| Washington provides protection. Beijing is the top customer. What’s a petrostate to do? Preventing a potential U.S.-China Cold War has emerged as a top foreign policy priority for Gulf Arab countries, especially Washington’s key partners: Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. But, as illustrated by the recent controversy over a secret Chinese port being built in the UAE, balancing relations between the established superpower and the rising one is getting harder for smaller states. Construction of the Chinese facility, near the Emirati capital of Abu Dhabi, was halted due to protests from Washington. The UAE insists it was merely a shipping port. Still, it’s understandable that U.S. officials suspect China may be trying to establish a military foothold in the Gulf. For the Gulf states, fears about being forced to choose between their key strategic partner, the U.S., and their biggest energy customer, China, now rank alongside the threats from Iran and Islamist groups ranging from the Muslim Brotherhood to al-Qaeda. These anxieties reveal much about the uncertain realities of power in the epicenter of global energy. Even as U.S. attention has shifted to rivalry with China, the Gulf has remained a big part of the geopolitical conversation. When President Barack Obama was advocating a “pivot to Asia” to combat China’s rise, he was implicitly suggesting a shift of resources away from Europe and the Middle East. That aspiration has persisted under Presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Yet no major drawdown of U.S. military resources in the Gulf has taken place. This is because a pivot of U.S. attention to East Asia would pull the Gulf and its energy resources along in tow. Most of the dynamic economies of East and South Asia, including China, remain dependent on the energy exported from the Gulf. The two regions are inextricably intertwined. Still, Washington’s Gulf Arab partners have every reason to worry about a weakening of the U.S. commitment to their security. When Iran attacked key Saudi Aramco oil facilities in September 2019, the Trump administration took no action on the grounds that no Americans were killed. But the attack knocked Saudi production off course for weeks, and significantly affected global energy markets. Moreover, it demonstrated an alarming degree of Iranian proficiency in precision guidance and accuracy. This was an inflection point, but not the beginning, of Gulf Arab doubts about Washington’s dependability. So, as part of a wide pattern of strategic diversification, Saudi Arabia and the UAE are solidifying relations with Russia and China, de-escalating with rivals including Iran and Turkey, and reaching out to a potential new partner, Israel. For now, these countries need outside security support, and only the U.S. can effectively provide it. So they remain committed to keeping Washington as their main strategic partner. But there are other imperatives. The Gulf states need to cultivate China as a rising local presence and a crucial customer. They also need to ensure that Iran, which is solidifying a partnership with Beijing, does not develop an exclusive relationship with the Chinese into the future. Saudi Arabia and the UAE cannot afford to allow the only Gulf voices in Beijing to be Iranian. They need to hedge against China’s mighty global and regional future. As the kerfuffle over the reported Chinese port construction demonstrates, it’s going to be extremely difficult to balance a close strategic partnership with Washington alongside warm and friendly ties, going beyond mere commerce, with Beijing. Recent cooperation between the UAE and China has included defense industries, Covid vaccine production, global investment and development, green energy and other significant non-oil trade. At the same time, the U.S. has been pressing the UAE to drop the Chinese communications company Huawei Technologies Co. from its telecommunications network, saying it is an obstacle to a planned $23 billion sale of Lockheed Martin F-35 aircraft and drones. This demonstrates why Gulf leaders are openly fretting about the potential for a full-blown U.S.-China Cold War, in which they would be forced to throw full support behind one or the other. A leading UAE government foreign-policy strategist, Anwar Gargash, explains, “We are all worried very much by a looming cold war … because the idea of choosing is problematic.” That’s a diplomatic understatement. |
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Recent history suggests a Democratic debacle in 2022 but redemption in 2024
His party may well lose the midterms, but the US President could win reelection if he completes his legislative agenda.
US politics seems to be following an extremely familiar script these days.
At the end of his first year, a new president is both achieving a great deal – indeed far more than his recent predecessors – yet is struggling at the polls with his party set for a potentially significant midterm congressional defeat. If Americans follow their well-established pattern, the Democrats will sustain significant losses next November, but two years later Joe Biden, health permitting, will be reelected.
Yet, patterns are just templates, and outcomes frequently deviate from them. Donald Trump, Mr Biden’s predecessor, crashed to a significant defeat last year. And both parties are currently beset by conflicting impulses of optimism and pessimism that are equally easy to justify and critique.
According to most current polls, the Republican advantage in the upcoming congressional races looks overwhelming.
Americans are currently expressing an unprecedented preference for generic Republicans over generic Democrats, with 46 per cent preferring Republican control of the House of Representatives versus 41 per cent favouring the Democrats. And several key states have been gerrymandered to the point that Democrats would require impossible super majorities to prevail.
Yet, this bleak picture for Democrats, both in terms of historical patterns and present trends, could be misleading.
The midterm election is still 12 months away, and a great deal will change. Many Democrats are consoling themselves it’s in November 2022, not 2021.
Many believe that the polling has yet to reflect the recent $1 trillion infrastructure bill breakthrough. And optimism is growing that some version of the $2tn “Build Back Better” social spending bill that just passed the House will ultimately be agreed upon by Senate Democrats as well.
If that happens, they will go into the midterms with undoubtedly the strongest package of governance achievements in more than 50 years. Although even that hardly guarantees them success, it gives them the best possible opportunity to buck the historical trend and retain control of one or both houses of Congress.
But Republicans face a much bigger problem than a potential resurgence of popularity for Mr Biden and the Democrats: Mr Trump.
The former president remains wildly popular among the Republican base, but it is becoming increasingly obvious that much of the party leadership regards him as the greatest potential obstacle for success at the polls.
The biggest concern is that he persists in endlessly relitigating the 2020 election, insisting it was the biggest fraud in US history without any evidence. Very few, if any, Republican leaders believe this and they are aware most of the public does not either.
Yet, Mr Trump with his iron grip on the party base has insisted on making fealty to his “big lie” about rampant election fraud a litmus test for Republican politicians. The fear is that if the party and its candidates generally run on claims that US democracy is a fraud and that the 2020 election was stolen, that will spell disaster in most swing states.
Even many voters who have unfounded questions about the integrity of the last election, largely because they keep hearing baseless claims to that effect, nonetheless understand the country must move on. There are no provisions in US law for reversing any of the outcome. Yet, Mr Trump is fixated on convincing everyone that he did not lose because he does not lose anything ever. This only plays well among the most devoted followers.
The tension among Republican leaders between confidence in their chances and fears of Mr Trump’s potential to ruin everything have been greatly reinforced by the victory of Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin in Virginia, a state Mr Biden carried by 10 points in last year’s presidential election.
Mr Youngkin echoed many of Mr Trump’s culture wars talking points, but he almost never mentioned the former president and pretended, in effect, that he didn’t exist. His veteran Democratic opponent, Terry McAuliffe, based his whole campaign on bashing Mr Trump, but because Mr Youngkin successfully distanced himself from him and his claims about 2020, it was ineffective.
But there are increasing signs that Mr Trump, although he did not interfere in Virginia, is increasingly asserting his role as a kingmaker and arbiter among Republican candidates. His criteria largely centre around loyalty to him, his groundless claims of 2020 election fraud, and, most recently, ousting any Republicans who dared to vote for the infrastructure bill.
He is increasingly harassing Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, consistently deriding him as an “old crow”, and attacking and trying to unseat the governors of Republican states he lost, such as Doug Ducey of Arizona and Brian Kemp of Georgia.
The party leadership, of course, wants to reelect strong incumbent governors and members of Congress. This is the clearest clash of interests between Mr Trump and his nominal party (he spent most of his life as a relatively liberal Democrat) since the Republican primaries of 2016.
With the political situation so unsettled, historical patterns are probably still the best guide
Back then, the party leadership did not want Mr Trump as its nominee, but he was able to force himself upon them by overwhelmingly winning most primaries. It must be a major case of deja vu for party bigwigs.
They sense a huge opportunity, but not only do they have to worry about a possible Democratic recovery, their de facto leader appears to be preparing to sabotage many of their key candidates and pull their party even further to the radical right. And few of them believe he could regain the White House in 2024 by harping on the election in 2020.
With the political situation so unsettled, historical patterns are probably still the best guide. Republicans may not score the overwhelming victories they anticipate in Congress next year, but tradition suggests they will at least retake the House.
But if Mr Biden can add the $2tn social spending bill to the already passed $1.9tn pandemic relief measure and $1tn infrastructure bill, he will have accumulated more than enough to justify reelection in 2024, as the same historical patterns would suggest he probably will.
So, Democrats are aware that they probably have less than a year to secure whatever they can in additional spending and, just possibly, protecting elections and voting rights. After that, two years of gridlock apparently awaits. But if this pattern holds, their redemption comes in 2024, not next November. Though they may face a painful setback, that’s a pretty good scenario for Mr Biden and his party.
Why the Gulf States Turned on Lebanon
https://agsiw.org/why-the-gulf-states-turned-on-lebanon/
Saudi Arabia and its allies are pressuring Lebanon to gain leverage in Syria and Yemen.
In recent weeks, many of the Gulf Cooperation Council states have ostracized Lebanon, initiating what may even be a developing boycott. In early November, Saudi Arabia withdrew its ambassador from Beirut and ordered the Lebanese ambassador to leave Riyadh. Saudi companies were ordered to halt all dealings with Lebanese firms, and Lebanese imports are now banned in the kingdom. The United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Kuwait followed suit by withdrawing and expelling diplomats. The most severe measures – holds on remittances from Lebanese expatriates in the Gulf, total travel bans, and a thoroughgoing disinvestment from the Lebanese economy – have yet to be imposed. However, it is clear that most of the Gulf states are not only unwilling to help revive the cash-strapped and foundering Lebanese state and economy, they are taking an unprecedented stance to isolate Lebanon, which is likely to exacerbate its woes.
The ostensible reason has been a series of provocative and hostile remarks by various Lebanese officials and prominent figures aimed at Gulf states and their policies. Yet these provocations are better understood as a final straw than the actual proximate cause for the isolation campaign. Had relations been better, or had Gulf countries perceived continued opportunities through engagement with Lebanon, specific individuals or groups could have been targeted for sanctions rather than the entire country, or the entire affair could have been waved away or answered rhetorically. Instead, the reaction appears disproportionate because it is not primarily motivated by the insults themselves but rather by the underlying conditions they may have highlighted.
The Underlying Causes
The de facto abandonment of Lebanon by most of the Gulf states has been developing for at least a decade. These countries have long been uneasy with the decisive political power in Lebanon of the pro-Iranian Shia group Hezbollah. Those concerns have been steadily mounting along with the rise of Iran’s regional influence and reach following the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq and the successful intervention by Russia, Hezbollah, and Iran in the Syrian civil war beginning in 2015 in support of the Damascus regime. Since the main part of the Syrian conflict has ended with the fall of Aleppo to pro-regime forces, Hezbollah has come to occupy a regional role far beyond its function as a Lebanese political party and militia. It effectively serves as the vanguard of Iran’s extensive network of allied militia groups in Arab countries such as Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen, and beyond with a presence and effective role far beyond Lebanon’s borders.
After many years of pressure and efforts to find ways of maneuvering within Lebanon to offset or constrain Hezbollah’s activities and ability, many of the Gulf states have seemingly come to the conclusion that working inside Lebanon under current circumstances is a lost cause. The first clear sign that Gulf countries were prepared to walk away from Lebanon came in 2016, when Saudi Arabia cut billions of dollars in aid to the country, discouraged Saudi tourism to Lebanon, and, along with the full Arab League, formally designated Hezbollah a terrorist organization. Eventually some aid was resumed, but the level of support Riyadh was providing to its Lebanese allies, notably Sunni Muslim constituents around former Prime Minister Saad Hariri but also some Christian and Druze groups, remains drastically curtailed. After that, considerable aid to and trade with Lebanon had resumed until recently, but Gulf countries were no closer to garnering the influence to prevent the state and society they were underwriting from being used against their interests throughout the region.
This exasperation, coupled with the recent flurry of insults, is what has primarily motivated the ostracism of Lebanon. However, the broader regional context also plays a crucial role. The shift for at least the past 18 months throughout the Middle East by regional players away from direct or indirect confrontations to a reliance on diplomacy, politics, and commerce to pursue their interests helps to explain Gulf strategic thinking regarding Lebanon. In effect, closing the petrodollar ATM to the Lebanese, particularly at their moment of most extreme self-inflicted economic privation, is the diplomatic and commercial stick that is available when conflict and confrontation is no longer regarded as attractive.
Sticks as Well as Carrots in Regional Maneuvering
Most of the elements of maneuver, in this period of “consolidation, retrenchment, and maneuver” by regional actors, have taken the form of diplomatic and commercial outreach. New dialogues, rapprochements, and trade arrangements have proliferated in the Middle East, often to the surprise of many analysts who assumed intractable animosity between antagonists. Regional players have been generally trading in the exchange of carrots to entice each other into de-escalation and sometimes even various forms of cooperation. However, as the isolation of Lebanon demonstrates, diplomatic, political, and commercial maneuver also can involve sticks; Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, and Kuwait have given up on securing anything positive from direct engagement with Lebanon under current circumstances and sense that squeezing the Lebanese in this manner could provide leverage and new openings.
At the very least, they are convinced that this is no loss for them if none of it works out. The traditional Arab and Gulf affection for Lebanon as a cultural, educational, and commercial center, largely based on memories from the 1960s and ‘70s, has long faded. The rising generation of Gulf Arab leaders and citizens have little of the nostalgia for the heyday of Beirut that their parents and grandparents often cherished. To this younger cohort, Lebanon seems like a sinkhole of endless, wasted aid, and investment, likely in the tens of billions in the past decade, and a prime source of regional instability and Iranian mischief-making.
Moreover, compared to Syria and Iraq, Lebanon appears to be of secondary strategic importance at best. It is not coincidental that Lebanon is being cut adrift just as Gulf countries, led by the UAE, begin to reengage in Syria, looking for opportunities to work with Russia, Turkey, the United States, and even, potentially, the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to sideline Iran’s and Hezbollah’s sway in Syria. To these Gulf countries, Lebanon is strategically important mainly as a geographic and political appendage of Syria. It also until recently served as a sanctions-busting financial hub for the Syrian regime and a base for rampant smuggling. The long-standing Sunni Arab nightmare has been of an Iranian-controlled military corridor or “crescent” leading from Iran through Iraq and Syria down into Lebanon and the Mediterranean coast. Many Arab governments believe developing such a secure passage between Iran and the Mediterranean is a primary geostrategic goal for Tehran. And although it has yet to be achieved, since 2003 it has gone from a far-fetched fantasy to a viable goal.
Syria, Lebanon, and Iran
Therefore, Syria, a far larger and, in the current view of most Gulf countries, a far more strategically and politically important Arab country, is the real subject of maneuver at present, along with Iraq. They see progress in Lebanon as more aptly attained through a long-term engagement in Syria. The ultimate aim is not just to marginalize the influence of Iran and Hezbollah inside Syria, it is to encourage the Syrian regime to move independently of Tehran to reestablish its own hegemony inside Lebanon, thereby curtailing Hezbollah’s control of the country. This may seem far-fetched under current circumstances. But given the history of Syrian sway in Lebanon, the wide-ranging network of allies and ties that Damascus has throughout the country, and its subdued but detectable yearning for restoration of its former powers (independent of Iranian domination) all suggest this might be a possibility.
In mid-September, Hezbollah insisted that its Maronite Christian allies in President Michel Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement finally agree to the formation of a government, even though it didn’t meet the Free Patriotic Movement’s long-standing demands for a veto level of representation in the Cabinet. Hezbollah’s demand was driven in large part by the fear that Lebanon’s freefall was creating opportunities for other Arab countries, notably Syria, to begin to meddle again in Lebanon on the cheap and behind its back. Squeezing Lebanon therefore, for these Gulf countries, is a means of directly pressuring Hezbollah and, through it, Iran. Moreover, it could help, over the long run, to ease the path for Syria to become a competing (Arab), external force inside Lebanon. Again, if this does not pan out, current Gulf thinking suggests that at the very least nothing significant will have been lost.
Yemen and Iran
But above all, the explanation for the timing of the isolation of Lebanon may lie in the war in far-off Yemen, as well as the Saudi dialogues with the Houthis in Oman and Iranians in Iraq. For years, Saudi Arabia has been looking for a way to extricate itself from the quagmire in Yemen. Riyadh’s Yemeni allies associated with the United Nations-recognized government of President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi have proved remarkably ineffective, and the final major holdout to a thoroughgoing Houthi victory in northern Yemen is the country’s key economic center in Marib, which is currently under constant attack and appears liable to fall to the rebels.
Unlike the regional actors, all of which have turned away from conflict, many local Yemeni actors continue to search for battlefield victories to advance their domestic strategic positions. While Saudi Arabia seeks to extricate itself, the Houthis – anticipating continued military gains – see ongoing conflict as beneficial to their political, strategic, and negotiating positions. Hence the talks in Oman have been fruitless from a Saudi point of view.
Yet Riyadh lacks leverage over the Houthis and is seeking to use its dialogue with Iran in Iraq to try to aid its quest for an exit. For the Saudis, the Baghdad talks have been equally frustrating, as they seek to discuss Yemen while their Iranian counterparts focus entirely on the restoration of diplomatic ties. The talks continue not because of any shared agenda but because of a mutual desire for de-escalation.
Undoubtedly one of Riyadh’s primary calculations is that pressuring Tehran through Lebanon and Hezbollah suggests a quid pro quo, not only in terms of diplomatic relations in exchange for the easing of Iranian support for the Houthis, but also as a kind of Lebanon-Yemen exchange. The implicit subtext of the current situation is that, if Iran eases pressure on Saudi Arabia by curtailing support for the Houthis, Saudi Arabia and its allies could ease or at least not intensify their own pressure on Lebanon and hence on Hezbollah and ultimately Iran. The linkage is greatly underscored by the strong evidence of extensive Hezbollah support on the ground for the Houthis on the battlefield and in terms of technical, communication, and political expertise.
What If This Fails Again?
Ironically, then, Lebanon’s best hope for extrication from this sudden and painful Gulf pressure could be dependent on not only talks in Oman and Baghdad, to which it is not party, but even battlefield outcomes in distant Marib. If, however, in the medium term, this Gulf pressure campaign on Lebanon fails to yield any benefits with regard to Lebanon, Syria, Iran, or Yemen, it may have to be rethought. And the calculations that Lebanon is of little strategic importance and that the potential reintroduction of Syrian hegemony in Lebanon could benefit the Arab world both rely on numerous debatable assumptions. In the current era of maneuver and search for leverage, this move, however brutal to Lebanon, does have its identifiable logic for the Gulf countries. But it may well prove as fruitless as similar efforts in the past.
The complicated legacy of FW de Klerk
https://www.thenationalnews.com/opinion/comment/2021/11/13/the-complicated-legacy-of-fw-de-klerk/
After enforcing apartheid for years, the departed South African leader was remarkably brave and astute to end it.
We typically expect good, and perhaps even great, things to be done by good and great leaders. Yet, sometimes good and great things are done by people who cannot honestly be considered great or even good.
The world has just bid farewell to a key example. FW de Klerk, the last leader of apartheid-era South Africa, died on Thursday at the age of 85. He leaves a complex, troubled and often ugly legacy, but the historical greatness and boldness of his most significant act – dismantling apartheid – is habitually underestimated.
There are many reasons for this, but failing to recognise the importance, and indeed the bravery, of what De Klerk did by giving up power, not only for himself but his entire community, is a huge mistake.
It’s difficult to get past De Klerk’s extensive role for decades as an enthusiastic proponent and enforcer of apartheid, an exceptionally evil system. And, indeed, he should not be exonerated for the unfairness and brutality he helped to perpetuate, particularly as the primary ally of his predecessor as president, PW Botha.
It’s not much of a mitigation to say he was born into that system and role, even though it’s essentially true. He was the scion of one of the leading Afrikaner families that constructed the apartheid regime, son of a leading pro-apartheid politician and cabinet member, and nephew of a prime minister. Obviously, he had far better moral choices than to follow in their footsteps for so many decades.
He need not have gone as far as Joe Slovo, the white South African communist leader who became one of the founders of the African National Congress (ANC) paramilitary group, Umkhonto we Sizwe. More moderate means were available, as demonstrated by numerous white anti-apartheid activists such as Helen Suzman, Helen Zille, Uys Krige, Sailor Malan, Harry Schwarz, and many writers, artists and journalists.
Instead, and to his eternal discredit, De Klerk embraced the agenda of white supremacy. It is exceptionally hard to get past that. But it’s necessary.
De Klerk obviously also suffers mightily from his inevitable comparison with Nelson Mandela, who was his nemesis and, eventually, unlikely and uncomfortable partner in national reconciliation.
Mandela, after all, is one of the towering moral and political figures in modern, and probably all, human history. He was that rarest of combinations: a moral leader, a political visionary and an effective politician. The closest comparison to Mandela is probably Mohandas Gandhi, even though they differed categorically on the question of violence, which Gandhi deplored but Mandela came to embrace but used relatively prudently.
Virtually no one is going to come off well in comparison to such a titanic figure, and, indeed, De Klerk does not. Yet, realistic and mature consideration of political realities, available options and typical human behaviours requires the recognition that, despite everything and at the end of his practical career, De Klerk had the vision, guts and determination to do what was necessary but also exceptionally difficult.
Towards the end of his life, several times he expressed contrition for apartheid and said he had completely changed his racial attitudes. But it’s clear that when he decided the system had to go in favour of black majority rule, he had not yet recognised it as evil so much as unworkable.
That, too, doesn’t detract from the fact that what he did required great strength and pragmatism. He did not dismantle apartheid out of altruism, he did so because it was in the best interests of his community – which got to keep all its accumulated wealth and privileges up to the moment of the end of the system – and even, he hoped, for his own career.
Yet, honesty requires us to acknowledge that very few politicians would have had the gumption to face grim facts as De Klerk did, and swallow the bitter pill. By legalising the ANC and releasing Mandela from prison, he made the end of apartheid inevitable, and he knew it.
To dismiss FW de Klerk’s breakthrough as simply doing what he had to is facile and unrealistic
One way of breaking through the undoubted ugliness of the rest of his career is to pose a simple thought experiment: how many lives, black and white, did De Klerk save by making a reasonable deal with Mandela and the ANC? What might a full-blown racial war in South Africa have looked like?
To dismiss De Klerk’s breakthrough as simply doing what he had to is facile and unrealistic. Most politicians and leaders focus only on tomorrow, next week or next year, at most. De Klerk had other viable options, including doing nothing. But he was clearly seeing 25 or even 50 years into the future, and what he could accurately glimpse was terrifying. So, he took an immensely bold and, within his own constituency, not terribly popular move. And before anyone could stop him, it was too late. He did not do it alone, of course, but he shouldered almost all the responsibility.
It’s imperative, therefore, to look back at De Klerk and not see another story of a supposedly, probably genuinely, remorseful racist. What must be recognised is the historical significance of someone, while not driven by noble motives, but who is honest with themselves and others and chooses what, for his own community at least, is perceived as bad over worse, and that hugely benefited their whole country and the world.
There are other examples in recent history of leaders either consciously or effectively dismantling the odious systems they came to lead. Mikhail Gorbachev’s probably inadvertent oversight of the collapse of the Soviet Union is an obvious example, for which he is reasonably lauded.
However, Mr Gorbachev’s liberalisations that spelled the doom of the USSR seem like child’s play compared to De Klerk’s remarkable decision to dismantle apartheid and transfer power to the South African black majority in exchange for no retribution. De Klerk knew exactly what he was doing and there are ample grounds to believe Mr Gorbachev didn’t. And he and his community were probably taking a far bigger risk than Mr Gorbachev and his comrades.
The former South African president’s legacy conclusively demonstrates that great and good things can indeed be done by people who are not necessarily great or good, but whose achievements demand to be recognised for the triumphs that they are.
Do Americans want results or spectacle from politics?
Biden is betting enough Americans want deliverables he can prevail but what if all they want is a good show?
The past week saw both the low point and the high point, in rapid succession, of Joe Biden’s still very young presidency. From here on, his fortunes could go either way, but the American leader probably has considerably more going for him than most people think.
It’s been a painful summer for Mr Biden. The chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan was widely criticised, and he has been plagued by surging inflation and supply chain bottlenecks. Although the pandemic is increasingly under control and the economy seems to be gaining strength despite inflation, many Americans simply don’t feel good about where the country is right now.
Angst is pervasive.
In their daily lives, they still see pandemic-related problems with schools, inflation – especially at the gasoline pump – and difficulties in buying many consumer products as a result of supply chain issues.
Dissatisfaction reached a crescendo last Tuesday when Terry McAuliffe, a veteran Democrat and former Virginia governor, lost the usually reliably Democratic state to a wealthy Republican upstart, Glenn Youngkin. The defeat was long anticipated, but it still was a stinging rebuke, especially coupled with the difficulty the Democrats had in holding onto the governorship of solidly Democratic New Jersey.
Bitter recriminations ensued, and the media, yet again, was eager to pronounce Mr Biden’s presidency dead in the water. He has been the recipient of some of the most pessimistic coverage in recent memory, possibly reflecting an effort by the press to balance its undying hostility to his predecessor, Donald Trump.
Yet, Mr Biden and the Democrats did seem to get the message that they had better start delivering, or else.
After months of endless negotiations, which often left the impression that nothing would eventually be accomplished, on Friday the President and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi fashioned a remarkable compromise in which progressive Democrats agreed – against all their vows and instincts – to vote for the $1 trillion hard infrastructure bill without simultaneous action on social spending.
Six of the most hard-left Democrats voted against the measure, though. The leftists fear that by supporting the infrastructure bill, they relinquish all their leverage on the also-pending $1.75tn social spending package.
Nonetheless, it is a significant and historic achievement. A whopping $110 billion is allocated for roads, bridges and other surface infrastructure. Another $66bn goes to rail, $39bn to public transport, $11bn for transportation safety, and $65bn for broadband access and additional funds for upgrading power lines and the energy grid, and providing clean drinking water. Airports get $25bn and ports $17bn.
This is the largest-ever federal spending on transportation infrastructure, and the most significant spending on hard infrastructure since the construction of the interstate highway system in the 1950s. The scale of the achievement is underscored by the fact that Mr Trump continuously promised major infrastructure development but never even proposed, let alone passed, such a bill.
Furthermore, this package delivers on another of Mr Biden’s promises: resurrecting bipartisanship. Both in the House and the Senate, where the bill passed in the summer, he managed to secure significant Republican support despite the tendency of most Republicans to try to block almost all his initiatives.
Securing such significant spending with no majority in the Senate and only three spare votes in the House is remarkable enough. Doing it with Republican support is even more extraordinary.
Now, progressives will justifiably demand that centrists, with pressure from Mr Biden, Ms Pelosi and others, return the favour and vote for the social spending bill. Despite many reservations, that will probably happen in the House. A vote is scheduled for November 15.
The bigger problem will be in the Senate, where two conservative-leaning Democratic holdouts, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, may be harder to convince. It will be the biggest test yet of Mr Biden’s persuasive powers. But the progressives deserve the best effort possible.
Theoretically, this bill ought to be a turning point for the Biden administration and the Democrats. Coupled with the $1.9tn pandemic relief bill passed in March, in less than a year they have managed to pass two major pieces of legislation on behalf of the general public.
Moreover, many of the key sources of widespread anxiety and dismay look set to ease in coming months as the pandemic lifts further, with new treatments and vaccines for children, supply chains begin to open, and labour markets regain their balance.
Indeed, inflation appears to be the only major immediate issue to which they may not have an obvious answer.
If Democrats can pass any version of the social spending bill before the midterms, they will have an enormous set of governance achievements, with virtually no majorities and an extremely polarised environment, to set before the public.
There are, however, two major challenges beyond that.
First, Democrats have traditionally been strikingly inept at selling their achievements. Mr Biden, too, has suffered from this phenomenon, with Democrats and the media focusing on conflicts within the party and the difficulties of passing the legislation, not the achievement it means. So, he will have to become a much better salesman, and move attention from the messy sausage-making to the tasty sausages.
A more alarming question runs even deeper. Mr Biden’s broad political strategy is based on the idea that Americans really want effective governance, and for politics to deliver improvements in their daily lives. But is that true of enough Americans to prove a winning strategy?
Counterintuitively, given the polarised times and the deep social fissures, there are reasons to suspect that large segments of the American public aren’t paying as much attention to what government is doing or isn’t doing on practical policies. Many, instead, seem more invested in cultural divides and prefer politics as spectacle – a performative routine based on identity-signalling, trolling, stunts and one-upmanship of the kind Mr Trump has specialised in and which has become the particular stock-in-trade of the Republican Party.
The Democrats may go to the midterms with many significant achievements under their belt but it’s possible key American constituencies simply won’t care. Those Americans may only respond to tribal affirmations that express their grievances.
The more Mr Biden achieves, the more clearly this terrifying possibility will be tested in the 2022 and 2024 elections. So far, governance versus the politics of spectacle is emerging as the biggest contest on those upcoming ballots.
Is the US Supreme Court too hardline for America?
A majority on the bench reflects a religious extremism that’s out of sync with most Americans’ views.
Religion is one of the most polarising factors dividing US society today. During the presidency of Donald Trump, the evangelical Christian right gained unprecedented power in the Republican Party and finally acquired significant influence over US foreign policy.
A new five-vote, hardline conservative majority on the Supreme Court bench also reflects a religious conservatism that is historically remarkable and profoundly out of sync with the views of most Americans on social issues. The Supreme Court’s new term began this month, and it may reveal a huge divergence of values between the public and the highest court in the land.
In coming months, the court and its five-vote religiously inflected majority are set to rule on reproductive freedom, gun control, various religious issues and much more. If these justices give way to their reactionary impulses, it could produce the biggest rift between the public and the judiciary in decades, and exacerbate an already growing crisis of confidence in the court’s integrity.
It’s not just a question of conservatism or Republican Party affiliation. Chief Justice John Roberts qualifies on both those scores, but he is not really part of the emerging religious majority.
Occasionally, he joins the others but there is every reason to expect that Mr Roberts will increasingly find himself confronting extreme rulings by the other five Republican-appointed justices that cast aside precedent, read the constitution in their own creative and activist manner, and do as much as possible to impose a fundamentalist social vision on the country.
But they do not need him, as the five judges in question – Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch – have already demonstrated on more than one occasion. That was especially glaring when this group, in effect, recently allowed a law, which will all but eliminate access to abortion in the state of Texas, to be implemented, rather than stayed, while its strange and probably unconstitutional enforcement mechanisms are litigated.
What’s particularly remarkable about the five judges is that their control of the court is the result of decades of intense political labour by evangelical Protestant Christians. Yet, all five of their champions are passionate Catholics (though Mr Gorsuch now attends a Protestant church).
Indeed, this is all the more ironic because Catholics are, for the most part, overshadowed by evangelicals and other Protestants in Republican ranks, and there is a significant attachment to the Democratic Party by many American Catholics, including President Joe Biden, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and many others.
One of the reasons that there are Catholic figures at the spear of right-wing judicial politics is that conservative Catholic educational and legal institutions have taught, nurtured and promoted a formidable cadre of activist judges and lawyers in a much more focused way than their evangelical Protestant counterparts have.
The two groups join most passionately over the issue of banning abortion, which is very likely to be significantly, for the first time since the early 1970s, advanced by this bloc in coming months.
This is the most quintessentially religious issue in US politics. Most Americans support access to abortion within limits, but it is an article of faith among many religious conservatives that virtually all abortion at any stage is unacceptable because, they insist, human life begins at conception.
In the early 1970s, one of the largest evangelical denominations, the Southern Baptists, were generally supportive of abortion rights. But when the evangelicals became politically active around 1979, the “pro-life” movement was quickly identified as a powerful mobilising force, and categorical fundamentalist opposition to abortion became an unshakable tenet of its doctrines and agenda.
Overturning Roe v Wade, the Supreme Court case that defined current laws on abortion in the US, which is likely in some form in coming months, will represent the ultimate triumph of evangelical politics. Yet, because Protestant fundamentalists lack a large pool of lawyers, judges and academics on which to draw, they have effectively been forced to rely on a group of like-minded Catholic activists.
Recent polls demonstrate that public trust in the Supreme Court has become remarkably low.
Part of that is rooted in the decision that effectively decided the outcome of the deadlocked 2000 presidential election in favour of George W Bush, a Republican, against Al Gore, his Democratic opponent. That the court split precisely along party lines, and both sides appeared to adopt positions contrary to their normal stances, spurred tremendous, and entirely justified, cynicism about the idea that the judicial branch of the US government is less political than the other two branches.
Now a conservative religious majority seems set to begin restructuring core aspects of American society, and undoing long-standing rights and practices according to their own hardcore doctrines. It is reasonable to expect the court’s reputation to nosedive, except among a delighted minority that shares those views.
Several justices have recently insisted that they do not take ideology or party affiliation into consideration. Yet, most Americans know they typically do. Worse, it’s no longer just about party or ideology, but essentially about religious zealotry.
No one sensible is going to be persuaded that these judges’ “judicial philosophy” just so happens to produce results that conveniently coincide with deep-seated religious beliefs and that delight their political patrons. What’s the difference, anyway?
If these justices don’t exercise considerable, and improbable, restraint, eventually the American majority may decide to use their constitutional prerogatives to restructure or otherwise constrain the court.
Mr Roberts may advocate restraint. But, thus far, it doesn’t seem the other five Republican appointees have much regard for what their supporters appear to view as his insufficiently pious outlook.
Thus far, the US system is only rewarding Trump’s failed coup
Failing to punish, or even seriously investigate and expose, the attack on constitutional order invites another effort.
Democratic institutions don’t amount to much if they can’t defend themselves against concerted and co-ordinated attacks from within. Otherwise, they are just temporary, and remarkably weak, conventions, begging to be dismantled by the first effective politician with the temerity and ruthlessness to try.
The US democratic system is being tested in precisely that way for the first time since the Civil War.
In recent weeks, it has become all-too clear that, following the last election, former president Donald Trump, many of his close associates and much of the Republican Party, engaged in an unprecedented, extra-constitutional and often probably illegal, campaign to overturn the result, and thereby obliterate the American constitutional process.
This means, ominously, that large parts of the US political establishment on the right are now demonstrably comfortable with dispensing with the constitutional order and the rule of law in order to grab and hold on to political power.
That is not exactly news, although the extent of the attack on US democracy immediately following the election has become far more detailed and grim in recent weeks as new evidence has emerged.
Numerous reports confirm that only the threat of mass resignations by senior officials restrained Mr Trump from using the Justice Department to “overturn,” as he put it, the election, Emerging details flesh out a picture of an unrelenting campaign by Mr Trump and his allies to overrule the will of the voters. It is becoming terrifyingly evident that these coup-plotters and would-be autocrats are poised to get away with it.
Such an outcome would only reaffirm the validity and appeal of such an extra-constitutional strategy. It would encourage, if not guarantee, a second effort – a more organised and effective one – to sweep aside the US democratic system.
As things stand, those responsible for this assault have sustained no consequences and, in many cases, have been richly rewarded.
Mr Trump remains unchallenged in his control of the Republican Party, and received vast contributions. He is not just unscathed. On the right, he is supreme.
Barely a handful of Republicans continue to hold him responsible for the attack on the election outcome and theJanuary 6 failed attempt to violently stop Congress from confirming Joe Biden’s victory.
But most Republican leaders act as if that never happened or doesn’t matter.
Charles Grassley, who at 88 is the oldest member of the Senate – there since 1981, no less and seeking yet another term – last week fawned before Mr Trump’s endorsement, declaring: “If I didn’t accept the endorsement of a person who has 91 per cent of the Republican voters in Iowa, I wouldn’t be too smart. I’m smart enough to accept that endorsement.”
Mr Grassley has been very critical of Mr Trump in the past, but his statement makes perfect sense, assuming the only thing that matters to him is to win over Republican voters in Iowa and to stay in the Senate for another term, until he is a sprightly 95-years-old. The idea that anything else could possibly be relevant does not appear to have occurred to him as intelligent or rational.
This same logic has guided the traditional conservative leadership of the Republican Party, headed by Senator Mitch McConnell, virtually all of which has succumbed to Mr Trump purely because of his sway over their voters.
Apparently, the only thing of concern to them is that they may not win without his support and therefore they will bow to him. They do not appear to possess any values other than personal advantage.
Yet if, as Mr Trump maintains, Mr Biden was only elected because of the biggest political fraud of all time, then the entire US system would be a heinous confidence trick. Calling this sentiment unpatriotic would be a huge understatement.
Not only did Mr Trump and his allies seek to get Congress to block confirmation of the votes, and state legislatures and officials to overturn local outcomes, and the Justice Department to falsely denounce them as fraudulent, when all else failed they unleashed the January 6 physical attack on Congress.
Yet nine months after the attack, and almost a year after the effort to overturn the election began, the House of Representatives is still just starting to try to uncover what happened. Its investigative committee has issued subpoenas to compel testimony from former Trump officials and other coup plotters.
That is good. But there is every reason to fear it will all be in vain.
American courts are notoriously slow and invariably play into the hands of obstructionists. Mr Trump has “ordered” everyone subpoenaed not to cooperate.
There will be a test case: Steve Bannon, former Trump campaign chief and White House strategist – who was later pardoned by the former president for allegedly embezzling $1 million from credulous contributors to a shameless “build the wall” scam – has therefore refused to co-operate. That provides a low-hanging fruit for the House.
Mr Trump is claiming all subpoenaed individuals must refuse to co-operate because he is invoking “executive privilege,” a convention that holds that presidents need frank and open advice from their aides, which therefore need to be shielded from investigation. But courts have held this privilege from testimony and investigation does not apply to criminal matters.
Moreover, Mr Trump says he is invoking the privilege after he has left the presidency, which has never been attempted, and Mr Biden has declined it. Worst, Mr Bannon had not worked for the White House for years before the coup effort.
The US is in uncharted legal and political territory, because no one has remotely tried to subvert the system like this in US history, and perhaps no one has imagined it either.
Whether the courts will help the House enforce its subpoenas remains to be seen. And if the Democrats lose control of the House in next year’s midterms, Republicans will certainly simply dissolve the Committees and end all such investigations because it involves their colleagues and leader.
That raises the prospect of no consequences for the culprits, except the aforementioned positive ones. If American institutions prove incapable of defending themselves against attacks from within, that invites a repetition of the assault, with far greater chances of success.
The cliche holds that “the Constitution isn’t a suicide pact”. More than nine months after the January 6 attack and the earlier campaign against the 2020 election, there is a growing fear it just might prove to be exactly that for American democratic institutions.
How far can Saudi-Iranian talks get?
Talks between the archrivals take place as the region experiences a de-escalation of conflict. Can it last?
Two archrivals in the Middle East seem to be making surprising progress in rebuilding relations. This could possibly help end the war in Yemen, and prove to be the most dramatic step in a wave of de-escalation in the region.
In 2020, negotiations between Saudi Arabia and Iran began quietly with three informal but substantial meetings involving senior security and intelligence officials from Riyadh and Tehran. A fourth round was reportedly held on September 21 at Baghdad international airport, with Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al Kadhimi playing host to the head of Iran’s national Security Council, Ali Shamkhani, and the Saudi Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Adel Al-Jubeir. Afterwards, Saudi Arabia — the more cautious party — designated them official direct talks.
The negotiations have focused on finding a formula for Riyadh to end its involvement in the Yemen war, which is largely being fought between Iranian-backed Houthi rebels and the Saudi-supported and internationally-recognized government. After intervening in the conflict in 2015, Saudi Arabia has been bogged down in a quagmire that its Yemeni allies are plainly not going to win.
For well over a year, Riyadh has been looking for a way out. Saudi Arabia needs the Houthis to commit to stopping rocket attacks on Saudi cities and cross-border raids. For its part, Iran has enjoyed bedeviling the Saudis in a conflict to which it attaches limited strategic importance. But it could still prove embarrassing. While Iran may make diplomatic commitments, it still has to prove it has real influence over the Houthis — at least enough to make them sit down for peace talks.
The limitations and doubts will be hard to overcome. However, the efforts are nevertheless welcome in the regional wave of de-escalation that began in the summer of 2020. Indeed, Baghdad’s participation is emblematic. Iraq is promoting the dialogue not just to cool down the neighborhood but also to secure its own domestic stability, which is riven by the politics of its Shiites and Sunnis, the dominant Muslim denominations in Iran and Saudi Arabia respectively.
Contributing to the talks are two important factors: Virtually all major regional powers — with the possible exception of Israel — are overextended and exhausted. Their military confrontations have passed the point of diminishing returns. The war in Libya is at a bloody stalemate. The genocidal Syrian regime is victorious. Islamic State is defeated. Meanwhile, Iraq has reached an equilibrium not unlike Lebanon’s — unsteady but predictable. In all these cases, and others, there is little further to be gained by outside parties seeking influence and regional clout. Further fighting by way of proxies is no longer strategically beneficial to them.
American allies like Saudi Arabia have become increasingly doubtful that Washington will buttress their security in the event of broader conflict. Meanwhile, U.S. adversaries like Iran have suffered significant weakening, particularly from ongoing economic crises, the COVID-19 pandemic as well as social and political unrest.
These conditions have encouraged diplomatic outreach among the regional powers. Predictable breakthroughs like the Abraham Accords between Israel, on one hand, and the United Arab Emirates and three other Arab countries, on the other, have been matched by genuinely surprising ones such as thaws between Egypt and Turkey and between the UAE and Qatar. Now, even Saudi-Iranian talks — inconceivable a couple of years ago — are becoming viable.
It remains to be seen whether the negotiations will really help end the war in Yemen or produce a restoration of Saudi-Iranian relations, which were severed in deep acrimony in January 2016. But already the temperatures are cooling, most notably among pro-Iranian militia groups in Iraq. Regional media on both sides have moderated the way they characterize each other.
If all this leads to a real, if limited, rapprochement between Tehran and Riyadh, that would be great news for a turbulent part of the world.
Biden is on a knife edge between historic accomplishment and total meltdown
Democrats must show Americans that at least one US party still knows how to compromise and hence to govern effectively.
Governance is about compromise, but politics is often an all-or nothing-exercise, unless national survival is at stake.
US President Joe Biden’s Democratic Party is trapped between the imperatives of governance and the temptations of politics and power, and thus between a remarkable accomplishment or total collapse. Yet in this case the American experiment may hang in the balance.
Last week, Mr Biden took an enormous gamble on bitter negotiations within his own party by doubling down on a high-risk but high-reward gambit to secure two separate major spending packages before next year’s midterm elections.
He is sandwiched between approximately 50 leftist progressives in the House of Representatives and two right-leaning senators who are deeply at odds over how large public investment programmes should be.
Centrists wanted immediate passage of the “American Jobs Plan,” which was negotiated with Republicans and already passed the Senate. It would spend about $1 trillion over the next 10 years on “hard infrastructure” such as highways, bridges and internet access.
The Democratic majority in the House could pass this bill immediately, but from the outset, progressives insisted that this compromise legislation should only go forward in tandem with a separate “American Family Plan,” which proposes approximately $3.5-4.5 trillion in social spending – including an expansion of Medicaid, child and elder care support, universal prekindergarten and community college access, paid family and medical leave and other such human capital investments.
A sufficient number of Senate Republicans were willing to support the first bill to get it passed, but none support the second. That requires the backing of not only the Democratic majority in the House, but also every single Democrat in the Senate, including conservative-leaning senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona.
Any party that secures $1 trillion in infrastructure spending, which completely eluded former President Donald Trump, would logically pocket that gain and trumpet it as the massive achievement it clearly is in the coming midterms.
But because it does not include significant social spending, progressive Democrats have already derided this considerable accomplishment to the point that it is now perceived as some kind of defeat, and are holding it hostage to the bigger bill.
Clearly the progressives feel that if they vote for the smaller package they lose all leverage on the larger one. And they are also communicating considerable defeatism in their push to achieve everything all at once, indicating the fear that now may be the only moment when they can achieve their aims because of presumed impending election defeats.
They are also acting as if the Democrats now have a powerful hold on the government. That’s not at all true.
Mr Biden defeated Mr Trump by a very significant margin. But the Democrats’ House majority is so small that only three members need to defect on any measure for them to lose a vote. Meanwhile, the Senate is virtually tied, requiring Vice President Kamala Harris to cast a tie-breaking vote for the Democrats to win anything without Republican support.
Mr Manchin, who is considerably to the left of most of his extremely conservative constituents in West Virginia, the state most supportive of Mr Trump, put it accurately last week when he said: “I’ve never been a liberal in any way, shape or form,” and that if liberals want to achieve their goals, they “have to elect more liberals”.
And now it appears that Mr Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who agreed to postpone promised votes this week on the smaller bipartisan package, are now counting on securing something like a $2.1 trillion compromise package for the larger Democrats-only spending bill to thereby secure passage of both.
Mr Biden correctly says it doesn’t matter when the agreement is reached. And it may be that Americans and others have forgotten how protracted and messy actual major US legislation can be, since that hasn’t been attempted in at least a decade.
By stating, as Mr Biden did on Friday, that he agrees with progressives that the smaller bipartisan bill must not move forward without similar movement on the larger, Democrats-only one, he has foreclosed the option of seeking to postpone the larger bill until after the midterms.
That is certainly a response to the show of force and unity by the progressive left, but it is also something he has said many times before.
So now it is a matter of finding a dollar spending number that is small enough for the right-leaning two senators but large enough for the House progressives, all without losing Republican support for the hard infrastructure package.
Meanwhile, Mr Biden also has to find a way out of the looming debt default crisis, with or without the Republicans, before mid-October, to avoid a US and global financial crisis.
That should all be doable. After all, waiting in the wings are Mr Trump and a Republican Party plainly anxious to run against Mr Biden and the Democrats as utter “failures,” and to seize power by all means necessary.
It is possible that progressives are so bent on gaining control of the party, or that centrists are so comfortable with the status quo, that both or either wouldn’t mind sinking the Biden agenda.
But compromise seems more likely.
As Thomas Friedman of the New York Times recently explained, it is really a matter of national survival, given the threat posed by a second Trump term, and therefore of personal and political courage. “Progressives need to have the courage to accept less than they want,” and “moderates need to have the courage to give the progressives much more than the moderates prefer.” If not and “Trump Republicans retake the House and Senate and propel Trump back into the White House – there will be no chance later. Later will be too late for the country as we know it.”
Mr Biden is on the brink of an outstanding triumph if he can pass any version of these two bills and avoid a debt default. But if he can’t pass either bill, and/or a default takes place, he’s facing a remarkable meltdown.
Seldom has any US administration been so delicately poised between historic triumph and dramatic collapse.
And even more rarely has the country as a whole been so delicately poised between the continuation of its democratic tradition versus the ascension of a hyper-empowered and enraged authoritarian minority.
Biden faces defining tests on debt default and election integrity
https://www.thenationalnews.com/opinion/2021/09/27/the-debt-default-in-the-us-is-not-looking-good/
If need be, Democrats must act alone to rescue the US and global economy and protect the vulnerable constitutional system.
The American political system, notwithstanding the intensive stress test it has endured in recent years, now faces two urgent challenges.
The Senate and the Joe Biden administration must immediately prevent a catastrophic debt default and then protect the electoral system before next year’s midterms.
That will require courage, unity and internal compromise, especially given razor-thin Democratic majorities in Congress and near-total opposition from Republicans.
The US, it would appear, is hurtling towards a debt default abyss.
No one knows exactly when the government will run out of the means to pay its creditors, but Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has warned it could happen as early as October.
This could trigger a massive US and global financial crisis, starting with a deep recession, followed by potentially unmanageable compounding disasters.
As things stand, Congress has limited the government to $28.4 trillion in debt. Not extending that “ceiling” means that the Treasury stands to run out of cash reserves and borrowing capacity in the coming weeks.
For the first time in history, the US government would default on debts and fail to pay creditors. The avalanche of financial horrors that would come crashing down is obvious.
This surreal predicament arises from an elaborate game of chicken in Congress. Both Democrats and Republicans want each other to save the global and national economy, but in a way that will benefit themselves politically.
Democrats refused to include raising the debt ceiling in the budget “reconciliation” bill they passed a few months ago by simple majority and without Republican support. They say Republicans share responsibility for paying debts they greatly helped accumulate, particularly under former president Donald Trump.
Republicans want to force Democrats to use the reconciliation process after all, because that would mean assigning a specific new number on the ceiling rather than simply extending it.
They would then paint Democrats as recklessly spending, and hope voters don’t realise the new number is for servicing existing obligations, not new spending.
Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell specialises in concocting fabricated “rules” to recast his transgressions as traditions.
So, preparing to filibuster any debt ceiling suspension, he’s arguing that everyone knows the party in power is alone responsible for avoiding a default that he readily agrees is unthinkable and calamitous.
It’s definitely a new one.
He wants to force the Democrats to assume all blame for the existing debt and saddle them, exclusively, with the scary number a reconciliation bill would require, unlike a bipartisan debt ceiling suspension with no new number.
Democrats must be brave and unified. They wanted to call Mr McConnell’s bluff, seeing a degree of mutual assured destruction in a default. He may indeed be bluffing, but it’s not worth trying to find out.
This game of chicken should end immediately. Democrats ought to bite the bullet and alone adopt a new debt ceiling, with that large “scary” number, through reconciliation.
Voters aren’t going to panic. That Republicans are willing to sink the national and global economy just to disrupt the Biden administration is a pretty powerful indictment.
These days Democrats are often incongruously and unhappily forced into the role of governance adults. But that can be turned to their advantage.
Taking a serious political risk for good governance is something they can run on. They might find the country is ready for serious policies.
That’s all got to be done in the next few weeks. Then, in coming months, they must move to protect the electoral system, particularly the independence and credibility of election authorities in the states.
Along with many existing systemic problems, following last year’s election Republican state legislatures around the country have been passing sweeping voting restriction measures.
They are evidently trying to do all they can to limit voting, in hopes that this will damage Democratic chances.
Far more ominously, they have been transferring authority for election oversight away from non-partisan officials to overtly partisan institutions such as themselves.
The obvious intention is to ensure that, although Mr Trump’s effort to overturn the election and the will of the voters last year failed, another attempt by him or another Republican leader will be handled by far more co-operative officials.
These measures are aimed precisely at stripping the power of those who refused to manipulate the system or lie about the results in order to keep Mr Trump in power, while they continue to be personally excoriated by the former president and his supporters.
New information confirms that, as Mr Trump fought to stay in office despite his defeat in last November’s election, the US came exceptionally close to a complete breakdown in the constitutional order.
He pressured numerous state officials to misrepresent or refuse to certify the results.
He asked courts to throw out the results based on deliberately false claims.
He urged state legislatures to overturn the results.
Following what must be deemed a coup plan drafted by a lawyer named John Eastman, he tried to get former vice president Mike Pence to extra-constitutionally overturn the results in Congress.
And, finally, he helped to unleash a mob to attack Congress to prevent certification of the results.
All these efforts failed, but some just barely. Different decisions by a few officials, or even just Mr Pence, would have created a much deeper calamity.
Despite overwhelming evidence, most recently from Arizona, that there was no election fraud, many Republicans still embrace that myth.
Urgent measures to protect voting access and prevent partisan entities from supervising elections are necessary to future post-election machinations plunging the country into utter chaos.
Senate Democrats have crafted a good compromise bill, but have no Republican support.
Two Democratic senators, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, support the bill, but don’t want to eliminate the filibuster that blocks it.
So, Mr Biden needs to unite Democrats around an elections “carve-out,” analogous to the budget “reconciliation” exception, a rule change that they could enact with their simple majority.
Then they can pass their bill to protect voting access and the integrity of election supervision, a major step to preventing the 2022 and especially 2024 elections from becoming train-wrecks, despite Republican opposition.
In both cases, Mr Biden and the Democrats face difficult but defining tests of their commitment to being the party of governance rather than grievance. They can’t afford to fail either.