Amexit (July 5, 2024)
Welcome to Home & Away, and Happy Day-After July 4th. Independence Day, or Amexit as we might call it were it a recent development. We have officially been in business for 248 years. After this week, it is harder to make the case that we can assume another 248.
Yes, it has been quite a week. The British election results are in, and, as expected, Labour won in a rout, if results are measured by parliamentary seats. More accurately, the Conservative Party lost in a rout, as Labour’s share of the vote was not much higher than it was in the last election.
The Tories got what they deserved. The Conservatives were anything but conservative, acting and ruling with disdain for precedent and norms, all the while putting themselves before their country. Unfortunately, the damage they caused over the last 14 years (above all with Brexit) will remain long after they are gone.
Meanwhile, the French are between rounds in their own elections. The far right won a plurality in round one, and President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist bloc came in a dismal third behind the far left. The most likely scenarios continue to be Macron serving out the remainder of his term with a government dominated by the right or a parliament with no single party garnering an absolute majority. The drubbing of incumbents seems set to continue.
Week and Weak
Speaking of incumbents, it was a terrible week for President Joe Biden following his debate performance. The White House and the Biden family are circling the wagons, but there are increasing signs it will not work. Nor should it given the stakes of this election and Biden’s electoral vulnerabilities. As I argued in Monday’s special edition of this newsletter, the question is not just whether Biden can do the job now—he clearly has good and bad days, not to mention good and bad hours—but whether he will be able to do it adequately through the end of his second term, when he would be 86 years old. Given last week’s debate performance and subsequent reports about his alleged deterioration over the past 12-18 months, it is hard to argue with a straight face that he could.
Even if he is able to put up a good front in his interview with George Stephanopoulos tonight or during campaign rallies this weekend, my guess is that the bottom will still fall out in the coming days. What comes to mind is Hemingway’s quip about how he went broke: gradually, then suddenly. National polls already show Trump widening his lead, and if new swing state polls confirm that trend, they will likely push matters over the tipping point. In addition, polls show other Democrats outperforming Biden in a head-to-head matchup with Trump, robbing the Biden campaign of its argument that Biden is best positioned to defeat Trump in November.
The rest of the world is watching all this closely. I wrote a piece for Project Syndicate suggesting other governments had better prepare themselves for a second Trump presidency. Just to be clear, this is not a foregone conclusion. Someone other than Biden would have the advantage of relative youth and freshness, and would not have the burden of incumbency. But Trump’s return to office is a real, and growing, possibility.
It was about as good a week for Donald Trump as he could have hoped for: the Biden debate debacle, the Supreme Court ruling on immunity (more on that below), and the consequential delay in sentencing from his New York trial. Plus, he is managing to avoid making himself the issue, the effect of which is to improve his political prospects, but not the quality of his character, or judgment, or policies.
Unoriginal
The other big news of the week here at home (as I mentioned, it was quite a week) was the Supreme Court. The Court did its best to weaken the regulatory state, although how courts will be able to substitute their opinions for the professionals who work in the agencies is a mystery as judges simply lack the necessary expertise in fields ranging from environmental science to public health.
Then, there is the immunity decision, granting Trump immunity for those actions undertaken in an official capacity as president. The immediate impact is that none of his pending trials will get anywhere before November.
The bigger impact of this SCOTUS decision though may materialize if Trump wins or some other flawed individual comes to occupy the Oval Office. The six justices who formed the majority clearly worry more about rogue prosecutors than they do rogue presidents. I think they have it wrong here.
Then there is the notion that somehow a sharp dividing line exists between a president’s official and non-official duties and actions, with the former deserving immunity, regardless of what they are, and the latter not. That is a fiction, as many presidential activities involve elements of both.
What strikes me most, though, is that the majority on this Supreme Court seems to know little about American history, as the debate over ratification of the Constitution was in many ways a debate informed by fears of a too-powerful executive. What we seem to have is an emerging legal doctrine of selective originalism.
Unprincipled and Unstable
Since this is Home & Away, I want to end with a few short international items. The first involves China. Chinese leader Xi Jinping gave a talk a week ago on the five tenets of peaceful coexistence, tenets that have, in principle, guided China’s foreign policy for some seventy years now. I say “in principle” deliberately, as the pillars—mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, non-aggression, non-interference in the internal affairs of others, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful coexistence—have all been demonstrably violated by Russia in its war against Ukraine. Meanwhile, China has stood by Russia from the get-go. It is not hard to see what triumphs in today’s China when realpolitik and principle collide.
And last, from Israel. First, the second attempt by this Israeli government to provide a strategy for what comes in Gaza after the fighting stops will have a half-life even shorter than the first one, which is to say it will end before it begins. The proposed idea is to continue sidelining both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority by creating small “bubbles” in Gaza where locals will work with Israel as partners to provide governance and security. The notion that this will prove viable in the face of opposition from Hamas is risible.
Then there was the stunning piece by Steve Erlanger in the New York Times on the rise of individuals and groups in the West Bank that have moved away from the Palestinian Authority (seen as feckless) and instead now model themselves on Hamas. What this suggests is the near certain rise of armed resistance to Israeli occupation, less a third intifada than intensifying clashes between armed Palestinians and both the IDF and settlers. The Israeli government’s recent decision to effectively seize several thousand acres of West Bank land will only exacerbate these tensions. And there still remains the possibility of a war between Israel and Hezbollah in the north. A three-front conflict has become imaginable, although there is welcome news that some sort of ceasefire in Gaza may be in the works.
Toast
Doom and gloom in the Middle East seems a terrible place to end a missive on what is a holiday weekend. So let me end where I began, with a toast to the United States of America and to its democracy, along with a call to all of us to commit ourselves to doing everything possible to ensure that it does not become toast.
As always, some links to click on. And feel free to share Home & Away.
Richard Haass in the news
Tuesday, July 2: CNN Amanpour
Article
After Biden’s Debate Performance, the World Should Prepare for Trump (Project Syndicate)
Check out The Bill of Obligations: The Ten Habits of Good Citizens