OPINION
Not that long ago, I was engaged in a conversation with that increasingly rarest of creatures: a thoughtful, centre-leftist. An American one, at that. No doubt you’re as astonished as I was.
Naturally, the conversation started with the obligatory, rambling diatribe against the Bad Orange Man.
“At least he was the first American president in decades not to start any new wars,” I pointed out.
My American friend paused. “Yeah,” he sighed. “Yeah, you’re right about that. I’ll give him that.”
Trump’s promise to end the Washington Establishment’s Forever Wars was one that resonated deeply with Middle America. After all, it’s their sons and daughters who do most of the fighting when the coastal elite decide to pour more money into the greedy maw of the military-industrial complex. Indeed, as my friend pointed out (correctly), the real heart of the protests against the Vietnam War wasn’t the middle-class college kids of the ’60s. Even the Weather Underground goons admit that: “It was never about the war,” said Howie Machtinger.
Even more to the point, Americans are sick of being looked to as the world policemen – and then sneered at for their efforts. Especially by lazy and mendacious European leaders. When Trump called European NATO members to account for their decades of failure to live up to their treaty commitments and expecting the American taxpayer to foot the bill for European defence, Americans took notice.
Even more galling for American taxpayers is that, even as Joe Biden wrecked the once-booming Trump economy, and millions of illegals flooded unimpeded across the southern border, Washington’s elite poured tens of billions of taxpayer’s money into Ukraine.
Americans are fed up.
Few Americans say the United States should take a more active role in solving global problems, but partisans are split on whether they think the US should take a less active role on the world stage, according to a new poll released Wednesday from the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
Only 23 per cent of respondents say they think the U.S. should take a more active role in solving the world’s problems – a view shared by Democrats (23 per cent), Republicans (24 per cent) and independents (21 per cent).
However, 53 per cent of Republican respondents say the US should take a less active role in solving the world’s problems, with only 25 per cent of Democrats sharing this view.
On the other hand, 52 per cent of Democrat respondents say the US’s current role on the global stage “is about right,” and only 22 per cent of Republicans say they feel the same.
In other words, Democrats can’t bring themselves to admit that their doddering puppet president is throwing tens of billions of good money after bad in order to prolong the death and destruction in his Ukraine proxy war as possible.
Among Republican respondents, 52 per cent say the US should take a less active role in the Ukraine-Russia conflict, compared with 18 per cent of Democrats who say the same.
The Democrats’ antisemitic slip is showing, though.
The gap narrows on the Israel-Hamas war, with 38 per cent of Republican respondents supporting a less active role and 28 per cent of Democrats supporting a less active role.
So, Republicans are more likely to back a democratic traditional ally than a corrupt autocracy in the former Soviet Union, while Democrats want to leave the Joos go hang.
The poll captures a difficult issue going into the November presidential election, with the leading candidates from each party holding starkly different policy views.
While former President Trump embraces an “America-first” isolationist foreign policy perspective, President Biden has played a significant role in strengthening NATO and global alliances, especially in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The Hill
Biden has ‘strengthened’ global alliances in the same way his odious predecessor Barack Obama did. Which is to say, he’s leaving behind what Foreign Policy magazine bluntly called a “clusterfuck”. Obama, it must be remembered, sneered at suggestions that Russia would be a threat and haw-haw-hawed like a grinning idiot at the idea that downgrading America’s blue-water fleet was an open invitation to China to take over the Pacific. Obama also denied that handing the nuclear keys to Iran was a dangerous move.
How did ‘intelligent’ Obama go on each of those?
Donald Trump, meanwhile, for all his bluster, was consistently right, especially on Russia. When he warned NATO leaders that they were dangerously dependent on Russian gas, he was laughed at – who’s laughing, now?
And when he promised to end the Forever Wars, voters listened. They’re listening again.