperwork (both had been prepared). By the time he arrived at his house, his wife, also a life-long Democrat who had heard the party switch story over the radio, met him at the front door, arms crossed, asking: “You got anything to tell me, big boy?” My boss would laugh and say that switch banished him from the bedroom to the sofa for a week.

Senator Manchin might end up sleeping on the couch for a while when it comes to his Democratic supporters, but were he to switch, he would no longer be the whipping boy for all that ails the party. He would no longer be subject to Joe Biden rousing himself for belated entreaties to vote for an agenda that is unpopular in West Virginia. No more would he be tied to a president who has lost a step, or maybe more, and whose poll numbers have declined substantially, including one that shows 35% of Americans say “mentally sharp” describes Biden “not at all well.”

In formally making the switch, Senator Manchin would merely echo what his state’s governor and potential billionaire Senate race opponent, Jim Justice, did in 2017, which could help shore up support with those back home questioning the current rash of trillion-dollar bills.

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It also seems that the progressive wing wouldn’t even notice if Manchin and Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema left the party. Late last month on CNN, Representative Ilhan Omar said of the two senators: “It is saddening to see them use Republican talking points. We obviously didn’t envision having Republicans as part of our party, and I hope that they will understand that Democrats need to be united behind the president’s agenda.” Not content with hounding the pair, Democrats seem eager to foist them on Republicans and unite in the minority.

From Manchin’s perspective, both the passage and the failure of the reconciliation bill lead to difficult places. The former hastens his departure from the Senate or his party, and the latter heaps blame at his feet for destroying party unity and the Democrats’ ability to affect their priorities. The best West Virginia residents can hope for is that the bill fails as much for the country and West Virginia‘s economy as for the senator’s own prospects for keeping his seat. Despite the outcome, with a little more friendly fire from his own party, Democrats might soon wake up to a diminished party and the plaintive, “Say it ain’t so, Joe!”

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Will Joe Manchin Remain a Democrat? appeared first on Fair Observer.

In the speech, there was, of course, the now-customary blame spread between the Afghan government and former President Donald Trump, but Biden did say that he “takes responsibility for the decision” to evacuate 100,000 Afghans, thereby implicitly distancing himself from the messy withdrawal itself.

Apparently deciding to withdraw all US troops is one thing, the consequences of that decision, another. Americans were assured that ties with our international partners were strengthening. Biden even spoke of the United Nations Security Council passing a resolution carrying a “clear message” that laid out international expectations for the Taliban.

Biden’s Misjudgments in Afghanistan

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But by the time he did so, the president had already relinquished any leverage the US might employ to make those prospects real. No doubt the Taliban sat upright when they heard a threat as empty as those Washington had made to the Houthis in Yemen, who have paid them rapt attention.

Appearing a little defensive, President Biden underlined: “Let me be clear: Leaving August the 31^st is not due to an arbitrary deadline; it was designed to save American lives.” This implies that the original withdrawal date of September 11 was decidedly non-arbitrary—  before the withdrawal descended into bedlam.

Biden, who campaigned on his foreign policy experience and the global relationships he had cultivated over his long career, now finds himself saddled with a fiasco that has been compared to the US withdrawal from Vietnam and will be remembered for bodies in free fall, eerily reminiscent of 9/11.

While President Biden and his supporters say this was inevitable and the decision to withdraw forces was made out of necessity, the broader view suggests that misjudgment, mishandling and a lack of foresight were the culprits of the botched evacuation.

A Series of Missteps

When the US withdrawal from Afghanistan was announced by then-President Trump, NATO partners felt blindsided. At the time of Biden’s withdrawal announcement, 35 other NATO member states, led by Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom, collectively had approximately 7,000 personnel in Afghanistan, according to official figures. They were understandably angry at not being consulted.

After Biden became president, a review by his administration reaffirmed the withdrawal, also without consulting with allies. While assurances of regional US support force were proffered, few doubted assets outside Afghanistan would be substantially less effective than America’s in-country posture. Where could the naysayers have developed such an idea? Perhaps they were listening to what our own military was saying at the time.

On April 20, Marine Corps General Kenneth McKenzie Jr. addressed the difficulties of an “over-the-horizon” approach when he said at a hearing before the House Armed Services Committee that “It’s difficult to [strike a target] at range — but it’s not impossible to do that at range.” General McKenzie also said of post-withdrawal peacekeeping and power-projection capabilities: “I don’t want to make light of it. I don’t want to put on rose-colored glasses and say it’s going to be easy to do.”

Leading up to the hearing, on April 9, the director of National Intelligence released a report that contained “the collective insights of the Intelligence Community,” stating that “prospects for a peace deal will remain low during the next year” because “the Taliban is confident it can achieve military victory.” In bold lettering, the report made clear that “the Afghan Government will struggle to hold the Taliban at bay if the coalition withdraws support.”

Two months later, in mid-June, an assessment prepared at the request of General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Kabul could fall six months after the US military left.

Almost from the moment the withdrawal encountered problems, the president alluded to inaccurate intelligence estimates, but weaknesses in the withdrawal plans became evident early on. Indeed, signs emerged in classified assessments sent over the summer that things were not going well.

The most damning of these was a State Department dissent cable, signed by 23 embassy officials and sent on July 13, that described the Taliban’s movement and the impending collapse of the Afghan government. Although the cable was immediately reviewed by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, it was largely ignored. 

In addressing the dissent cable, President Biden concluded this assessment was outside the broader consensus, but even the rosiest estimates maintained the Afghan government would fall in 18 to 24 months — just long enough for a September 11 commemoration and the mid-term elections.

The most optimistic estimate tacitly acknowledged that the Taliban would capture remaining US weapons and supplies, and that forfeiture of materiel to the enemy was inevitable. In effect, the decision to pull out consciously contemplated the inadvertent arming of the Taliban within no more than two years.

Between Nation Building and Giving Up

Oft stated, though, it is that the speed of Taliban advance was unanticipated, that intelligence agencies were equally caught off guard by the departure on July 12 of the top US commander, General Scott Miller. Perhaps most shocking to the intelligence community and US allies was the withdrawal from the Bagram Air Base on July 2, in the dead of night and without notifying its new Afghan commander.

This had enormously destabilizing consequences, especially on Afghan military capabilities and morale. Intelligence agencies were put in the position of having to guess not only what the Taliban and the Afghan government would do, but also what decisions President Biden would make.

Abandoning Bagram, which had two runways as opposed to Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport’s one, was shocking to many. To reduce the number of US soldiers required to defend the embassy and the airlift, operations were limited to the HKIA. This consolidation was later seen as an error, but the military preference for keeping Bagram with its larger, more defensible perimeter became infeasible because of troop constraints placed by Washington.

Blindly optimistic despite signs of looming problems, Biden maintained on July 8 that “The Taliban is not … the North Vietnamese army. They’re not — they’re not remotely comparable in terms of capability. There’s going to be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of a embassy … of the United States from Afghanistan. It is not at all comparable.”

Biden’s statement was buttressed by a false choice: either walk away from Afghanistan or stay in a situation that would, as the president described it, add casualties and put “American men and women back in the middle of a civil war,” meaning that the US “would have run the risk of having to send more troops back into Afghanistan to defend our remaining troops.”

As Congressman Dan Crenshaw pointed out, “There are a lot of foreign policy options between nation building and giving up. We found the proper balance in recent years — maintaining a small force that propped up the Afghan government while also giving us the capability to strike at Taliban and other terrorist networks as needed.”

Vulnerabilities grew as contractors withdrew, removing air support that had been the lifeblood of the Afghan military. With the Afghan army unable to resupply and pay forces, particularly those at the edge of the Taliban’s advances, morale imploded. On August 13, John F. Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, stated that the Afghan military still held advantages against the Taliban, notably, “a capable air force.”

But by early July, reports had already come in that Taliban fighters were executing pilots, and the Pentagon still had not formulated a plan to keep Afghan aviators flying after US withdrawal. Recognizing the air-power advantage was all for naught once the planes stopped flying, a mere three weeks before he fled Kabul, then-President Ashraf Ghani pled with Biden for air support — to no avail.

Dwindling food and munitions, a lack of reserve support and tardy soldier pay all contributed to reduced capabilities and a weakened willingness to fight. In some cases, the Taliban would offer government fighters safe passage and the equivalent of a month’s salary to lay down their arms. Whatever plan was in place, it is now clear that the issue was not one of “a perception around the world and in parts of Afghanistan … that things aren’t going well,” as Biden suggested to Ghani. Once the Afghan military lost air support, it was lights out.

Political Choices

Joe Biden has repeatedly claimed he had no choice but to comply with Trump’s deal signed with the Taliban in Doha last year, but it wasn’t at all obvious he was committed to that course of action when he ordered a review of the withdrawal. His own secretary of defense, Lloyd Austin, visited Afghanistan in mid-March, saying he was there “to listen and learn,” promising that “It’ll inform my participation in the review that we’re undergoing with the president.”

Biden has reversed Trump’s policies in many other areas, making changes that have led to a surge of immigration at the southern border, setting a two-decade record. He has rejoined the World Health Organization and the Paris Climate Agreement, and is seeking to negotiate a deal with Iran similar to the discarded Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

Leaving Afghan Allies Behind Is a Threat to US Security

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If, as this administration maintains, the US left Afghanistan because the Taliban have been weakened over decades of war and it was a time to seek an exit, why is Washington negotiating with Iranians who chant “death to America” at every turn and are more capable than ever?

Prior to the August 26 explosion at Kabul’s airport that killed over 170 civilians and 13 American service members, there had been no US combat fatalities in Afghanistan since February 2, 2020. That, alongside the choice of an emotionally significant withdrawal date of September 11, suggests that the decision was a largely symbolic political statement and the plans for how to execute this mission were engineered backward with devastating consequences.

A US force amounting to 2,500 — or 3,500, as per European and Afghan officials — was a small footprint, yet it held valuable assets such as the Bagram airfield, strategically located between eastern Iran and western Pakistan. Giving up those assets, in conjunction with the collapse of the Afghan government, led to a substantial reduction in US intelligence capabilities by early July, a trend that has only accelerated to the point that the US has now lost 90% of its intelligence collection capabilities.

In a mountainous, disparate place like Afghanistan, where the tribal loyalties are fierce, the human component is everything. Over-the-horizon strikes seldom work, particularly if you don’t know who the target is — or should be.

The likelihood of creating a terrorist safe haven seems to grow by the day. Weighted against damage to US credibility and prestige, not to mention the threat to the homeland, it is hard to imagine how a nominal support force could not be justified, considering the much greater deployment of US troops in places like Germany and South Korea.

If the objective is to withdraw from “forever wars,” then why pull so few soldiers from an unstable part of the world where the Taliban and al-Qaeda (who the US Department of Defense say keep a cozy relationship) plot against the West only to leave tens of thousands of troops stationed residually from World War II and the Korean War? If the objective is to maintain stability, as it appears to be in South Korea, then why abandon the progress made in Afghanistan?

Inconsistent Principles

Some have praised President Biden for the consistency — others would say obstinacy — of his decision, but the principle of withdrawal and the manner in which it was conducted has been inconsistently applied. In the primary debate in October 2020, then-candidate Biden had this to say about the Trump administration’s decision to pull out troops from Syria that undermined the position of America’s Kurdish allies:

“I would not have withdrawn the troops and I would not have withdrawn the additional thousand troops who are in Iraq…

It has been the most shameful thing that any president has done in modern history — excuse me, in terms of foreign policy. And the fact of the matter is, I’ve never seen a time — and I’ve spent thousands of hours in the Situation Room, I’ve spent many hours on the ground in those very places, in Syria and in Iraq, and guess what? Our commanders across the board, former and present, are ashamed of what’s happening here.“

In a speech in Iowa the same month, Biden blasted Trump for creating a humanitarian crisis and undermining national security. “The events of this past week … have had devastating clarity on just how dangerous he is to our national security, to our leadership around the world and to the lives of the brave women and men serving in uniform.” Trump, he said, “sold out” the Kurds and gave the Islamic State (IS) “a new lease on life.”

“Donald Trump, I believe — it’s not comfortable to say this about a president — but he is a complete failure as a commander in chief,” Biden said. “He’s the most reckless and incompetent commander in chief we’ve ever had.”

The White House appears to be reeling from the uniformly negative coverage, but more than a few must be thinking, “Et tu, Biden?” While the president rejects criticism of his Afghanistan departure and shows no signs of altering his position, America’s weakened posture in the world is being exploited by its enemies.

Already the Chinese, the Russians and the Iranians are asking countries to question US reliability. Moscow has objected to setting up US military bases outside Afghanistan that might have effected a less chaotic withdrawal. Meanwhile, China, no doubt giddy at seeing US forces vacate Bagram just across their border and likely eager to control it themselves, seized a propitious moment to threaten Taiwan, suggesting resistance to reunification is futile.

If the withdrawal from Afghanistan is to “focus on shoring up America’s core strengths to meet the strategic competition with China and other nations,” then the US should seize upon the opportunity to reassure Taiwan and reiterate our constancy. Thus far, we have only heard posturing as Biden’s climate envoy, John Kerry, seeks nods for his cause against China’s intractable “two lists and three bottom lines” that would have Washington abandon its allies in democratic Taiwan.

All We Left Behind

When met with concerns about partners questioning America’s credibility on the world stage, Biden deflected by saying: “The fact of the matter is I have not seen that. Matter of fact, the exact opposite … we’re acting with dispatch … committing to what we said we would do.” The president appears not to be watching much TV or reading the news. According to numerous reports, America’s NATO allies are furious, and snubbing British Prime Minister Boris Johnson isn’t winning him any more friends in the “mother of parliaments.”

Meanwhile, Europe, Pakistan, India and others are worried about terrorists entering the regional vacuum, not to mention fleeing Afghan refugees looking for a haven at a time when the absorption of Syrian refugees has strained government resources. Many of these countries are anticipating another massive influx of refugees. As for those the US has evacuated, conditions were reportedly squalid and, according to an email from supervisory special agent Colin Sullivan, “are of our own doing.”

Although conventional thought by the administration held a swift withdrawal would prevent greater destabilization to the government of Afghanistan, it was fanciful to maintain we could get everyone out in such haste. A now-common complaint by president Biden’s defenders is that the US didn’t start evacuating Afghan allies when Trump ordered the withdrawal. Yet that is wholly inconsistent with what Biden did.

While Biden announced the withdrawal on April 14, the airlift did not begin until July 30, and the withdrawal deadline was moved from September 11 to a more politically palatable but hastier August 31. Since then, cable news and any number of articles have focused on those the US left behind, including an Afghan who served as an interpreter and rescued Biden when his helicopter was stranded during a snowstorm in 2008.

The administration prefers to focus on the hundreds of US citizens who still remain in Afghanistan, but how many special immigrant visa (SIV) holders or those who “earned them” through their bravery and assistance have been left behind? By some estimates, a quarter of a million Afghans helped the US during the war, and rumors now circulate that the Russians are collecting the data of all calls going to the US that is being handed over to the Taliban.

The Taliban is not known for paying friendly courtesy calls. Secretary Blinken recently said that we have “now learned from hard experience that the SIV process was not designed to be done in an evacuation emergency.” But how to square that with repeated complaints from the administration about the SIV backlog and the 14 steps required to gain one or the delay between announcing withdrawal and airlifting people out? All of this seems to make US departure appear at once precipitous and callous.

A Common Excuse

A common excuse made by the Biden administration is that many people do not want to leave. This was echoed time and again, but it conflicts with the thousands of people who have assisted with private efforts to extract America’s friends. Whatever the reasons for the poorly executed withdrawal, for those who did make it out, thanks may be given not necessarily to the US government but to the informal band of wealthy donors, veterans and CIA analysts who formed groups such as the Commercial Task Force in the Peacock Lounge of the Willard Hotel.

In that one instance, about 5,000 people were evacuated. Other groups have sprung up to guide refugees to safety or give them passwords to write on posters that would help them gain entry to the airport. Biden acknowledged the “network of volunteers,” and although many do not like hearing it, these groups have in many ways been more effective with fewer resources than the federal efforts.

Afghanistan: A Final Nail in the Coffin of American Foreign Policy

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For all of the president’s attempts to claim that “we planned for every contingency” and that “the buck stops with me,” the private efforts were no less necessary in the face of a self-reinforcing view that an ill-conceived, poorly-executed plan during the fighting season is proof of its necessity. When Biden said on August 16 that “the developments of the past week reinforced that ending U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan now was the right decision,” it was a justification as inversely logical as the withdrawal.

While there were no helicopters on the roof of our embassy, officials there were nevertheless evacuated in situ. Originally, the Pentagon maintained that the embassy evacuation was “a very narrowly focused, temporary mission to facilitate the safe and orderly departure of additional civilian personnel from the State Department. … Once this mission is over … we anticipate having less than 1,000 U.S. troops on the ground to support the diplomatic presence in Kabul, which we all agree we still want to be able to have.”

We now know the embassy, one of America’s largest, is shuttered, with Taliban graffiti scrawled on it, and policy is run out of Qatar. While Biden is unlikely to have any “mission accomplished” signs up, US efforts have been reduced to “a new diplomatic mission” that will apparently work in concert with the Taliban.

As it stands now, the Taliban head the government in Kabul, Islamic State Khorasan is making moves, US “collaborators” are being hunted down and the Haqqani Network is ascendent. It is striking to hear the same people who cite the $2-trillion cost of the war in Afghanistan are also those who push for the abandonment of US labors, willfully or otherwise ignoring the promise of a renewed terrorist safe haven.

It does not take much imagination to picture the Biden administration in the same position that President Barack Obama found himself in when he pulled out of Iraq. As former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz reminds us: “Mr. Biden should have known to expect this because something similar happened 10 years ago when we withdrew our forces from Iraq. Lacking U.S. air support and advisory capabilities on which the Iraqi army had grown to depend, it collapsed under an assault by Islamic State. Three years after the withdrawal, President Obama had to rush 1,500 troops back to Iraq to assist in the fight to drive out ISIS. By 2016 that number had grown to 5,000.”

A Question of Competence

Criticism assails President Biden from all quarters, with a few observing that he had planned a 10-day vacation to Camp David as the withdrawal was reaching a crescendo. Top Obama adviser, David Axelrod, has said: “you cannot defend the execution here. This has been a disaster. … It is heartbreaking, it is depressing, and it’s a failure. And he needs to own that failure.”

Nor is Biden finding many friends among former US ambassador to Afghanistan, Ryan Crocker, and Princeton’s Robert George, both of whom have some unflattering opinions that echo that of Robert Gates, who served as secretary of defense under both George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Secretary Gates wrote that Biden is someone who has “been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.”

Trust in America and in Joe Biden’s judgment is at a low ebb, and it is difficult to understand how the president developed a reputation for competence. On July 8, he said that “The mission was accomplished in that we … got Osama bin Laden, and terrorism is not emanating from that part of the world.” This elides the fact that it was Biden who dissented in planning the operation that would kill bin Laden.

While Biden was not right about bin Laden, bin Laden might have been correct about Biden. When deciding not to target Biden when he was vice president, bin Laden described him as “totally unprepared for that post [of president], which will lead the US into a crisis.” Contrary to the president’s belief, it also seems that terrorism may soon be “emanating from that part of the world” again.

That’s not to say there isn’t plenty of blame to go around. A commander in the Afghan army, General Sami Sadat, has kind words for neither Biden nor Trump, nor did former National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster pull any punches when he said in mid-August that “This collapse goes back to the capitulation agreement of 2020. The Taliban didn’t defeat us. We defeated ourselves.”

Indeed, President Trump’s former defense secretary, Mark Esper, called the Doha agreement with the Taliban “conditions-based” and said Trump “undermined” his own plan when the drawdown continued despite a lack of progress by the Taliban on the agreement’s provisions. The Biden administration would have been well within its right to renegotiate the drawdown in light of the Taliban’s unwillingness to honor its end of the bargain.

What Biden had hoped would be an orderly, triumphant return of the US military — a hope still maintained by the Department of Defense as late as July 6 — turned into the posturing fecklessness of a nakedly political stunt.

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Biden has repeatedly telegraphed his punch with, however awkwardly denied, artificial deadlines that were tethered to very little outside of political opportunism. This was never more obvious than when September 11 was set as the withdrawal deadline. In choosing that date, his hand was tipped, and a plan to end the 20-year war in Afghanistan was revealed as a political stunt, an unnecessary capitulation masquerading as destiny, vainglory turned tragedy.

An Ignominious Retreat

The Economist writes of the US withdrawal: “If the propagandists of the Taliban had scripted the collapse of America’s 20-year mission to reshape Afghanistan, they could not have come up with more harrowing images” — a withdrawal where “Mr. Biden failed to show even a modicum of care for the welfare of ordinary Afghans.” In the wake of this irresponsible and costly withdrawal, there is a now burning conviction by America’s enemies that if God wills it, their adversaries will be vanquished.

That is a devastatingly effective emotional tool and recruiting argument that all but assures we will see this enemy again in closer quarters. When President Biden paid his respects on September 11, it was against a backdrop of triumphant marches elsewhere for the jihadist cause.

While some may sigh with resignation at the “inevitable” calamity unfolding, they ignore a great number of facts and forget the indiscriminate brutality the US attempted to excise when it entered Afghanistan. They shrug at the lost lives of brave US and Afghan soldiers (2,500 and 66,000 respectively) who fought for that cause. To claim all of this was preordained is to foreclose a possible, if uneasy, calm and greet with resignation — a decidedly un-American trait — the reversion to greater violence and the tribalism that all but precluded loyalty to a central government in Kabul.

To declare the withdrawal just with rhetorical genuflections toward those who died is to forget the sacrifices of the dead, which in many cases were made for causes beyond themselves or even their country. It invites feuding terrorist groups to reconstitute and gain strength.

Accusing the Afghan government of not defending the gains of the past 20 years is at once to blame the victim and to banish the memory of what was there before the US entered and what will surely reappear in its absence. It is to debase women’s lives by accepting as banal the butchery Bibi Aisha survived, whose June 2010 Time magazine cover shocked the world and hung above my desk for years as a reminder of the inhumanity we were fighting.

It is to indict exiled President Ashraf Ghani in the face of impossible odds for remembering history and the fate of another ousted president, Mohammad Najibullah — the last Afghan leader to see the Taliban roll into Kabul in 1996. Najibullah was captured by the Taliban, castrated and, according to Robert Parry, had his severed genitals stuffed in his mouth before being strung up from a lamppost. 

Although it may be said by the current administration that withdrawal was necessary and an earlier, better coordinated drawdown would have destabilized the Afghan government and the country, we have to ask what is more destabilizing: rolling up the carpet or yanking the rug from underneath a mission that brought stability so costly in blood and treasure?

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post America’s Afghanistan Fiasco: The Buck Stops With Biden appeared first on Fair Observer.