Foreign policy trends
Perhaps this election will begin a trend towards foreign policy realignment.
Liz Cheney’s endorsement of Kamala Harris is based largely on her suspicions that Donald Trump is not a Republican, in the Ronald Reagan sense of the term. She questions his credentials as a principled conservative, regarding him as a populist and an authoritarian leader. Cheney is pro-NATO, pro-Ukraine and hawkish, and Harris is just the same.
The problem with that is that the peace wing of the Democratic party never identified with Cheney style neo-conservatism. Democrats disliked George W. Bush for expanding the Iraqis War along with his paladin, Dick Cheney.
Suddenly in 2024 the world has been placed on its head. Tony Blinken, has been the most militant Democratic Secretary of State since Dean Rusk in the sixties.
Militancy might work for Republicans, but it rarely works for Democrats. The winning streaks were halted by wars, Korea ended 20 years of Democratic dominance and Vietnam terminated eight years of supremacy in 1968.
When then Vice-Presidential candidate Bob Dole in 1976 denounced “Democrat Wars” he hit a nerve. Republicans beginning with Dwight D. Eisenhower were identified as “peace and prosperity” candidates. Under Ike the Korean War was ended in a stalemate and most Americans were happy when it ended.
Richard Nixon thought he gained a similar result in South Vietnam, until Watergate and general weariness with conflict unraveled the Paris Peace Accords in 1973. But despite all, Republicans held on to the moniker of peace makers.
Mostly because they pushed a not so accurate narrative of peace through strength. In the case of Korea and Vietnam, GOP leaders wanted it both ways. They wanted to defeat Communism, but cheaply.
Moreover, they derided Democratic “loyalties.” Before Trump, Joe McCarthy spoke of “enemies within” and “20 years of treason.” Because of such rhetoric Democrats were reluctant to not intervene, fearing that they would be accused of being “soft on Communism.”
Now they are back on the hawkish wagon, accusing Trump of being “soft” on Vladmir Putin. They are ridiculously rigid about supporting Ukraine even if it risks a nuclear war.
With Israel they do not like the collateral damage, but support Tel Aviv to the hilt. Blinken and Biden have played good cop to Benjamin Netanyahu’s bad cop. No one sees them as independent and at every bend in the road, they have supported the Israelis even through they whine about it every step of the way.
Republicans handle these matters better; only Franklin D. Roosevelt proves the exception. Eisenhower in 1956 did not intervene in Hungary, despite his Secretary of State John Foster Dulles’ rhetoric about “rolling back” Communism in Europe.
Eisenhower at the same time halted a British, French and Israelis attempt to seize the Suez Canal. He won a landslide in 1956.
Ronald Reagan in 1983 intervened in Lebanon and after over 200 Marines were killed in Beirut, he rattled a few sabers but did not draw the sword. He then prudently withdrew and voters rewarded him with a landslide victory in 1984.
If the Democrats lose, they will have the Blinken-Biden foreign policy to thank. You cannot have only prosperity; you must have peace.
In 2003, George W. Bush’s administration broke with prudence in the invasion of Iraq and helped end GOP dominance. But his wing of the party, at least the neo-cons, are with Harris. This may make for problems on election day.
Harris needs to make it clear that she does not support “forever wars.”