President Joe Biden’s speech to the nation on Thursday night Eastern Time was highly anticipated in the media. It came right on the heels of the president’s visit to Israel, prompting speculations that he would announce more aid to Israel as part of America’s unending pledge to support the Jewish state.
Biden did indeed promise U.S. support for Israel. He announced a legislative package for Congress to consider as quickly as possible. However, that was not the main message in his speech.
The main theme was that America is once again facing a block of hostile nations around the world—and that other nations expect America to step up and be a world leader.
This is indeed an ironic point to make for a president who cowardly ran out of Afghanistan two years ago, leaving billions of dollars worth of military equipment for America’s enemies to lay their hands on. The irony is reinforced by the gradual loss of influence of the American dollar in the global economy, and of allies like Saudi Arabia toning down their relations with America in favor of stronger ties to China.
Unfortunately, such perspectives do not bother people like President Biden. His lack of concern with how he is perceived on the global arena is reinforced by the real audience he pursued with his speech: voters going into 2024.
In both content and timing, the president’s message was an almost ominous missive, sent right into the campaign for next year’s election. Its purpose: to open the center field in American politics, including both Congress and the White House.
It may seem crass to reduce the president’s speech to an exercise in political strategy, but the structure and the rhetoric of the speech point in no other direction. It revealed a line of thought in political strategy, of intentions to cause an upheaval of all consequential political campaigns going into 2024.
First and foremost, Biden directed his speech to Congress, where the Republican House majority is mired in a battle over the speakership. After running around like wet hens for two weeks, House Republicans have now achieved the impossible: they have discouraged Steve Scalise, a relatively moderate candidate, from seeking the office; they have convinced former speaker Kevin McCarthy not to seek a comeback; and they have managed to stop Scalise’s more conservative challenger, Jim Jordan, from winning the speakership.
The Democrats, on the other hand, are watching how the Republicans have untied their own shoelaces and now trip on them wherever they go. Knowing that their candidate, Hakeem Jeffries, does not have a chance to gain the speakership, many Democrats are now rallying behind Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry. According to Time Magazine,
after more than two weeks of Republicans trying and failing to fill the leadership vacuum, Democrats are considering putting their support behind the lawmaker that many view as the best bad option: Patrick McHenry. … members of both parties seemed more amenable to granting more powers to McHenry, a bowtie-wearing North Carolina Republican who has served as an interim Speaker since [Kevin] McCarthy’s removal.
It is entirely possible for a Speaker Pro Tempore to run the House over an extended period of time. The House of Representatives has a great deal of latitude in terms of granting powers to a pro-tem speaker. They can allow him the full powers of a regular speaker; the only absolute, statutory limit on his functions is that he cannot be part of the line of succession to the presidency.
So far, the Republican majority has been reluctant to give Speaker Pro Tem McHenry the full powers to run the House. Whether this was out of ignorance or intended as a pressure mechanism on themselves to unite around a new regular speaker, is now irrelevant. The fact of the matter is that less than a year after an embarrassing 15 votes to appoint a Speaker in the first place, the Republicans have once again made a mess in front of the whole country.
With his speech to the nation, President Biden cleverly took advantage of the Republican disarray. True to the old political adage to always take advantage of a crisis, Biden has found a way to boost his fellow Democrats and help drive the final dagger into the heart of the conservative wing of the Republican House majority.
By appealing for bipartisanship in the name of global American military leadership, Biden has marginalized the likes of Jim Jordan and Matt Gaetz (who initiated the ousting of Speaker McCarthy). The president painted a picture of a bloc of evil nations aligning across the world as an axis of anti-Americanism. He was careful to put the war in Ukraine and Israel’s war on Hamas on equal footing, and doing so to make Russia and Iran part of the anti-American axis.
Notably, Biden did not explicitly refer to Iran. This is a clue to what the real purpose of the speech was: if the president had really been worried about a new, anti-American alliance, he would have had no problem calling out the regime in Tehran—just like he did with Russian President Vladimir Putin. But Biden does not believe that Iran is an evil nation; his warm feelings for the Iranian regime have been on full display since he took office.
By talking about an axis of evil, Biden directed himself to voters going into 2024, and—again—to Congress. He accomplished what he needed to accomplish: to present a picture of a big, dark cloud on the horizon, and to portray America as the strong leader against that danger.
All we the American people need to do to make that leadership happen is to let go of partisan disagreements and to unite around bigger military spending.
The president went exactly in this direction. With the predictability of a green light following the red, Biden followed up his global threat picture with comments about how it is time for Congress to put their differences aside and unite. Specifically, Biden wants them to unite around a new, combined aid package for Israel and Ukraine.
The call for unity across the party divide fits perfectly into the battle for the Speaker’s office in the House of Representatives. The president has given moderate Democrats yet more motivation to support Patrick McHenry, either as regular speaker or—more likely—on an extended pro-tem appointment.
Simultaneously, moderate Republicans are warming up to an extension of the pro-tem appointment; with Biden’s speech, they can cite even more reasons to join Democrats and back McHenry.
If this turns out to be the outcome, the House will in effect have created a continuing resolution model for the speakership.
One of the goals for moderates in both parties is to distance themselves from what they see as extremist factions. Centrist Democrats have grown very tired of the vocally pro-Palestinian voices in their caucus; meanwhile, the McHenry solution will allow the House GOP majority to leave Matt Gaetz and other principled conservatives behind.
An alliance of this kind would cause a tectonic shift in American politics. It would affect both the House of Representatives and its work over the next year, and it would open up a new angle in the 2024 presidential race.
The moderate solution would have the tangible policy effect of stopping House conservatives from demanding a balanced budget for the federal government. Contrary to the conventional wisdom put forward in the media, Kevin McCarthy was not fired as speaker for reasons of petty personal disagreements with Representative Gaetz. The reason was much more substantive than that: in the eyes of the conservative wing of the Republican majority, McCarthy had repeatedly failed to deliver progress toward a balanced federal budget.
Yes, the root cause of the disagreement that led to his termination is as dull and dry as an accountant’s gray suit.
Most Republicans, and all Democrats, have been opposed to the idea of a balanced budget. The reasons are plentiful, but a common denominator for them all is that they consider it a win-win to run annual deficits and—when needed—use continuing resolutions to fund the federal government. The Democrats get their welfare state spending in return for not demanding tax hikes; the Republicans get their military spending in return for not demanding work requirements and other reforms to social benefit programs.
Both sides avoid the bitter battles of spending priorities that always come with budget-balancing mandates. Now that President Biden has given Congress a path around the fiscally conservative roadblocks in the House, the new ‘moderate’ majority in the political centerfield can manifest its commitment to unhinged federal spending by passing a major package of military and other aid to Israel and Ukraine.
Once the House has a de facto bipartisan speaker, candidates for president can go to work on formulating an equally bipartisan ticket for the 2024 presidential election. It will not emerge immediately; expect it to gestate behind the scenes while a new bipartisan majority in the House builds a record of ‘getting things gone’ and ‘working for the American people.’ The hope is that this will sway public opinion in favor of this new political landscape. Once this shift in opinion—if it happens—has eroded support for principled conservative candidates, and pro-Trump conservatives no longer are in the majority in the Republican electorate, it will be time for a couple of ‘unifier’ presidential candidates to emerge.
Who will they be? It is too early to tell, but if we go out on a limb a bit, we may find Ron DeSantis among them. He has emerged as a strong candidate for the Republican party’s 2024 ticket, solidly securing a second-place position behind Trump. If Trump drops out (as I expect he will), DeSantis is the presumptive frontrunner.
Notably, while securing this position, DeSantis has drawn virtually no criticism from the centrists, a.k.a., neoconservatives, within the Republican party. Their faction has earned only scant support in the GOP opinion polls, but they will be instrumental in formulating the centrist alternative to Trump’s principled conservatives.
The fact that DeSantis gets a free pass from the neocons implies that they see him as instrumental in bringing Trump supporters over to a centrist presidential ticket.
Can they succeed? Not today, but give them three months.
One of the advantages with DeSantis—at least from the “centrist” viewpoint—is that he can criticize former president Trump, and do so without really losing any support in the opinion polls. In the eyes of anyone trying to piece together a moderate or even bipartisan alternative in 2024, knows that it will take millions of Trump voters to win. From that viewpoint, the apparent ability of DeSantis to ‘have it both ways’ is appealing.
What would a new, moderate, and bipartisan political centerfield—including a presidential candidate—want to accomplish? What would be their political agenda?
In three words: ‘business as usual.’ As mentioned, government spending will continue to grow as it has in the past few decades.
This does not include military spending, which is likely to increase substantially. The driving force behind this would be foreign policy, where America would abandon Trump’s pragmatic approach to peace and a limit on military engagements. The current administration’s haplessness toward Iran would quickly come to an end. An even more aggressive stance vs. Russia would be combined with a more confrontational attitude toward China and Iran.
And just like during the Cold War, it will be a cinch for the bipartisan centerfield in Congress to continuously increase military spending.
Biden Speech: Welcome Back to the Cold War
U.S. President Joe Biden
Photo: Fotophoto / Shutterstock.com
President Joe Biden’s speech to the nation on Thursday night Eastern Time was highly anticipated in the media. It came right on the heels of the president’s visit to Israel, prompting speculations that he would announce more aid to Israel as part of America’s unending pledge to support the Jewish state.
Biden did indeed promise U.S. support for Israel. He announced a legislative package for Congress to consider as quickly as possible. However, that was not the main message in his speech.
The main theme was that America is once again facing a block of hostile nations around the world—and that other nations expect America to step up and be a world leader.
This is indeed an ironic point to make for a president who cowardly ran out of Afghanistan two years ago, leaving billions of dollars worth of military equipment for America’s enemies to lay their hands on. The irony is reinforced by the gradual loss of influence of the American dollar in the global economy, and of allies like Saudi Arabia toning down their relations with America in favor of stronger ties to China.
Unfortunately, such perspectives do not bother people like President Biden. His lack of concern with how he is perceived on the global arena is reinforced by the real audience he pursued with his speech: voters going into 2024.
In both content and timing, the president’s message was an almost ominous missive, sent right into the campaign for next year’s election. Its purpose: to open the center field in American politics, including both Congress and the White House.
It may seem crass to reduce the president’s speech to an exercise in political strategy, but the structure and the rhetoric of the speech point in no other direction. It revealed a line of thought in political strategy, of intentions to cause an upheaval of all consequential political campaigns going into 2024.
First and foremost, Biden directed his speech to Congress, where the Republican House majority is mired in a battle over the speakership. After running around like wet hens for two weeks, House Republicans have now achieved the impossible: they have discouraged Steve Scalise, a relatively moderate candidate, from seeking the office; they have convinced former speaker Kevin McCarthy not to seek a comeback; and they have managed to stop Scalise’s more conservative challenger, Jim Jordan, from winning the speakership.
The Democrats, on the other hand, are watching how the Republicans have untied their own shoelaces and now trip on them wherever they go. Knowing that their candidate, Hakeem Jeffries, does not have a chance to gain the speakership, many Democrats are now rallying behind Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry. According to Time Magazine,
It is entirely possible for a Speaker Pro Tempore to run the House over an extended period of time. The House of Representatives has a great deal of latitude in terms of granting powers to a pro-tem speaker. They can allow him the full powers of a regular speaker; the only absolute, statutory limit on his functions is that he cannot be part of the line of succession to the presidency.
So far, the Republican majority has been reluctant to give Speaker Pro Tem McHenry the full powers to run the House. Whether this was out of ignorance or intended as a pressure mechanism on themselves to unite around a new regular speaker, is now irrelevant. The fact of the matter is that less than a year after an embarrassing 15 votes to appoint a Speaker in the first place, the Republicans have once again made a mess in front of the whole country.
With his speech to the nation, President Biden cleverly took advantage of the Republican disarray. True to the old political adage to always take advantage of a crisis, Biden has found a way to boost his fellow Democrats and help drive the final dagger into the heart of the conservative wing of the Republican House majority.
By appealing for bipartisanship in the name of global American military leadership, Biden has marginalized the likes of Jim Jordan and Matt Gaetz (who initiated the ousting of Speaker McCarthy). The president painted a picture of a bloc of evil nations aligning across the world as an axis of anti-Americanism. He was careful to put the war in Ukraine and Israel’s war on Hamas on equal footing, and doing so to make Russia and Iran part of the anti-American axis.
Notably, Biden did not explicitly refer to Iran. This is a clue to what the real purpose of the speech was: if the president had really been worried about a new, anti-American alliance, he would have had no problem calling out the regime in Tehran—just like he did with Russian President Vladimir Putin. But Biden does not believe that Iran is an evil nation; his warm feelings for the Iranian regime have been on full display since he took office.
By talking about an axis of evil, Biden directed himself to voters going into 2024, and—again—to Congress. He accomplished what he needed to accomplish: to present a picture of a big, dark cloud on the horizon, and to portray America as the strong leader against that danger.
All we the American people need to do to make that leadership happen is to let go of partisan disagreements and to unite around bigger military spending.
The president went exactly in this direction. With the predictability of a green light following the red, Biden followed up his global threat picture with comments about how it is time for Congress to put their differences aside and unite. Specifically, Biden wants them to unite around a new, combined aid package for Israel and Ukraine.
The call for unity across the party divide fits perfectly into the battle for the Speaker’s office in the House of Representatives. The president has given moderate Democrats yet more motivation to support Patrick McHenry, either as regular speaker or—more likely—on an extended pro-tem appointment.
Simultaneously, moderate Republicans are warming up to an extension of the pro-tem appointment; with Biden’s speech, they can cite even more reasons to join Democrats and back McHenry.
If this turns out to be the outcome, the House will in effect have created a continuing resolution model for the speakership.
One of the goals for moderates in both parties is to distance themselves from what they see as extremist factions. Centrist Democrats have grown very tired of the vocally pro-Palestinian voices in their caucus; meanwhile, the McHenry solution will allow the House GOP majority to leave Matt Gaetz and other principled conservatives behind.
An alliance of this kind would cause a tectonic shift in American politics. It would affect both the House of Representatives and its work over the next year, and it would open up a new angle in the 2024 presidential race.
The moderate solution would have the tangible policy effect of stopping House conservatives from demanding a balanced budget for the federal government. Contrary to the conventional wisdom put forward in the media, Kevin McCarthy was not fired as speaker for reasons of petty personal disagreements with Representative Gaetz. The reason was much more substantive than that: in the eyes of the conservative wing of the Republican majority, McCarthy had repeatedly failed to deliver progress toward a balanced federal budget.
Yes, the root cause of the disagreement that led to his termination is as dull and dry as an accountant’s gray suit.
Most Republicans, and all Democrats, have been opposed to the idea of a balanced budget. The reasons are plentiful, but a common denominator for them all is that they consider it a win-win to run annual deficits and—when needed—use continuing resolutions to fund the federal government. The Democrats get their welfare state spending in return for not demanding tax hikes; the Republicans get their military spending in return for not demanding work requirements and other reforms to social benefit programs.
Both sides avoid the bitter battles of spending priorities that always come with budget-balancing mandates. Now that President Biden has given Congress a path around the fiscally conservative roadblocks in the House, the new ‘moderate’ majority in the political centerfield can manifest its commitment to unhinged federal spending by passing a major package of military and other aid to Israel and Ukraine.
Once the House has a de facto bipartisan speaker, candidates for president can go to work on formulating an equally bipartisan ticket for the 2024 presidential election. It will not emerge immediately; expect it to gestate behind the scenes while a new bipartisan majority in the House builds a record of ‘getting things gone’ and ‘working for the American people.’ The hope is that this will sway public opinion in favor of this new political landscape. Once this shift in opinion—if it happens—has eroded support for principled conservative candidates, and pro-Trump conservatives no longer are in the majority in the Republican electorate, it will be time for a couple of ‘unifier’ presidential candidates to emerge.
Who will they be? It is too early to tell, but if we go out on a limb a bit, we may find Ron DeSantis among them. He has emerged as a strong candidate for the Republican party’s 2024 ticket, solidly securing a second-place position behind Trump. If Trump drops out (as I expect he will), DeSantis is the presumptive frontrunner.
Notably, while securing this position, DeSantis has drawn virtually no criticism from the centrists, a.k.a., neoconservatives, within the Republican party. Their faction has earned only scant support in the GOP opinion polls, but they will be instrumental in formulating the centrist alternative to Trump’s principled conservatives.
The fact that DeSantis gets a free pass from the neocons implies that they see him as instrumental in bringing Trump supporters over to a centrist presidential ticket.
Can they succeed? Not today, but give them three months.
One of the advantages with DeSantis—at least from the “centrist” viewpoint—is that he can criticize former president Trump, and do so without really losing any support in the opinion polls. In the eyes of anyone trying to piece together a moderate or even bipartisan alternative in 2024, knows that it will take millions of Trump voters to win. From that viewpoint, the apparent ability of DeSantis to ‘have it both ways’ is appealing.
What would a new, moderate, and bipartisan political centerfield—including a presidential candidate—want to accomplish? What would be their political agenda?
In three words: ‘business as usual.’ As mentioned, government spending will continue to grow as it has in the past few decades.
This does not include military spending, which is likely to increase substantially. The driving force behind this would be foreign policy, where America would abandon Trump’s pragmatic approach to peace and a limit on military engagements. The current administration’s haplessness toward Iran would quickly come to an end. An even more aggressive stance vs. Russia would be combined with a more confrontational attitude toward China and Iran.
And just like during the Cold War, it will be a cinch for the bipartisan centerfield in Congress to continuously increase military spending.
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