- * U.S. : A Shooting That Could Change the Nation
- * U.S.: Biden High Drama Continues
- * NATO in Its 75th Year
- * France’s Real Winner?
By Shashi P.B.B. Malla
U.S. : An Eruption of Political Violence
Again after more than four decades, a man who was elected president of the United States (POTUS) was wounded in an assassination attempt when a gunman who had crawled onto a nearby roof opened fire at Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania last Saturday evening.
Peter Baker, et. al. write in The New York Times: “The explosion of political violence came at an especially volatile moment in American history and further inflamed an already stormy campaign for the White House” (July 15).
In the same paper, Ms. Patti Davis, the daughter of incumbent President Ronald Reagan describes vividly the stunned mood of the country after the assassination attempt on her father on March 30, 1981 and how such a shooting could change a person and a nation.
Ms. Davis writes precociously: “My father believed that God spared him for a very special reason, to end the Cold War with the Soviet Union, to try to reach some kind of agreement on nuclear weapons.”
It’s possible that what Reagan and Michael Gorbachev achieved might not have happened had he not been shot.
But as Ms. Davis concludes, America today is far more angry and far more violent now than it was in 1981.
The great poet William Butler Yeats wrote presciently that the cultural conditions for chaos are created by a lack of courage and character.
Yeats lamented that the “best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”
Describing a different time of violence and fear, as Europe was still reeling from the ravages of World War I, and writing from the heart of a storm that would grow indescribably worse in 20 short years, Yeats writes with unbelievable melancholy:
“Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.”
According to NYT-columnist David French, by “centre”, Yeats is referring not to some kind of moderate political middle but rather to the moral centre of civilization.
When the moral centre gives way, nations fall.
French seems to imply that the United States today finds itself in this unenviable situation.
In and out of power, Donald Trump has singlehandedly contributed to this state of affairs. He has instigated, encouraged and promoted political violence.
He will not change his despicable behavior, nor is he capable of doing so. In fact, after this untoward event, he will feel more imboldened.
As for Joe Biden, he has become the victim of age and unexpected circumstances. The only way to come out of the imbroglio is to sacrifice his ego and ambition on the altar of vital national interest.
He should not only step back from his presidential candidature, but resign from the presidency itself.
The under-estimated Kamala Harris will definitely rise to the occasion. She has a fighting chance to restore peace and tranquility at home – and the world can breathe a collective sigh of relief.
U.S. : Biden’s Defiance Is Met With Skepticism
Facing calls to drop out of the presidential race following his disastrous debate performance with former President Donald J. Trump, current President Joe Biden told congressional Democrats in a letter that he intends to continue his candidature.
The defiance displayed has been met with skepricism (CNN/Fareed Zakaria: Global Briefing, July 10).
At The New York Times, left-leaning Maureen Dowd described the White House as a “bunker:” of defensiveness about the president’s public performances.
The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board, which criticizes Biden frequently, accused him of sounding “almost” like Trump in lambasting party “elites” who think he should step aside.
The skepticism was phrased sharply by Ari Emanuel, the Democratic donor and Endeavor talent agency CEO whose brothers have served in high-level Democratic positions, in an op-ed for The Economist.
Emanuel wrote: “If Biden is right to say there’s nothing more important than stopping Trump from retirning to the White House, then he’s wrong when he says the best – and only – way to do that is by keeping his own name on the ballot . . .
“The idea that Biden ‘alone can fix it’ [originally used by Trump] is a self-aggrandising delusion on a Trumpian scale . . .
“No wonder the audience at the president’s post-debate rally sounded just like a MAGA crowd [‘Make America Great Again’] from 2016. ‘Lock him up!’ they chanted. It was a true through the looking glass moment” [situation where things are hot as they seem, where reality is distorted or reversed; situation that is unfamiliar or abnormal].
At the same time, not everyone is enthusiastic about alternatives.
At The New Statesman, left-leaning commentator Jill Filipovic writes that replacing Biden on the presidential ticket with Vice President Kamala Harris would be preferable but risky; either way, Democrats “are in chartered waters here.”
At CNN Opinion, historian and political analyst Julian Zeliozer advises Dempocrats to remember the chaos of their open 1968 nominating convention in Chicago before making any drastic moves.
As of Now…
The story remains the same, but it grows more intense with each passing day: President Joe Biden faces calls to step aside and allow another Democrat to seek the White House, but so far he has defied them (Zakaria, July 11).
The Economist portrays nervous Democrats as facing a game-theory conundrum: “Democrats find themselves with a collective-action problem. If an individual comes out for Biden to stand aside, but others do not, they will have harmed their party’s nominee and their own career, to [former President Donald] Trump’s benefit . . .
“This bid explains the indecision of the past weeks: the agonizing private meetings that yield little consensus, the public statements of either feigned confidence or diplomatic concerns . . . .
“If the president is not for turning, then what is there to be done?
“When confronted with irrationality from the top, rational actors in the party ranks can be forced to submit. That has been the story of the Republican Party under Mr. Trump.”
The ‘Age’ of Biden
President Joe Biden’s press conference after the NATO summit was fine, but it will not allay ongoing Democratic fears about his ability to defeat former President Donald Trump in November, writes Wall Street Journal senior political correspondent Molly Ball.
It was sad to watch the truth unfold that Biden probably will not relinquish his position as the party’s candidate, David Frum writes for The Atlantic.
At The New Yorker, Susan Glasser sums up the viewpoint of some Biden supporters: “It was hard to imagine what the President could say that would satisfy nervous Democrats who are wondering whether he needs to pull the plug on his reelection campaign:
“I’m sorry? I’m going to do better? I quit? . . .
“Biden clearly still knows what he’s talking about . . .
“He did not seem confused. Or dangerous . . .
“He digressed. He offered mini-lectures on investing in China, on the need for a new industrial policy in the West, and on the evils of trickle-down economics. But it is not what America needed to hear from him.”
Well before the disastrous debate performance, polling had already indicated many Americans thought Biden was too old to serve another four years, Glasser notes.
“In other words, Biden and his party do not have a debate problem; they have a Biden problem, which the debate finally forced his party to confront.”
On the substance of Biden’s presidency, a London Review of Books essay by Christian Lorentzen reprises three books about it.
The portrait Lorentzen draws is largely positive: Aside from the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan – a “lonely” policy position Biden had supported during the Obama presidency – Biden’s Covid-19 rescue plan was “generous”; his infrastructure spending ambitiously incorporated ideas from the Democratic Party’s left wing; and Ukraine’s early, Western-backed defence against Russia was a success.
“Whereas accounts of the Trump White House varied from clown show to cesspool, with backstabbing among hacks, mercenaries and scumbags, the histories of the Biden administration present a succession of earnest and credentialed professionals lining up to help the president better the country and the world,” Lorentzen writes.
The books don’t really delve into Biden’s age, Lorentzen writes, but he offers an original insight: “In retrospect Biden’s advamced age was a political asset in 2020.
By contrast, with the sneering and erratic Trump, given to mocking the disabled and insulting anyone unlucky enough to be in his vicinity, here was a kindly and familiar old man who had suffered terrible personal tragedies . . .
Broadcasting a socially distanced campai gn from his Delaware basement, he appeared gentle and forgiving . . . just the man to heal the country after the devastation of the pandemic and the four-year reign [of terror] of the American beserk.”
Biden is now putting everything on the line.
Judging by the new skepticism of many Democrats and liberal commentators, Lorentzen hints, the advantage has reversed.
NATO’s Nascent Challenges
Gathering last week in Washington, NATO leaders have been forced to ponder a slew of new challenges, The Atlantic Council’s Frederick Kempe has written: deepened coordination among adversaries, the erosion of democracy globally, and “insufficient recognition among NATO’s thirty-two members of the gravity of the historic moment, reflected in their still-inadequate backing for Ukraine.”
The alliance’s identity and purpose may or may not be added to that list (Zakaria, July 11).
At the dovish publication Responsible Statecraft, Anatol Lieven writes: “ During the 75 years of NATO’s existence, there really have been three NATOs : two with the mission of containing R in the US ussia, separated by one which thrashed around wildly and disastrously in search of a new mission.”
In Lieven’s view, the threat Russia poses today is “largely imaginary”, and bigger problems consist of climate change, migration and “neo-liberal economic policies”.
If today’s is the third iteration of NATO, Stephen M. Walt writes for Foreign Policy that in its new era, NATO’s internal problems are its most menacing.
The rise of Trump in the US and the far-right leader Marine Le Pen in France threaten the ethos of transatlantic cooperation, Walt notes.
“NATO is in trouble precisely because it has lasted so long and the familiar clichés about shared values and trans-Atlantic solidarity do not resonate as powerfully as they once did, especially for younger generations . . .
“I doubt NATO will collapse, even if Trump becomes president again and more NATO skeptics gain power in Europe . . .
“But there are powerful structural forces gradually pulling Europe and the United States apart, and those trends will continue regardless of what happens in November, in Ukraine, or in Europe itself.”
Who won France’s recent snap legislative election?
President Emmanuel Macron claims no one did.
Le Monde’s Claire Gatinois and Nathalie Segaunes report dubiously, after a leftist coalition came in first, Macron’s own centrist coalition in second, and the far-right National Rally (RN) in third, none of them securing a majority.
Macron’s claim exacerbates France’s political crisis over the muddled results and the resultant prospect of deadlock, Gatinois and Segaunes write.
The writer can be reached at: shashipbmalla@hotmail.com
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