Tough Love (March 1, 2024)
Welcome to Home & Away. And welcome to March. The saying goes that March comes in as a lion and goes out as a lamb. This year it seems more likely to leave as a lion as well.
45 & Mitch
It was a glass half full, half empty week for both Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Each is on track to be his party’s nominee for president; each is showing signs of vulnerability in the process.
In the case of Trump, he is winning primaries (South Carolina on Saturday, Michigan on Tuesday) by relatively small majorities and without widening his base. Nikki Haley, although far behind in the delegate count and without much of a chance of securing the nomination barring a major development related to Trump, is nonetheless getting support from roughly a quarter of Republican voters while appealing to both Democrats and Independents. Trump is treating her in his characteristic fashion, without generosity or grace, and is not making real efforts to woo her supporters. In short, he is not reaching out beyond his base. The one exception was Trump’s quick and politically astute decision to support access to IVF in the wake of the Alabama court decision that put it at risk.
The other important news for Trump this week was the Supreme Court’s decision to take up the case as to whether he has blanket immunity from prosecution for actions he took as president. The Court will likely decide this in June, further delaying any trial and increasing the odds that the political calendar will move faster than the legal one. This in turn increases the odds Americans will go to the polls this fall in a context in which Trump faces multiple legal charges and possible trials but is unencumbered by any criminal convictions (he has already been convicted of civil fraud charges in New York).
There is a good argument that the Supreme Court ought to have rejected Trump’s appeal out of hand, as his lawyers’ claims have no precedent and are hard to reconcile with the Constitution. The immunity Trump is claiming would give him or any president license to break the law. But this Supreme Court (even if it ultimately rules against Trump) went the extra mile to help him.
This takes me to the announcement by Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader of the Senate, that he will step down from his post later this year, while continuing to serve as senator. Many nice things are being said about McConnell, including his support for aid to Ukraine and for a deal on the border. And it is true that without him the chances grow that the Senate (almost certain to be controlled by Republicans after November) will come to resemble the House, which means that it will be run by Republicans with little interest in governing or anything other than doing Trump’s bidding.
This is all true but leaves out at least one important thing. His legacy will more than anything be defined by what he did to alter the composition of the Supreme Court in the wake of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death. McConnell refused to allow a vote on Merrick Garland on the grounds that Barack Obama sent up his name too close to the 2016 election—and then rammed through a vote on Amy Coney Barrett with far less time to go before the 2020 election. McConnell prevailed, but at great cost to the institution. It was an exercise of expedience over principle.
Conservatives are not meant to do such things. The result is a Supreme Court, in many ways the final backstop for this democracy, with much diminished legitimacy. The risk is that Democrats will resist accepting Court decisions…and that, if given the chance, will do much the same when it comes to populating the Court, leading to Republican rejection of Court decisions they oppose. All of which is to say it is premature to write a laudatory political obituary for someone who may come to be seen over coming decades as in no small part responsible for the demise of American democracy or even the union itself.
46 & Michigan
As for the current president, he faces no serious challenger for the nomination, but his poll numbers remain weak. He trails Donald Trump by several points in most nationwide matchups. In Michigan, the uncommitted vote is on the order of 13 percent. The risk is not that these voters will opt for Trump but that they will stay home or vote for a third-party candidate come November in a state Biden cannot afford to lose but well might.
The reality is that Biden is weak with Arab- and Muslim-Americans as well as with younger voters, especially those on college campuses. This makes for a problem, as the one thing that is certain is that the president will not be getting any younger between now and election day and any slip (literally or figuratively) will only remind already skeptical voters that he is of an age most think is too old for the job.
Borderline
Both presumptive presidential candidates took a trip to the southern border Thursday. If nothing else, the dueling visits underscore just how significant immigration is as a political issue. A recent Gallup poll shows a plurality of Americans now cite immigration as the most important problem facing the country.
For Trump and Biden, the visits were much more about politics than policy. Trump hammered away that immigrants are bringing crime into this country; Biden for his part used the visit to argue that the problem at the border could be dramatically reduced in scale if only the Republicans were willing to sign onto the bipartisan legislation that they once called for but then pulled back from in order to placate Trump, who sees political benefit in keeping the issue unresolved.
Biden is right in pointing this out but Trump may well be getting the better of it politically, even if there is more than a little evidence that the enormous influx of people is fueling economic growth and reducing inflationary pressures that otherwise would have resulted from a labor shortage. Biden would be wise to take any and all unilateral measures available to him lest the problem and the lawlessness associated with it become the perception of his presidency.
The Gallup poll is also interesting for what Americans are not focused on. Concerns about the state of American democracy are negligible, cited by just 3 percent as the most important problem facing the country. Unclear is whether most Americans believe their democracy is in better shape than it appears or that they don’t see much of a price to be paid if it is damaged.
Then there is the statistic that only 3 percent of Americans cite foreign policy as the most important problem facing the country today. On one hand, this is not all that surprising, as foreign policy tends not to be uppermost in people’s minds except when Americans are directly involved in a costly war. On the other hand, it is hard not to be struck by the gap between the lack of importance Americans attach to their foreign policy and both how important it is and how important it is judged to be by others.
Beyond Persuasion
Once again there is a good deal to say about the Middle East. Attention has been focused on efforts to bring about another temporary cease-fire or pause in the fighting between Israel and Hamas that would also include a return of some of the remaining hostages, a release of some Palestinian prisoners, and provision of aid into Gaza.
I don’t know if such an agreement will materialize. Earlier this week, President Biden went out on a limb saying it was likely to, but both Israel and Hamas then quickly poured cold water on his optimism, and even Biden walked back the statement after yesterday’s deadly incident with an aid convoy in northern Gaza. Why Biden initially said what he did—while eating ice cream with a late-night talk show host to boot—is not obvious. Maybe he thought it would help him in Michigan. Maybe it was unscripted. Maybe he thought it would pressure Hamas and Israel to compromise their positions on what they would require for entering into another temporary cease-fire. Maybe, but maybe not, as it tends to be a mistake in diplomacy to appear to want an outcome more than other parties.
The United States is anxious to bring about a pause in the fighting before the onset of Ramadan, which starts around March 10 and runs for a month. The last thing the Biden administration wants are images of Muslims being killed as they seek to pray in the holiest month of their year. I actually think for this very reason Hamas might be more than prepared to see the fighting continue. Its strategy has always been more political than military, to generate outrage, a trap Israel fell into after October 7 and might well again. And even if all this proves wrong, and another temporary halt to the fighting comes into effect, it will eventually lapse. There is still no basis for ending the war. Hamas is more than ready to mount an open-ended resistance to Israel’s open-ended occupation.
As noted earlier, the continuing war (which has now claimed the lives of 30,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry) has been costly for America’s standing in the world and for President Biden’s standing in the country. It has also been costly for Israel’s standing in the region, the world, and the United States. But none of this appears to concern the current Israeli government.
I have been arguing at every opportunity that the Biden administration has got to move beyond its policy of trying to persuade the Israeli government to change its ways by eschewing large-scale military operations, opening itself to accepting a reformed Palestinian Authority overseeing governance of Gaza, committing itself to a political process meant to address Palestinian political aspirations in a manner consistent with Israel’s security needs, and halting actions such as building new settlements that further reduce what opportunities remain to create a viable Palestinian state.
The problem is not with the goals of U.S. policy. It is that persuasion is not succeeding for any number of reasons. Many Israelis are still living in a world defined by October 7. They want revenge and they support the government’s declared goal of eliminating Hamas even when such a goal cannot be achieved. The ruling coalition has no desire to bring about a Palestinian state or constrain settlements or end the occupation. The prime minister for his part has no desire to do anything that would bring his government down and open him up to prosecution for his alleged violations of Israeli law and investigations into failures that led to October 7.
What is needed is a more independent U.S. policy. I have suggested President Biden give a speech directly to the Israeli people. Ideally it would be from the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, but more important than the venue is the content. It should make the case that what Israel is doing is unlikely to succeed and could in fact set back its prospects for normalization with the Arab world while weakening its relationship with the United States. It also jeopardizes Israel’s future as a secure, prosperous, democratic, Jewish state. The President would make clear that he is not seeking to establish a Palestinian state today, but that he wants to begin the process of bringing about a Palestinian leadership able and willing to co-exist peacefully with Israel. He might also talk about the conditions Palestinians would have to meet before a state could be considered.
The speech could be followed by the introduction of a UN Security Council resolution that would lay out the principles that would inform a diplomatic process. The Biden administration should encourage the Saudis and other Arab governments that have not normalized relations with Israel to make clear they would do so if Israel signed on to such a process. In addition, the United States could also place limits on the use of certain armaments it provides Israel (or refuse to provide them if Israel rejected any such constraints) and place a tariff on goods entering the United States that were manufactured in Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territories.
I know some readers will object to much of the above, saying that it is overly punitive and unwarranted. That in the aftermath of October 7 we should not be doing anything of this sort to Israel. I disagree. It is possible to support Israel but fear for the likely consequences of its policies and oppose them as a result. Israel is embarked on a course of action that will alienate much of the Arab world, the world writ large, and a generation of Americans that one day will occupy the most senior positions of influence and authority in this country. The Biden administration must disassociate itself from such a policy if it cannot change it. All of which is to say I see the sort of policy outlined here not so much as something to be done to Israel as for it. Call it what it is: tough love.
As always, some links to click on. And feel free to share Home & Away.
Richard Haass in the news
Friday, February 23: MSNBC Morning Joe on the foreign policy of the Republican party (audio-only; 43:02).
Wednesday, February 28: MSNBC Morning Joe on the Biden Administration’s approach to the Israel-Hamas war (audio-only; begins at 48:56). Bloomberg Surveillance on U.S. foreign policy and the war in Ukraine (audio-only; begins at 27:16). MSNBC Katy Tur Reports on the Israel-Hamas war.
Podcasts
The Ezra Klein Show, New York Times
Check out The Bill of Obligations: The Ten Habits of Good Citizens