Photo: REUTERS/Nathan Howard
The White House's unilateral decision to attack Yemen has caused an outpouring of outrage beyond the borders of the United States. Republicans and a significant number of Democrats have also turned their anger on Joe Biden. In the coming year, every foreign policy decision of the administration will be viewed through the prism of the upcoming elections. There are currently several possible developments, but all of them, to varying degrees, are leading to increasing social tensions in the country. Izvestia has looked at each of them.
Trump against everyone
In recent days, the two main presidential candidates - Joe Biden and Donald Trump - have exchanged sharp statements. On 8 January, Donald Trump said on former Fox News host Lou Dobbs' show that he expects the US economy to crash in the next 12 months before he takes office because he would not "become the second Herbert Hoover" (the US president under whom the Great Depression began. - Izvestia). This remark was a reaction to the narrative launched by the Democrats that if Trump returns to the Capitol, the US economy will be a disaster and American democracy will disappear. This thesis, in fact, was repeated by Joe Biden in a campaign video a few days later.
Between these two events, there was a US Navy missile attack on Houthi positions in Yemen. Not only was this action not authorised by Congress, as required by the Constitution, but it was not coordinated with anyone and was carried out against the background of the scandal of the disappearance of Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin.
Trump reacted sharply, comparing Biden's decision to another, "the most disgraceful in the history of the country," the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. "Let me be clear: we are once again bombing the entire Middle East, where I have defeated ISIS (the Islamic State organization, IS - recognized as a terrorist organization and banned in Russia - Izvestia) and our defense minister, who just went missing for five days, is running the war from his laptop in his hospital room," Trump wrote on the social network Pravda. "We are now waging wars in Ukraine, Israel and Yemen, but we are not waging 'wars' on our southern border."
Trump's view is based on the widespread view among economists that a mid-year recession is inevitable. It is important to note that Trump is regarded as an expert on the economy, according to polls of Americans. Democrats are trying to sell the idea that if things are bad under their administration, they will be worse under Trump. Hence the thesis that Trump is a second Hoover with dictatorial tendencies. So they hope to skip the onset of the recession. The Republicans, in turn, are doing everything they can to prevent that from happening. If Trump is elected, which I am not sure he will, he will become an "economic dictator" simply because current circumstances give him no choice, the Izvestia editor pointed out.
The US media is actively promoting the view that Trump is the "new Herbert Hoover" who is about to usurp power. Robert Kagan, the leading ideologue of neoconservatism, has not been left out. In an article for The Washington Post, he called Trump "the new Julius Caesar" and suggested that if he returned, he would reject the 22nd Amendment (which limits the powers of the US president to two terms - Izvestia) and would seek to govern again.
"Like Caesar, Trump has influence beyond laws and government institutions, based on the unwavering personal loyalty of his army of supporters," Kagan writes. According to the YouGov poll, 69 percent of Republicans support Trump, with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis getting 14 percent and former US ambassador to the UN and former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley getting 12 percent. The difference is so huge that Super Tuesday (the day on which intra-party primaries are held in most states - Izvestia) will turn into a formal statement of the obvious on March 5.
Photo: Global Look Press/Kyle Mazza
The campaign to remove the former president from the election has so far failed to produce any tangible results. On the contrary. The "secret documents" case has fizzled in the information sphere because of a similar situation with Biden. Charges of instigating the events of January 6, 2021 (the attack on the Capitol) are sinking in the depths of the American judicial system, and the prosecution in Georgia has ended in an ugly scandal: the prosecutors in the case, Fulton County prosecutor Fanie Willis and her confidant Nathan Wade, were caught not only in a love affair, but also in a joint spending of $650,000 in legal expenses.
According to Kagan, "the most likely outcome of the trials will be a demonstration of the inability of our judicial system to restrain someone like Trump, and incidentally identify his powerlessness as a limiting factor if he becomes president."
Biden and co-partisans
Biden has similarly overwhelming support among his fellow party members. According to USA Today, the incumbent is getting 74 % votes from Democratic Party supporters. Writer Marianne Williamson has 9 % and Minnesota Congressman Dean Phillips has 2 %.
Photo: Getty Images/Drew Angerer
Mainstream media supporting the Democrats have been publishing lists of alternative candidates all last year. So far, however, none of them has run for various reasons. The left wing of the party, previously represented by Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, now supports the candidacy of Marianne Williamson. Michelle Obama will not run because of an intra-elite conflict with the Biden team. The Democrats' recent rising star, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigich, lost support after the man-made environmental disaster on a railroad in Ohio. Hillary Clinton and Kamalla Harris won't run because of monstrous anti-Republican ratings.
The remaining governors are Gavin Newsom (California), Gretchen Whitmer (Michigan), Phil Murphy (New Jersey), J.B. Pritzker (Illinois), Josh Shapiro (Pennsylvania) and Jared Polis (Colorado). However, all of them either never announced their presidential ambitions (Shapiro, Polis, Pritzker) or endorsed Biden (Newsom, Murphy). Whitmer, who was considered a really strong candidate, was eventually named co-chair of the incumbent's re-election campaign.
However, experts are seriously considering the option of Biden himself being eliminated from the race. For example, JPMorgan analyst Michael Cembalest writes about this. This has already happened in the history of the United States. In March 1968, Lyndon Johnson completely lost the support of the electorate by refusing to take part in the elections. In this case, the names of Whitmer and Newsom may indeed appear on the list of candidates.
The third is not superfluous
Former Democratic and now independent candidate Robert Kennedy Jr. has significant voter support. According to polls, he is getting an average of 16 % votes and, contrary to earlier predictions, his nomination is more threatening to the position not of Trump but of Biden, for whom Kennedy is "stealing" up to 5 % voters.
Photo: Global Look Press/Ringo Chiu
In addition, Kennedy significantly outperforms the major candidates in so-called favorability ratings, i.e., he has the lowest antirating.
According to CNN's averages, Trump leads Biden by 4 to 6 percent in a direct contest. And that's with the positions even three months ago. The lead in individual categories such as the economy and governing is even reaching double digits. So if Trump is elected, he will win.
However, this will probably not be enough. Social tensions in the US are only increasing, and both Democrats and Republicans are aware of this. Whoever wins the forthcoming elections, the losers will not accept defeat, according to the experts. For example, the Eurasia Group, led by Jan Bremmer, in its 2024 forecast calls the US "already the most divided and dysfunctional advanced industrial democracy in the world". The 2024 election will exacerbate this problem regardless of who wins, the agency's analysts say.
Izvestia/Andrey Kuzmak/GN.CZ-JaV_07
https://iz.ru/1634658/andrei-kuzmak/rezhim-standbaiden-chego-zhdat-ot-prezidentskoi-kampanii-v-ssha
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