US President Joe Biden at a press conference during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders’ week in Woodside, California, on November 15. Photo: AFP
Opinion
Thomas O. Falk
Thomas O. Falk
For a Biden desperate to beat Trump in 2024, it’s still the economy, stupid
More voters see Biden as doing too much for the likes of Ukraine and not enough for the US economy
This could help Trump return as president – and risk democracy and the global order. Biden must prevent this at all costs
US President Joe Biden is trailing Donald Trump in the polls. The key to election victory in the US has traditionally been the economy, but in the eyes of too many Americans, Biden is neglecting the domestic situation for the global stage – with a possibly devastating impact on the US and the international order.
Last week, Biden welcomed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to Washington in an effort to provide further support for Kyiv. A year ago, on his last visit, Zelensky received a standing ovation in Congress – before having uttered a single word. Democrats and Republicans alike could hardly contain their enthusiasm. Comparisons with Winston Churchill, the prime minister who led Britain during World War II, made the rounds.
But when Zelensky gave a speech in the US recently, it was not in Congress but at the National Defence University. It’s a reflection of how the United States’ attention has shifted as scepticism towards aid for Ukraine advances among Republican Party lawmakers and American voters.
In a recent Gallup poll, most Republican voters and 44 per cent of independent voters believe the US was “doing too much” to help Ukraine. The view is growing even among Democrat voters.
Given how much of a coin toss the next election could be, the contrast between the rising American scepticism and Biden’s public efforts in Washington is apparent.
Yet Biden seems oblivious to both the lessons of the past and the changes occurring. Yes, many Americans once considered liberalism or neoconservatism on the global stage a noble commitment. But as the 2016 election showed, a large part of the population has fallen for an “America first” doctrine in which neo-isolationism is the order of the day.
The 2016 Republican national convention in Cleveland, Ohio, where Republicans nominated Donald Trump as their presidential candidate. Photo: Getty Images/AFP
Far too many voters these days, especially Republican supporters, question the idea that their country ought to spend billions on Ukraine or Israel when American bridges and highways are broken and while asylum seekers overrun the southern border.
One does not have to share those sentiments but neither should they be disregarded. Ignoring them for too long was how Trump could emerge as US president in 2016 in the first place.
A Pew Research Centre poll in October last year found that for midterm voters, foreign policy was ranked 12th on their list of priorities, practically an afterthought to energy policy and healthcare. During the 2020 presidential election, foreign policy was sixth most important.
Topping both polls was a constant: the economy. It was this that cost George H.W. Bush his re-election in 1992 – a case study in how Americans rarely make voting decisions based on foreign policy. Bush, who had not only won the Gulf War but skilfully ushered in the post-Cold War period, was defeated by a young Bill Clinton from Arkansas, who had zero foreign policy pedigree but realised it was “the economy, stupid” that would make or break a presidency.
Biden trips on the steps as he arrives on stage to speak about his Bidenomics agenda at the Tioga Marine Terminal in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on October 13. Photo: AFP
This reality has not changed. Standing up for the liberal international order will never eclipse a slumping economy. And herein lies Biden’s primary problem: only one-third of Americans approve of his economic record, according to Gallup. The truth is that Biden has done a solid job on the economy, at the very least – but perception is reality these days, and he’s failed to sell his economic acumen to the American people.
In many American minds, images of Biden with Zelensky last week reaffirm the notion that he is more focused on Ukraine’s borders than on the US’ – a talking point the Republicans have been exploiting ad nauseam. And Ukraine is not even the only issue on the global stage that is putting Biden’s re-election bid in peril.
The president has never been the favourite of progressive Democrats but rather, in comparison to Trump, was considered the lesser of two evils. This showed particularly with voters under 30, 60 per cent of whom voted for Biden according to exit polls.
But polls indicate that younger voters are deserting Biden and might even be turning to Trump. Younger voters have been polarised by both Hamas’ barbaric atrocities on October 7, and Israel’s self-defence – which Biden has rightfully supported unconditionally, his latest remarks of “indiscriminate bombing” notwithstanding.
A Pew poll found that a mere 19 per cent of under 30-year-olds approve of Biden’s handling of the Gaza war. Without the support of these voters, Biden’s efforts to stay in the Oval Office could be futile.
Biden finds himself caught between a rock and a hard place. Morally speaking, he has been making all the right decisions as far as support for Ukraine and Israel is concerned. But it now becomes a question of whether self-preservation ought to be chosen over moral obligations.
There is simply too much at stake in 2024. America’s interests must come first, which means Biden must prevent a second Trump term at all costs.
If this results in less talk on Ukraine and Israel but more about the border, Bidenomics, how average Americans cope with inflation, soaring petrol prices or why upholding the constitution is unnegotiable, so be it.
Because as damaging as temporarily stepping away from the international spotlight would be, as far as US allies are concerned, it does not compare to a second Trump term.
Trump would not only destroy American democracy for good – a plan he continues to promote – but render the global world order as we know it obsolete, with a withdrawal from all the obligations the US continues to take seriously under Biden.
Thomas O. Falk is a UK-based independent journalist and political analyst
