Election fever

How foreign policy influences the election campaign in the United States, and vice versa 

The presidential election in the shining city on the hill is less than a year away. The Republicans and Democrats have not yet finally decided on the candidacies of those who will compete for a place in the Oval Office next November, but with a high degree of probability the ‘elephants’ will nominate Trump, and the ‘donkeys’ will nominate Biden. Both potential superpower leaders are imperfect, and one can find many who oppose the nomination of each of them, but this time the United States is approaching the election campaign in far from the best shape, both in foreign and domestic policy.

Premonition of disaster

However, if there is no serious intrigue at the stage of nominating candidates — according to the latest polls of The Wall Street Journal, for example, Trump is supported by 59 percent of Republicans, while his closest rivals in the party Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis are only 15 and 14 percent, respectively — then here It’s too early to place bets on the winner. Nearly four years of Democrats in power have shown the American voter that his country has serious problems on all fronts and extending Sleepy Joe’s term for another term could lead to disaster. 

Conflict with Russia, tension with China, complete lack of flexibility in relations even with allies — Biden and his team have turned on the ‘hegemon mode’ to the fullest, although there are clearly not enough resources for such a strategy.

Last year’s congressional elections, which are called midterms and are considered a rehearsal for the presidential elections, were not a triumph for either the ‘blues’ or the ‘reds’. And if last winter pushing through a new budget with huge aid to Ukraine was relatively painless, the current debate among congressmen has become a complete nightmare for Biden and his team. The accumulated contradictions between the parties began to directly affect the largest US geopolitical project of the last 10 years — Ukraine.

Migrant issue

Republicans have nothing against helping the Kiev regime, but they saw the budget debate as an excellent way to solve at least one of the problems that complicates their return to the White House. We are talking about protecting the country’s southern border from illegal migrants. 
The ‘elephants’, as representatives of the conservative right, consider migrants, including a very small percentage of the white population, a direct threat to their electoral victory. 
The fact is that the idea of weakening controls on the southern border belongs to the Democrats and Biden personally. In this way, the ‘donkeys’ hope to increase their own electorate with representatives of Asia, Africa and Latin America, who quickly gain citizenship and the opportunity to vote. As a rule, newly minted Americans cast their votes for the Democrats who have sheltered them.
Republicans are particularly concerned about Texas, a traditionally conservative state whose population remains firmly on the red side. 
In an attempt to save their powerhouse state from the invasion of ‘donkeys’, the Republicans in Congress organised a boycott of all plans for further pumping the Kiev regime with weapons. 
Democrats are asked to concede only one thing: to allocate money for border security, making life much more difficult for illegal immigrants, but this concession will be a painful blow to Biden’s rating among his ‘core’ electorate — 35 percent of the non-white US population who sympathise with the Democratic Party. In other words, Trump’s associates drove the team of the current owner of the White House into zugzwang. If Democrats agree to give money to protect the border, they are defeated in domestic politics — the electorate will consider this a betrayal. If the ‘donkeys’ continue to stand their ground, trouble will come to them on the foreign policy track, since without support from overseas, Ukraine will be defeated, and the Western camp will rightly blame Biden and his comrades for the defeat of the Kiev regime.

Until the end

However, so far neither Biden nor his team have shown any readiness to compromise. On the contrary, it seems that the decision has been made to tighten the screws. And while the US President was talking about the fact that after Ukraine’s loss, a NATO country would have its turn to be subjected to a Russian attack, for which American soldiers would have to fight, Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin, at a secret briefing, threatened senators that he would send ‘their uncles, cousins and sons’ to front.

Hints and direct threats of a third world war indicate, on the one hand, the Democrats’ extreme reluctance to compromise on the border. On the other hand, in the ranks of the ‘‘donkeys’ there is growing despair that they themselves, having created conflict situations in Ukraine and the Middle East, have driven themselves into a trap.

For the current Biden administration, less than a year before the elections, Ukraine and Zelensky personally have become an extremely toxic asset, especially after the unsuccessful summer counter-offensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Turning into a modern version of the Nivelle massacre on the battlefield, the counterattack completely ruined the Democrats’ election plans. 
The ‘struggle for democracy’ in Ukraine has failed — more than $100 billion from taxpayers’ pockets has been wasted or completely stolen; in the Middle East, Israelis and Palestinians have come together in a bloody clinch, with no end in sight in the near future; relations with China after the meeting in San... Francisco is not what you would call friendly.
Perhaps, the Democrats only have the successful destruction of the economy of the European Union and the relocation of some important production facilities in the United States, as well as the capture of the European LNG market, but Biden’s main electorate is liberals who support the green agenda, who are not at all impressed by this particular achievement of the owner of the Oval Office. As well as the fact that the United States became the largest oil exporter for the first time since 2009 and, as it became known on the eve of the Dubai summit, did not transfer a single cent to the fight against climate change this year.

Between two fires

The situation in the Middle East does not add optimism to the pre-election year. The civilian death toll in the Gaza Strip is rising, and continued support for the operation in the enclave undermines Biden’s reputation. Moreover, dissatisfaction is again expressed by those who, in the last elections, went in orderly ranks to vote for the Democratic candidate. Left-liberal circles support Palestine, which creates additional tension within the United States, which suddenly divided society no worse than the death of George Floyd in May 2020. 
And Biden again has to make a difficult choice: indulge the electorate in the hope of re-election, but betraying one of the last allies in the Middle East, or throw all his strength into supporting Tel Aviv.
In addition, the United States is practically involved in the conflict, protecting the port of Eilat from Houthi missiles and flying spy drones over the Gaza Strip.
Perhaps, the United States has never entered into any election campaign in its history in such a state as it is now. The strategy of unfreezing old conflicts around the world unexpectedly ran into resistance from the progressive part of humanity, which began its counter-offensive.

The expansion of BRICS and the SCO, de-dollarisation, and the public refusal to recognise the hegemonic power that until recently seemed unshakable are destroying the usual way of pre-election periods in the United States. 

Previously, as soon as the time approached to look for a new owner of the Oval Office, Washington ‘withdrew into itself’, guided exclusively by the internal interests of the ruling groups. However, now the influence of the external factor has seriously increased, and the election results, unless the Democrats again decide to falsify them, will depend on who can offer Americans a more optimistic picture of the future than now.

By Anton Popov