.jpg)
POLITICS
Opinion | The Myths Propping Up a Trump 2024
Comeback
A memo to GOP White House hopefuls on how to beat
Trump.
Donald Trump
Donald Trump's rivals for the Republican nomination in
2024 should stop deferring to him and
start criticizing his demonstrably poor record as a world leader. |
Opinion by
JAMES B. FOLEY
09/05/2022
07:00 AM EDT
James B.
Foley is a former career Foreign Service Officer who served as U.S. Ambassador
to Haiti and Croatia.
Almost
without exception, the potential Republican candidates for the party’s
presidential nomination in 2024 are showing conspicuous deference to Donald
Trump, bordering on fear. Their reticence is understandable with the party
still largely in his grip, but it’s hardly a way of persuading voters they are
presidential timber, even at this early stage. Their theory of victory appears
to hinge almost entirely on the possibility that Trump will be sidetracked or
disqualified from running in 2024 or that primary voters will simply tire of
his ceaseless chaos. They secretly hope the former president slips on a legal
banana peel while professing to abhor any such thing.
This is
plainly a strategy for losing, an approach that paves Trump’s way to the
Republican nomination once again in the likely event he enters the race. But
for GOP candidates who actually aspire to defeat Trump in the political arena,
there are ways to take him down, particularly by focusing on his disastrous
foreign policy record.
As a
longtime U.S. diplomat, my responsibility was to analyze politics and assess
political leaders — democrats, demagogues and dictators alike — in foreign
countries, and also to help the secretaries of State I worked for navigate
domestic politics to advance our foreign policy. I had the opportunity to
personally size up strongmen from Marcos in the Philippines to Milosevic in
Serbia and Aristide in Haiti, as well as democratic statesmen from NATO member
countries such as Croatia.
The fact
is, Donald Trump is beatable. I have seen his type around the world; he is a
would-be autocrat who lacks the vision, discipline and basic competence to
achieve anything of enduring significance — a piker compared to world
historical demagogues of the recent past, or even our home-grown variety like
Huey Long. Nonetheless, Trump does possess one trait that is critical in
politics: a killer instinct. Armed with a talent for ridicule, he has an
ability to sense his opponents’ weaknesses and to exploit them ruthlessly. And
yet Trump is himself an extremely fat target for ridicule, with massive
liabilities as a candidate for reelection.
For
Republican White House hopefuls who are ready to exploit Trump’s
vulnerabilities and explode the myths covering up his lies, here are the lines
of attack.
Stone-Cold
Loser
In politics
as in war, the aim should be to attack the adversary’s center of gravity, which
in Trump’s case is the mythology upon which his popularity and aura of
invincibility with the Republican electorate is based. And no Trump myth is
more important to demolish than his claim to have won the 2020 election.
His
election lie is not only critical to Trump’s brand and brittle ego, it is the
very rationale for his candidacy. If Trump really won the 2020 election, his
record as president is vindicated and the calamity for Republicans that is the
Biden administration can be rightfully erased only by his return to the White
House. The myth thus makes 2024 more a restoration than a reelection,
essentially rendering illegitimate the candidacy of any Republican other than
Trump. On the other hand, shattering the myth exposes Trump’s most glaring
weakness — the utterly damning fact that he lost the 2020 election and is
destined to carry the party to defeat once again.
Trump’s
would-be rivals should brutally call him out for what he is (and what Trump
hates most): a loser. A failure who put Joe Biden in the White House. A
defeated president who, like Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush, should be
unthinkable as his party’s standard-bearer for a third time in a row.
Foreign
Policy Bungler
In order to
beat Trump, potential candidates must also be prepared to puncture a second big
myth that is central to his reputation, namely that he was a formidable and
effective leader on the international stage. The reality is that he frequently
blundered in foreign affairs, as his first secretary of State so memorably
noted. Unfortunately, however, the foreign policy arguments deployed by
Republicans are largely based on the premise that America’s security and
standing in the world were in essentially good hands when Trump was president.
Virtually
every potential candidate, for example, has taken the position that Vladimir
Putin invaded Ukraine because the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan
convinced him that Biden was fatally weak, and that this would not have
happened when Trump was in office. This is literally a self-defeating argument
for any Republican challenger; it prosecutes the case against Biden by making
the case for Trump.
And it is,
moreover, wrong on multiple counts. Putin actually set in motion his Ukraine
war plan well before the U.S. debacle in Afghanistan, which occurred in August
2021. The Russians surged forces to the borders of Ukraine in March-April 2021
and left in place troops and equipment for the later attack. April also saw the
first suspicious severing of a Norwegian undersea cable in northern waters
adjacent to Russia. Putin published his infamous article challenging Ukraine’s
right to independent statehood, which provided a pseudo-historical
justification to the invasion, in July 2021. In short, the die was cast and
Putin had already opted for war before the U.S. withdrew its forces from
Afghanistan.
Surrendering
Afghanistan
This does
not of course mean that Republicans cannot use Afghanistan against Biden.
However, they should also seize on the fact that the situation would have
turned out the same — or even worse — under Trump. The fact is that Biden’s
withdrawal had Trump’s fingerprints all over it. All that Biden did was to
implement Trump’s agreement with the Taliban rather than risk a resumption of
hostilities. The notion that a reelected Trump would have reneged on his own
deal and resumed the war is preposterous. We know this not only because he had
sold out the U.S.-backed Afghan government in the first place, but because he
attempted after losing the election to withdraw all U.S. forces from
Afghanistan immediately — ahead of schedule, without any preparations to
evacuate U.S. citizens and Afghan allies. This would have made the Biden
administration’s withdrawal look like an orderly retreat.
Putting
Russia First
The myth
that Donald Trump puts America first is also waiting to be demolished.
Republican candidates don’t have to endorse the Mueller probe to maintain that
Trump was effectively an instrument for the advancement of Russian interests in
his first term — and would be even more so in a second term.
It was
Trump’s departure from the White House, not Biden’s arrival, that forced
Putin’s hand with regard to Ukraine. Putin had counted on Trump’s reelection to
enable him to absorb Ukraine without necessarily going to war, given that Trump
— as reported by former aides — intended to withdraw from NATO in his second
term. In the context of a dissolving NATO and Trump’s disengagement of the
United States from Europe, it’s almost certain that Ukraine and much of Eastern
Europe would have fallen under a Russian diktat.
It is
political malpractice for Trump’s Republican rivals to let him suggest he would
have somehow prevented Putin’s aggression or rallied the NATO alliance in
Ukraine’s defense. Trump’s entire public career has been characterized by
obsequious admiration for Putin and Russia and antipathy for NATO and U.S.
allies, along with a particular disdain for Ukraine. He showered Putin with
praise at the start of the war in February, shamefully calling the Russian
leader’s strategy a “work of genius.” And he has had nothing but criticism for
the Biden administration’s policy — strongly backed by most congressional
Republicans — of military and economic assistance to Ukraine.
A second
Trump term would grant Putin the geopolitical ascendancy that has thus far
eluded him on the battlefield.
Phony Tough
Guy
There are
few things easier to ridicule than a pretend tough guy whose toughness consists
almost entirely of bragging and bluster. Donald Trump is uniquely vulnerable in
this regard. He was not tough on Russia, or the Taliban, or North Korea. He was
not even tough when it mattered on Iran, allowing the mullahs to resume and
accelerate their march to a nuclear arsenal without facing military retribution
from the United States. For a Republican candidate willing to attack the
flagrant weaknesses in Trump’s foreign policy record and to explode the myth of
his toughness, there is no shortage of damning material.
Closing
Arguments
The 2024
election is unfolding at a pivotal moment in world history. Sensing a
fundamental shift in the global balance of power, China and Russia have forged
an alliance and all but declared war against the United States, pledging mutual
support toward the goal of supplanting U.S. power in Europe and Asia. Putin’s
invasion of Ukraine was but the opening phase in this blueprint; indeed, the
U.S.-led security system in Asia likely could not survive the collapse of
America’s position in Europe. If voters want the United States to remain the
leader of the Western democracies and to maintain its preeminent position in
the world, they need an American president committed to that cause. Trump has
proved he is not that president.
Giving
Trump the GOP nomination would bring to the doorstep of the presidency a
pro-Russian isolationist who would dismantle the global alliance system on
which U.S. security depends. Alternatively, the party can choose to serve as
the nation’s first line of defense.
Republican
leaders with conservative credentials have the credibility to expose Trump as
the threat to national security that he is. The truth is so compelling, in
fact, that the ultimate prize could very well go to a truly tough-minded
candidate who dares to make the case. What does he — or she — have to
lose?
.jpeg)
.jpeg)
.jpeg)
.jpeg)
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário