By John Wojcik 

 

 

 

THE Republican nominee for the presidency will be the 90-times-indicted rapist Donald Trump unless court rulings, guilty verdicts, or acts of God prevent that from happening. Depending upon who you believe, either the anti-MAGA majority will come through again and Biden will win or Trump himself could actually end up re-entering the White House. One thing’s for sure: Neither candidate will get there without a determined electorate marching to the polls on their behalf. If we listen to the White House, Trump has been beaten often before and it will happen again. They have a point, of course, but they ignore much of what has been behind many of the anti-Trump victories—the struggles of labour and all its allies for a progressive people’s agenda. It is those mass struggles that are reflected in all the initial victories for the people that took place in the Biden administration. Those victories by the movements and Biden’s willingness to carry them out, together with Democratic majorities in the Senate and the House, resulted in many real, tangible improvements in the daily lives of Americans. As many of those things were accomplished, however, the Biden administration began to shoot itself in the foot with a series of horrific foreign policy initiatives.

 

A combination of Cold Warrior instincts and his own extreme Russophobia resulted in Biden listening to those who told him he should not respond positively to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who wanted assurances that the US would not push for Ukraine’s entrance into NATO. There is no way to tell for sure but that, and a few other reasonable moves by US, might have prevented Putin from launching his invasion of Ukraine. Although the invasion cannot be justified regardless, one cannot deny that the Biden administration, rather than cooling tensions before it happened, actually made things worse. At the end of last year, we learned that an end to the war was possible in March 2022, one month after the invasion of Ukraine began. High-ranking members of the German military and Russian and Ukrainian diplomats who participated in the talks disseminated the terms of the deal to the press in Europe. It was mostly ignored in the US. Big foreign policy mistake number one for the Biden administration was its decision to enlist the UK and NATO in sabotaging the deal. Biden has never really supported peace talks between Russia and Ukraine, even though, as this is written, peace talks between them are happening. The leading generals on both sides are negotiating prisoner release deals, as they have in the past, but without the support of Biden or even Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy, who has become increasingly willing to march in lockstep with the Biden administration.

 

As he continued his disastrous Ukraine policy, Biden moved on to back a war by Israel on the people of Gaza. His support for the Israeli bombing of Gaza, with its genocidal results, is shocking to so many opposed to how they see Trump but who have seen Biden as a decent human being. Biden, despite protestations about backing humanitarian aid to Gaza, has continued the flow into Gaza, not of medicine, food, and water, but of deadly weapons and bombs used by Israel. The US weapons have already been used to kill tens of thousands of Palestinians. He has opened the door to Republicans who are temporarily opportunistically blocking more weapons for Israel until they get draconian immigration policies on the Southern border. Biden’s view of his foreign policy responsibilities is that it is ok for him to include bullying, threats, sanctions, and even bombings to protect so-called “American interests” abroad. On another front, the President has a youth problem that has nothing to do with his own age. Millions of youth are angry about the war on Gaza, and he needs them if he is to win the election in November. Large Arab-American voting blocks in the key swing state, Michigan, are no small problem, either.

 

There are reports of a fight within the Biden administration, with many, including the President himself, thinking that he has to stay the course on his foreign policy in order to win a second term. Others say this is not the case, and there are reports that some fundraisers are saying some “givers” are thinking about holding back on their money. At this point, however, Biden has a lot more money stockpiled than anyone else. It would be best for him, the nation, and the world if he reversed his disastrous policies. Reversal would boost the fight against fascists, including Trump, in the elections in November. Regardless of what the Biden administration does, however, millions in America who constitute the anti-MAGA and anti-fascist majority have our work cut out for us between now and November. It’s tough when the alternative to an open fascist is a President who pursues a foreign policy unbecoming of a democracy.