Already we are hearing about one possible presidential candidate in 2024. Of course that would be Donald Trump. His followers don't realize what a disaster his presidency was. His presidency, like that of George W. Bush's, left our nation in shambles. Yes, it got an assist from the Covid-19 virus. But still, Trump's judgment during the time he was in office was very suspect.
From the beginning Trump was either enthralled or intimidated by strongman leaders. Even if we don't include Putin in the mix, he expressed jealousy over China's Jinping's maneuvering to become President for life, he was impressed by Erdogan, he congratulated Duterte for how he handled the Philippines drug problem, and from I read from one of Woodward's book on Trump, he seemed intimidated by Jung-un of North Korea.
Trump's reelection hopes always relied on his immigration policies and the nation's economy. Moral shortcuts were seen in the Trump Administration's treatment of those who were detained though it should be mentioned that there were some similarities with how Obama's Administration also treated undocumented people. But Obama was able to talk about unwanted immigrants without using racist descriptions.
But let's face it, we will never solve our immigration problems until we make our foreign policies and trade agreements a significant part of our immigration policies. Why is that? It is because our foreign policies and trade agreements have been instrumental in driving up the demand for people wanting to emigrate to this nation. Our foreign policies have a history of increasing the rate of violence in a nation even for the long term. There is something about supporting regime changes where the incoming ruler acts as a tyrannical dictator that can tend to make a nation more violent. As for our trade agreements, they have been partially responsible for increasing poverty in some of our trade agreement partners as the targeted beneficiary of those agreements are often corporations. That is what we saw with NAFTA.
As for our economy, Trump took shortcuts there to ramp up, or actually partially ride the coattails of his predecessor's, success. Here Trump cut environmental regulations that increased short term profits while endangering our future both with respect to climate change and environmental concerns outside of climate change. In fact, Trump did all he could to show the world that he refused to believe that climate change even existed.
Trump's tax cuts targeted the wealthy. That and his spikes in the military budget again put America's future at risk as the they resulted in unnecessary spikes in the deficit. Many of us didn't notice this because we were convinced that Obama left the military in shambles--something that is kind of hard to do since even under Obama we were spending more money on the military than the next 8 nations combined. But as one old rock song mentioned: 'Paranoia strikes deep.'
And while we weren't watching, Trump restarted the US in a new arms race with Russia.
But what do we get with Biden? Certainly he is an authoritarian at heart though not to the degree that Trump is. He claimed that he could work with the Republicans but has yet to show that. Having floated his recovery plans earlier in the year, some non-Trump Republicans met with him to see if they could strike a deal. But Biden refused to compromise with them. As a result, Biden's infrastructure plans will have no Republican support. In fact, some of Republicans are thinking about letting America default on its loans and shutting down the government, a step that will hurt many of us.
And then there is Biden's withdrawal from Afghanistan. Certainly we needed to withdraw because we were in an unwinnable conflict with those who hosted those who attacked us on 9-11. Our troubles from Afghanistan started when Carter signed off on assistance with the predecessors of the Taliban, the Mujahideen. Here we should note that, like the Taliban, the Mujahideen strongly opposed the social reforms that the Soviet friendly Communist government was trying to continue and even add to that included an improved standing for women. Thus we have another success story for employing binary logic in a world full of continuous values.
Certainly, any withdraw from Afghanistan was going to be messy. But Biden showed insufficient effort to minimize that messiness. And he has still failed to acknowledge that he could have done a better job.
Yes, Biden has some success early in his tenure as President. But will his performance hurt the Dems chances of keeping control of at least one chamber of Congress let alone both Such is an important question because the Republican Party is still under the control of Trump. Their denial of reality, seen with Climate Change during Trump's Administration has leaped tall buildings in a single bound with their reactions and responses to the Covid crises. And they plan to center the 2022 midterms on the ludicrous accusation that the Dems are Marxist socialists--such is an insult to many of us who lean to varying degrees toward Marx. But such is the state of the Republican Party because of the deliberate ignorance possessed by many of its registered voters.
And though we could go one about the government, we should note that, in many cases, a nation's politicians are only a reflection of its people. Here, we can realistically blame Trump for spiking the political polarization we see. This polarization is the result of tribalism, a tribalism that is built on the practice of canonizing one's own views and leaders and stoking fear by demonizing one's opponents. And many of us just go along with that.
If this article seems pessimistic to you, then good. I really don't see anyway out of the mess that the whole nation, including its politicians and its people, have made for itself.
