An American election is not won over foreign policy — such is the mantra repeated by almost any commentator or political strategist. Americans supposedly vote for gasoline prices, for sectorial subsidies (farming, housing, energy), minimum wages, environmental regulation versus deregulation. The voter wants to improve his or her economic wellbeing and votes accordingly — such is the going wisdom. However, these ideas, long held by Americans, and still strong in many European minds, have been toppled by a strange new hybrid genre in which foreign policy has become a pervasive extension of domestic passions.
The passions in question are no longer simply the price of gasoline, the interest rates, the national indebtedness. Since Barack Obama, the values of a new liberal (i.e. progressive and inclusive) America have become a passionate focus, which elicits a passionate conservative reaction. Under earlier electoral contests, the Democrats upheld the ongoing social liberalisation, while the Republicans would politely try to slow it down, as demonstrated by the last Republican of that bent, Mitt Romney the unhappy candidate of 2012. Since then, the New Republicans emerged, the heirs of the rabidly anti-Obama “Tea Party” of 2009. These new creatures injected the social agenda of aggressive conservatism (an end to all affirmative action, free gun possession, a ban on abortion) and an exacerbated anti-intellectualism — all campaigns revolved around simplistic economics, peremptory conservative slogans (our boys are not girls, bring Christmas back to the White House, stop murdering babies), and atop all this a new simplistic approach to foreign policy.
Indeed, foreign policy played a role in the elections of 1916 (WWI), 1938 (WWII), 1972 (Vietnam), and 2004 (Iraq, although less blatantly). It played a lesser role no doubt in 1976, 1980, 1992, 1996. In 2016, Donald Trump began using foreign policy as an extension of his all-out discreditation of nearly all actions of the Democratic Party. The real estate billionaire repeated an old Republican isolationist aphorism: Democrats start wars, Republicans end wars. Never mind how patently empty this is: Lincoln engaged in the Civil War, Republican candidate Dewey was as much in favour of intervention as Franklin Roosevelt, the Republican Party approved of the Vietnam War, then there were the Middle Eastern wars — the Gulf War, the Afghan War, the Iraq War — all launched under a Republican White House.
Donald Trump considers that through strength the United States prevents war. This argument is easy to toss out and gives the impression that wars result from indecisive presidencies who do not use force in the beginning, but end up using excessive and bloodthirsty war in the end. Such an argument makes an impression on Republican audiences, especially the wider public that attends political rallies. Other foreign policy simplistic notions, emanating from the new values-oriented Republican party: negotiations can work with Putin or Kim or Xi because all leaders who love their people have a corresponding penchant for making money for their nations. One can make a deal with all such leaders, they are transactional people if only given a chance. The weak Democrat presidents do not give them this chance, and confuse these strong-men and push towards war.
On Iran, the Republican platform is that the Democrat-brokered JCPOA was a sell-out, which would have allowed the Iranian regime to increase its nuclear build-up. Here the Democrat argument is as bad as the Republican one: on the one hand, Obama brought in the JCPOA, it seemed for a time to be working, there was a nominally reformist president Hassan Rohani in power in Tehran, then Donald Trump scuttled it completely and nuclear enrichment resumed on an enhanced scale. Yet, on the other hand, upon returning the Democrats to the White House, Joe Biden was unwilling to revert to the JCPOA, the Iranian regime having gone too far with enrichment and with interference in Arab affairs in the Middle East. The paradox is the following: Donald Trump can elicit popular approval of this disapproval of Joe Biden’s policy while the latter cannot seem to impune Trump on anything. This paralysis on Biden’s part is easily explained: Biden continued Trump’s policy, including on Afghanistan. Therefore Biden cannot admit this, nor will he garner popular enthusiasm by invoking the doctrine of the continuity of American foreign policy. It is a lose-lose for the Democrats on the communications level.
Crowning all this come the Gaza War. The United States may not have been directly connected to this, but the effect of the Abraham Accords is clear. Hamas and Tehran wished to derail the imminent completion of these accords which would have resulted from Mohamad Bin Salman’s coming around. As the accords were designed in part to contain and even rollback the Iranian regime’s expansion, Donald Trump does bear some responsibility.
Perhaps the newest element of foreign policy’s massive intrusion into the daily aspects of the electoral campaign is indeed the running of the Gaza War. Without overstating himself, Donald Trump repeats how Joe Biden is letting Israel down. But how would Trump solve the Gaza conflict? Nothing clear emerges, only ideology is proposed. Naturally, Benjamin Netanyahu is fully synchronised with Donald Trump, he has praised the 45th president in the Congress this last week of July, under the incumbent president’s nose. Once again Biden is inaudible on this question.
Will Kamala Harris manage to reverse any of these tendencies? As she has identified herself more closely with Gazans than Biden has, it is difficult to see her recapturing any hesitant centrist pro-Israeli voters. The Trump–Vance ticket will portray Harris and her running mate as traitors to Israel. Let us note in passing that the accusation of anti-Semitism is not directed at the Biden-Harris team: Kamala’s husband is Jewish, and the Secretary of State Anthony Blinken is as well, and not particularly of the anti-Zionist type. But this will not shield the Harris team from the “traitors and allies of terrorists” accusation, which will resonate with Republicans and enough independent centrists.
In short, foreign policy is even more present in the American campaign than ever. Foreign policy expertise, however, is completely absent from the election. This gap may one day be difficult to breach.
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