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America is fast approaching the strangest, most absurd presidential election in recent history. Never before have the main political parties been poised to nominate such thoroughly disliked candidates. Yet both President Biden and former President Trump have little serious competition at this point.
While much of the commentary has been focused on Trump (what else is new?) and how his legal troubles may affect the 2024 election, little attention has been paid to the very rough road Biden could face.
All things being equal, as Trump’s legal jeopardy gets more real, his numbers should fall, allowing Biden to at least eke out a win. (At this writing, the RealClearPolitics average has Biden and Trump roughly tied.)
But Biden’s approval numbers are terrible, under water approximately 13 points. The right direction/wrong track is net negative 40-points. Even worse, there is reason to believe that the issue environment will get worse over the next year — and presidents get the blame when things go wrong.
Factions and Fractures
At the heart of the matter is that the Biden administration has all the appearances of a loose coalition of policy entrepreneurs, special interests and factions. While this is true of all presidencies to some extent, this White House’s lack of control over major policy is quite glaring.
Whether it is aggressively promoting batteries and electrification while blocking the mining of the minerals necessary to achieve that aim; or a schizophrenic migration policy that lets liberal cities twist in the wind; or leaving Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg to manage (or mismanage) a series of transportation crises, one has to wonder who is in charge.
Anybody with experience in politics and the bureaucratic form can easily see these contradictory results (and others) as the clear manifestation of factions battling for power. While these battles happen in all presidencies, what is most concerning about the factionalism in the Biden administration is its presence in national security policy — and that could be fatal in 2024.
Appeasers Ascendant
The most pressing security concern today is Ukraine, which is where the influence of the appeasement faction is waxing. Team Biden has had an uncertain policy on Ukraine from the start, with bluster and resoluteness followed almost immediately by back-tracking and conciliation. Its military support for Ukraine was always tempered by fear of Russian nuclear threats — which, at least so far, have turned out to be nothing but a bluff.
The U.S. has provided significant military aid, more than all other NATO and NATO-allied nations combined. Yet, the aid seems to lack much strategy. What Ukraine gets and what is off-limits is in constant flux. Ukraine can have advanced HIMARs but not ATACMs; cluster bombs but not F-16s. This limited strategy is reminiscent of President Johnson personally picking bombing targets — and that sure did not end well.
Biden’s military aid non-strategy is reflective of an overall strategic vacuum. Even some kind of basic set of demands to the Russians like withdrawal to all pre-invasion boundaries and compensation for damages would be helpful. After a more than decade-long morass in Iraq, where the U.S. stumbled along directionless, one would think that the national security establishment would have learned the necessity of having some clear goals. Yet even after witnessing, and voting for, the Iraq debacle, Biden appears to have learned nothing.
Show Me the Money
American public opinion is beginning to turn against further aid. The combination of massive deficits, economic pressures and the absence of any strategy or robust messaging has finally caught up with the Biden administration. Americans increasingly wonder why their tax dollars should be sent overseas when the country faces so many problems. Moral outrage lasts only so long. And this is the main weak point for Ukraine.
What is truly unconscionable is that there is more than $300 billion in frozen Russian assets that could be liquidated to pay for aid. Such an action would immediately bolster support. Yet, elements of the western foreign policy establishment and international finance establishment oppose such a measure, throwing up various bureaucratic excuses.
This position reflects an insular, ignorant, bureaucratic mindset. Cashing in Russian assets may be unprecedented and a gray area in international law, but how does that compare with committing an unprovoked invasion and civilian massacres?
But Team Biden remains frozen on this issue as well. Whether it is fear of upsetting European elites, grasping bankers, pedantic think tankers or their preoccupation with the ill-defined “rules-based order” (an order routinely violated by American policy, by the way), Biden is failing to move on this critical issue.
Nothing But Trouble
But the war grinds on with a determined Putin regime willing to do whatever it takes to squeeze out a victory or a bloody stalemate. Moving into 2024, Putin has plenty of room to cause mischief for Biden. Could he engage in more nuclear-saber rattling? Perhaps an above-ground test? Could he grit his way through an oil embargo to spike prices? Could he do the same with critical commodities and grain? Imagine Biden vs. Trump with rocketing inflation and rising unemployment. No number of indictments would be enough to save Biden.
Russia is suffering, but police states have a remarkable ability to survive when they are willing to use maximum repression against their population. In a competition for collapse between a ruthless Russian police state and volatile American public opinion, I wouldn’t bet against the police state.
The fact is that Ukraine’s security is not based on entering NATO or the international community or European leaders. It is based on favorable American public opinion. Only the United States has the military resources to keep giving Ukraine a fighting chance against Russia. But Team Biden seems oblivious to this.
American technology, training and intelligence have performed brilliantly in this war. Full credit and accolades are due to American military and intelligence personnel, researchers, defense contractors and logistics. In keeping with recent American history, the failures are entirely on the heads of the national security establishment.
Biden will likely be forced to make a grab for the Russian assets. Republicans in Congress will leave him no choice, nor should they. But if Biden fails to make the Russians pay and continues on the path of fumbling non-strategy, he could do what seems impossible — put Donald Trump back in the White House.
Keith Naughton, Ph.D., is co-founder of Silent Majority Strategies, a public and regulatory affairs consulting firm. Naughton is a former Pennsylvania political campaign consultant. Follow him on Twitter @KNaughton711.
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