It didn’t get much attention beyond a couple of vague statements urging Iraqis to stay calm and renounce violence, but the President of the United States did yet another of his series of Big Speeches about the War on Terror to the American Legion yesterday. I really urge you to slog your way through this long speech for what it says and leaves unsaid about the administration’s basic concept of the War on Terror more than four years after 9/11. Remarkably, given the major controversy of last week, and Bush’s extraordinary threat to use his first-ever presidential veto of any legislation that might interfere with a foreign government lease of major U.S. ports, there’s not a word in the Legion speech about port security or anything even vaguely related to such crucial ancillary issues as U.S. efforts to keep nuclear materials out of the hands of terrorists. Instead, the whole thrust of Bush’s speech revolves around two propositions: (1) the familiar if bizarre claim that we’ve succeeded in bottling up every al Qaeda operative in the world in Iraq, guaranteeing our safety against another 9/11, even if it’s at the expense of the agony of Iraqis; and (2) the March of Freedom and Democracy is irresistably destroying terrorism around the world, except for a few speed bumps like Hamas’ election win in Palestine. I won’t even bother to address the first claim, but the second is a fine example of Bush’s tendency to harness entirely solid principles to the goal of spinning his administration’s most obvious failures. I couldn’t agree more than opening the Arab Middle East to political, civic and economic freedom is the long-term key to victory in the war against Jihadist terrorism. But the idea that this administration’s policies in Iraq have given its people freedom and democracy, with the only residual question being whether they are willing to accept these gifts, is ludicrous and offensive. Iraq’s agony right now is the direct result of a whole host of Bush administration mistakes. Indeed, just this week, Lawrence Kaplan of The New Republic suggested the most urgent reason for maintaining U.S. troop levels in Iraq is that the bungled “reconstruction” of the country has produced a failed or at least failing state in chaos. It would not only be refreshing if someone in the administration actually admitted this situation; it might even help convince Americans that an immediate withdrawal from Iraq could produce terrible results. But so long as the president himself acts as though the glass is not half-empty or even half-full, but nearly full, and that Americans should ignore the evidence before their eyes that Iraq is a mess, then no one should be surprised if support for further military engagement in Iraq continues to erode. Ultimately, people know when they’re being cynically spun.
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Editor’s Corner
By Ed Kilgore
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November 8: It Was a Change Election After All
I wrote this insta-reaction to Trump’s victory at New York in the wee hours of the morning, after many hours of staring at numbers and trying to understand them. It’s probably as good an analysis as I can manage days later:
We will be debating the contours of Donald Trump’s comeback presidential victory over Kamala Harris for a good while. Certainly among Democrats, this close but conclusive defeat will be interpreted as flowing from a host of party weaknesses and candidate and campaign mistakes. And Republicans, as winners do, will likely over-interpret their success as representing a watershed victory that will turn into governing coalition that will last for decades.
The simplest explanation, though, may be the most compelling: This was a classic “change” election in which the “out” party had an advantage that the governing party could not overcome. Yes, the outcome was in doubt because Democrats managed to replace a very unpopular incumbent with an interesting if untested successor, and also because the GOP chose a nominee whose constant demonstration of his own unpopular traits threatened to take over the whole contest. In the end Trump normalized his crude and erratic character by endless repetition; reduced scrutiny of his lawless misconduct by denouncing critics and prosecutors alike as politically motivated; and convinced an awful lot of unhappy voters that he hated the same people and institutions they did.
Nobody for a moment doubted that Trump would bring change. And indeed, his signature Make America Great Again slogan and message came to have a double meaning. Yes, for some it meant (as it did in 2016) a return to the allegedly all-American culture of the 20th century, with its traditional hierarchies; moral certainties and (for some) white male leadership. But for others MAGA meant very specifically referred to the perceived peace and prosperity of the pre-pandemic economy and society presided over, however turbulently, Trump. When Republicans gleefully asked swing voters if they were better off before Joe Biden became president, a veritable coalition of voters with recent and long-standing grievances over conditions in the country had as simple an answer as they did when Ronald Reagan used it to depose Jimmy Carter more than a half-century ago.
Just as Democrats will wonder whether a candidate different from Harris would have won this election, Republicans ought to wonder whether anyone other than Trump would have won more easily without the collateral damage to their principles, their sensibilities, and their long-term prospects. It’s true that their craven surrender to Trump made it possible for his campaign to present a unified front that took him far along to road to victory in a polarized electorate, despite all sorts of private grumbling over his countless conspiracy theories and insults to opponents. But it’s not clear at all Trump can bring the kind of change he came to represent to his voters. Indeed, the millions of people for whom inflation became not only an economic handicap but a symbol of government fecklessness could easily and quickly become disillusioned with Trump’s strange mix of protectionism and tax cuts if, as economists warn, it will rekindle inflation and spark global economic warfare. It’s a particularly troubling sign for the GOP that so many potential Trump hirelings and allies have wildly conflicting expectations of what he will actually do.
But for now, Trump’s unlikely comeback coincided almost entirely with an election in which voters wanted change enough to ignore or embrace the dark side of his legacy and agenda. It’s his luck and probably this country’s misfortune, but there’s nothing for it but to move ahead with fear and trembling.