Tag: United States
How the Democrats will win
How the Democrats will win
I am a registered Democrat. Unlike most of the media and virtually all Republicans, I believe the Democrats can and will win. This is how they will do it:
- Biden will withdraw as a candidate. Campaign contributions will balloon.
- The convention will enthusiastically select a new candidate, most likely Kamala Harris.
- She will choose as her vice president one of the younger Dems with a national security track record.
- Both will run on Biden’s economic and political record and against Trump’s unpopular platform. Or if you want the official version.
- Biden will campaign for her energetically in the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin.
- She campaign nationally but focus extra attention on Georgia, North Carolina, and Arizona.
- The Democratic Party will produce a first-rate get-out-the-vote campaign drawing on younger voters.
Every step will be fraught with peril, but it is doable. Ukraine and Gaza may haunt the candidate, but rarely does foreign policy decide an American election.
Biden has succeeded…
Ultimately the merits weigh heavily in favor of the Democrats. The economy is doing at least as well as under Trump. Energy production and exports are way up. Consumption and imports are happily down.
The only real demerit is persistent inflation, which is slowing. It could still reach the 2% target sometime in the fall. Unemployment is up from historic lows due to the Fed’s anti-inflation rate increases, but employment growth is still healthy. Despite Trump’s opposition, Congress is providing ample assistance to American science and industry, green technology, and Ukraine. Contrary to Trump’s assertions, violent crime is declining. So too is illegal immigration, due to Biden Administration action that may not hold up in court.
…Trump will not
Biden took action because the Republicans blocked legislation to better control the border. Many of them want to ban abortion and in vitro fertilization countrywide. Trump has said he intends to deport tens of millions of immigrants and fire tens of thousands of civil servants. Neither is feasible or desirable. Republicans defend the January 6 rioters. Two-thirds even want them pardoned. Trump is intending to give more tax breaks to rich Americans while raising taxes (via across-the-board tariffs) on people who spend rather than invest. That’s why some rich Silicon Valley types are supporting him:
Day Two
Trump has vowed to be a dictator on Day One. You don’t have to ask how he will govern on Day Two if he allowed that opportunity. Only someone prepared to ignore the will of the people would run on the Republican platform. Even after the disastrous debate and the controversy surrounding his competence since, Biden is no more than a couple of points behind Trump. Once the Biden cloud has passed, the sun will shine.
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Biden is toast, but don’t burn him
I expect President Biden will soon announce the withdrawal of his candidacy. That’s good. His decline since I saw him up close last winter is obvious. While I would still far prefer him to Trump, he is wise to throw in the towel. He has a fantastic record of restoring the country to sanity and steady economic growth, reknitting its alliances, appointing capable and diverse officials, getting a lot done on climate change, meeting the Russian challenge in Ukraine, shoring up defenses against China, and I could go on. Bowing out now ensures a positive legacy.
Challenges ahead
The rumor mill suggests the convention will be an “open” one with several candidates to replace Biden on top of the ticket. That seems to me a bad idea. It ensures a floor fight that will necessarily be divisive. It could also stimulate street demonstrations, which could get out of hand. I favor handing the baton to Kamala Harris. Biden has repeatedly avowed that she is ready to take over. He should let her do so.
The campaign against Trump will still be an uphill battle, no matter the candidate. The Democrats need not only to unify. They need to present a clear and compelling alternative to Trump’s lying, criminality, and immorality. He is a terrible candidate. That Biden in his weakened condition is still running neck and neck with him in the polls suggests the Democrats can recover from the last few weeks to win.
Biden can help
Biden can be a useful surrogate in the effort. He still has strong Democratic support and could help to get voters to the polls. He is a formidable fundraiser and a savvy political operative. His sterling record contrasts dramatically with the chaos and decline of Trump’s presidency. Biden may be toast, but it would be a mistake for any successor candidate not to use his record and his savvy.
Whoever the Democratic candidate, s/he should rely a good deal on Biden, whether or not he remains in the presidency. The mistake Al Gore made–not to rely on President Clinton’s record–should not be repeated. Biden has been a successful president. Running away from him would be a big mistake.
Trump is worse than too many think
I’m hearing wishful thinking about a second Trump term. To the contrary, it will be far worse than his first. Just listen to what he says. He wants to weaponize the Justice Department, claiming falsely that Biden has done it. He wants to cut taxes for the rich again and raise them on middle class people who (necessarily) spend most of their income. Trump will give Ukraine to Putin and won’t protect Taiwan. And he’ll support extremists in Israel who want to expel Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza. If you think the world is problematic now, just wait until a new Trump presidency.
Trump will also use a return to the White House to deliver retribution to those who oppose him. Take it from the Australians:
Part II isn’t out yet.
And remember this: Trump deployed unidentifiable law enforcement personnel on the streets of Washington (and wanted them to fire on demonstrators), he has praised the January 6 rioters, he is a committed racist, and he has appointed Supreme Court Justices who think a woman shouldn’t be allowed to decide on her own health care. That’s in addition to being a rapist, a tax cheat, and a Russian asset. Trump is far worse than too many think.
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Trump will be tragic for Israel-Palestine
J Street sent this yesterday. I can’t do better:
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Justice demands the truth
Claudio Gatti, an Italian and American journalist, has updated the results of his decades-long inquiries into an incident known often in Italy simply as “Ustica” (or the strage di Ustica). That refers both to a small Italian island about 49 miles north of Palermo and the crash nearby of an Itavia DC-9 on June 27, 1980. The crash killed all 81 people aboard.
Forty-four years later, the cause of the Ustica crash is still unknown. The crew had no warning. There is no evidence of mechanical failure. Experts have (mostly) discarded the hypothesis of a bomb on board. Gatti examines other hypotheses involving a American, French, Italian, or Libyan missile. Justice demands the truth.
What didn’t happen
He concludes that none of these hypotheses is valid.
There is technical evidence favoring a missile. The downing of the aircraft might have been a mistake. I often noted while Deputy Chief of Mission in Rome 1990-93, and still believe, the Americans could not have kept such a mistake secret. The French or Italians, who some imagine to have mistaken the plane for one in which Qaddafi was traveling, had other, better options for killing him. Qaddafi himself claimed to be the target, but the Libyans have never provided evidence that he was flying (or planned to fly) in the area that night. The Libyans had no motive, even if the later crash in Sicily of a Libyan MIG raised questions about their possible involvement.
The decades since the incident are replete with suspicious behavior, missing data, allegations of coverups, military and technical incompetence, and conspiracy theories. These are standard in Italy. The judiciary, sometimes more serious than the journalism, has failed to elucidate the cause.
What might have happened
Gatti, whom I have known for decades (caveat emptor), thinks he knows the answer: Israel. His theory is that Prime Minister Begin, worried (literally) sick about Iraq’s acquisition of nuclear technology from France and Italy, authorized the downing of a plane carrying weapons-grade enriched uranium fuel for the Osiraq reactor. The Israelis destroyed that in an air raid a year later. Gatti thinks the Israeli pilots, operating in low-visibility conditions at the outer limits of their capabilities, mistook the Itavia plane for one that was supposed to be traveling a similar route.
I won’t rehearse all the details. This RAI documentary by Luca Chianca deals with some of them. I play a minor role there saying no more than intended here. I don’t believe the Americans did it. The Israelis had the technical means to do it. But I have no idea whether they did.
Caveat emptor here as well. I was involved in the late 1970s in American diplomatic efforts to prevent the Italians from transferring nuclear technology to Iraq. I now wonder whether preventing Israel from taking military action motivated my vigorous State Department instructions.
Gatti offers much more in his Il Quinto Scenario: Atto Secondo, but that is available only in Italian. The evidence for an Israeli missile downing the DC-9 is compelling. But not quite a smoking gun. It passes what the experts term a “hoop test.” As in jumping through a hoop. The facts, as best he thinks them determined, are consistent with Israeli culpability. The hypothesis thus fulfills a necessary but not sufficient criterion.
More investigation is needed
In the absence of competitive hypotheses, more investigation is warranted. It is appalling to think any state would down a passenger plane. But of course it has happened in the past. The Israelis downed a Libyan Arab Airlines Boeing 727 in 1973 when it unintentionally flew over Israeli-occupied Sinai. And it could happen again.
The Ustica mystery needs a solution. The families of 81 people should not have to live with uncertainty about what happened. Justice demands the truth, whatever it may be.
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Democracy matters, but so does the candidate
2024 is a year replete with elections. The most important, not only for the US but also for much of the rest of the world, is not until November 5. We are already more than halfway there. How are things going?
The good news
Pretty well. In India, France, the United Kingdom, South Africa, Pakistan, Macedonia, Mexico, and Taiwan electorates have demonstrated reduced support for regimes in power while either maintaining the incumbents or installing reasonable moderates.
Even in Iran, where elections are unfair due to prior regime selection of candidates and unfree due to regime control of the media, voters chose a relative moderate.
The European Parliament has likewise remained mainly in the hands of relative moderates, despite gains by right-wing nationalists:
These are by my lights good outcomes.
The bad news
Unfree and unfair elections elsewhere did what elections do in autocracies. They confirmed the autocrats. Vladimir Putin and Bashar al Assad enjoy that, but it convinces no one but themselves of their legitimacy.
In the US, we are in the midst of a chaotic campaign. Joe Biden’s poor debate performance has shaken some of his Democratic supporters, hurt his fundraising, and reduced his odds against Donald Trump:
The situation is even worse in battleground states that will decide the outcome in the Electoral College. Both candidates are unpopular, but Biden is more unpopular:
This is strange. The former president gave tax breaks to the rich, responded with confusion to the COVID-19 epidemic, hired many officials who have been indicted for felonies, failed to fulfill many promises, and diminished American prestige and influence abroad. The current president has presided over a dramatic economic recovery, provided relief to the middle class, mobilized against climate change, and made America the envy of much of the world.
However much I may disagree with the prevailing judgment about the candidates, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that Biden is in serious trouble.
That could change
That could change of course. Americans could wake up and realize that Trump is more cognitively impaired than Biden. He rarely completes an intelligible sentence. No one really knows what he wants. Voters could start wondering about someone whose supporters aim to eviscerate the civil service, ban abortion and then birth control countrywide, and impose more tariffs American consumers will pay on imported goods. Or my fellow-citizens could develop a sudden aversion to someone convicted of 34 felonies and indicted on dozens of other felony counts in multiple jurisdictions. Not to mention his decades of partying with Jeffrey Epstein and underage girls.
Americans could also wake up to President Biden’s virtues. The economy has more than fully recovered from the COVID-19 recession, taxes, medical expenses, and student loan payments for middle and lower income Americans are down, and inflation is cruising to a soft landing. Pete Buttigieg gets it right:
Not many Transportation Secretaries can do this.
But the odds aren’t good
All that said, Biden is in trouble. Kamala Harris is a viable candidate. Rob Reiner has echoed George Clooney well:
We love and respect Joe Biden. We acknowledge all he has done for our country. But Democracy is facing an existential threat. We need someone younger to fight back. Joe Biden must step aside.
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Harris would be a solid candidate
I thought everything that could be said about President Biden’s poor debate performance last week had been said. Until I read my son Adam’s call for Biden to resign now. Caveat emptor: I’m his father. But he makes the case well. If Biden is too old to debate effectively, he is too old to govern. And his yielding the presidency to Vice President Harris would help her to gain traction after a late start. Her polling is already about as good as Biden’s, and incumbency would give her additional advantages.
A constitutional glitch
The glitch in this scheme is the 25th amendment to the US constitution. It requires a majority of both Houses of Congress to confirm nomination of a Vice President before s/he takes office. This looks doable in the Senate, where the Democrats have a slim majority.
But in the House of Representatives the Republicans have a slim majority. We can hope that at least a few Republicans would vote to confirm. But if they don’t Harris would presumably remain in the Presidency as “Acting” for a few months. Otherwise there is a real risk of discontinuity at the apex of the US government. That would not benefit no one.*
Harris’ record
As a California Senator, Harris voted the same way as Bernie Sanders 93% of the time. That puts her on the Democratic left. But prior to that she spent decades as a tough-on-crime prosecutor, albeit one who increasingly opposed charging minor crimes. As Vice President, she has been leading on reproductive rights, voting rights, and the southern border. None of those issues has provided triumphs, but her positions on them will solidify Democratic support. Republican criticism will be especially focused on southern border issues. The Republicans are trying to duck on abortion and voting rights, both of which they oppose.
Harris has also racked up more tie-breaking votes in the Senate than any other vice president in American history. That is more a reflection of the slim Democratic majority than any vice or virtue on her part. But it also means that her experience in Congress is longer than the four years she served as a Senator. And watching Joe Biden work the Hill since 2021 is excellent training.
Harris’ virtues
Harris has a lot of electoral virtues. She is clear-headed and would make mincemeat of Donald Trump in a debate. She is both Black (Jamaican) and Indian (Tamil Nadu) by parentage, married to a Jewish Second Gentleman. At 59 she looks considerably younger. She is a graduate of Howard University, a leading Black institution of higher learning in the US.
Shoring up Black support is an important Democratic objective for November. Harris will have an advantage in doing that. She is also a Californian, but that won’t help as its electoral votes a virtual certainty for the Democrats.
Foreign policy won’t weigh heavily in this election. But Harris was relatively early in calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. That could help her with Arab Americans. Their votes in Michigan and a few other states could be decisive. She has been stalwart and blunt in supporting Ukraine:
She stood in for Biden at Ukraine’s recent Peace Summit.
For my Balkan readers: there is no way Harris would support ethnic nationalist proposals for segregation by means of moving borders in the Balkans. I imagine the current Assistant Secretary of State for Europe, Jim O’Brien, would remain in place in a Harris administration.
Bottom line
There are still four months before the election. Harris would have immediate access to the resources of the Biden/Harris campaign. She could credibly take credit for the good things Biden has done, including on climate change, student loans, countering inflation, and job creation. Democrats could rally around her faster and easier than around one of the many other admittedly qualified aspirants. Harris is not a shoo-in, but she would be a solid candidate.
*This is wrong. I misread the 25th Amendment. The Vice President would become President on Biden’s resignation. It is a new Vice President who would have to be confirmed in Congress.
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