The temperature in American politics is rising. You can tell that the next presidential election is just over a year away when candidates pick away at each other over all political issues, large and small.
When candidates vie for cheap shots at each other, nothing is sacred. Not even the heinous terror attack by Hamas in southern Israel.
First, former president Donald Trump explained (3:31:55 into the video) that Hezbollah, Israel’s Iran-backed, sworn enemies in Lebanon, are “very smart” people.
Then Liz Cheney jumps in. The former Republican congresswoman, whose political existence revolves around keeping Trump out of the White House, had this to say:
Right next to her, Florida Governor and Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis opined:
In a New York minute, three of America’s most influential politicians had managed to turn an atrocity and human tragedy into political badminton.
This little exchange along the campaign trail could have passed for cheap, rhetorical repartee and nothing more. But the topic—a diabolical terror assault on innocent people, mixed with foreign policy—and the fierce tensions between the people involved transform these comments into a cartoon, a grimace, of the state of the 2024 presidential campaign.
If anything, this shows how essential it is that America elects a president capable of moral integrity, political vision, and proven leadership. At least two of the people involved in this exchange do not pass that bar.
One of them is Trump, but that is not because of his Hezbollah comment. It goes without saying that he did not praise Hezbollah; anyone who has paid attention to the former president while he was in office, and to his performance on the campaign trail, knows that he would never praise a terrorist organization.
His comment, which Cheney and DeSantis purposely ripped out of its context, was a response to unwise remarks made by the Biden administration. Here is what Trump said (3:32:20):
And two nights ago I read, all of Biden’s security people, can you imagine, national defense people, and they said: ‘gee, I hope Hezbollah doesn’t attack from the north, because that’s their most vulnerable spot.’ I said, wait a minute: you know, Hezbollah is very smart, they are all very smart. … So, the following morning, they attacked.
Trump also expressed disappointment in Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. In her comment on X, Cheney alludes to this as an attack on the Israeli government for being caught off guard by Hamas on October 7th. Such criticism of the Netanyahu government would certainly be merited, just as President Bush and Liz Cheney’s dad, Vice President Dick Cheney, were caught off guard by the attacks on 9/11/2001.
However, Trump’s criticism of Netanyahu was not related to the Hamas attack. It referred to how Israel declined to support the American government in an anti-terrorist operation during Trump’s presidency. Cheney knows this, of course, just as she knows that Trump does not support Hezbollah. Ron DeSantis and Cheney blend together ‘smart’ and ‘good’ simply to score cheap political points.
The problem is that in doing so, they are dumbing down the public discourse and charging it politically where we need the very opposite: a dispassionate dialogue about America’s place on the world stage.
There was a time when foreign policy was not a topic for campaign rhetoric in America. It was considered virtuous that candidates for president of the United States maintained a united front toward the rest of the world. That time is long gone. Over the past 20 years, it has become perfectly acceptable, even among presidential candidates, to put differences in foreign policy on full display for the world to see. This has drawn the world into the presidential campaign, making them side with one candidate over another.
We are all smart enough to realize how such foreign influence can be consequential for the outcome of a presidential election. Therefore, it makes sense for presidential candidates to tone down their foreign policy differences—and, frankly, reduce the substantive differences as well. America should not go to war under one president, only to abandon all its war equipment in a faraway country under the next president.
It is, of course, impossible to ignore foreign policy entirely, especially in the face of a horrific incident such as the Hamas attack on Israel. However, it should not be difficult for intelligent men and women running for president to keep their remarks within the realm of what we can all agree on is decent and fair.
Donald Trump, Liz Cheney, and Ron DeSantis failed to do so. Trump started the controversy by making comments related to foreign policy. Again, nothing controversial per se. But his speech quickly deteriorated into a self-aggrandizing rant. He put the entire spotlight on himself, not foreign affairs. He, not the United States, took center stage.
This is very unfortunate. As president, Trump did make a major difference on the global scene. He contained North Korea; he was instrumental in formulating the Abraham Accords for peace in the Middle East; and he got the Europeans to do what they have not done in 75 years: take more responsibility for funding NATO.
However, when Trump spoke at the Club 47 event, he only made a passing reference to his historic accomplishments on the global stage. He did not place himself in the context of U.S. foreign policy or the global difference that America will make if he wins in 2024.
The former president’s biggest problem is that his unending focus on himself also keeps his campaign spotlight on the rearview mirror. The valid points he makes are drowned out by a cacophony of self-aggrandizement. His comment about Hezbollah is a good example. He simply explained that the terror group is a rational actor that responds intelligibly and predictably to political, financial, and military incentives. Yet he loses that point to the listener by revolving his entire political rhetoric around himself.
By making the next presidential election about him and the image he sees in the rearview mirror, Trump has become an unwise choice for president. This is sad, given that he was a good president—one of the best America has ever had, in fact.
I recently predicted that Trump would not be the Republican candidate for president. My prediction is not based on my judgment regarding his presidential record. There are other factors at work, but he is certainly not helped by his ballooning political narcissism. It does not help his case for a second term that his perception of foreign policy is inextricably tied to his own desire to show that he is smarter than everybody else.
In short, with his Hezbollah comment, Trump set himself up for the kind of responses that he got from Liz Cheney and Ron DeSantis. In addition, the campaign trail to 2024 is not exactly normal.
One indication of the abnormality is that Liz Cheney—who has not yet officially declared her candidacy—is out on the campaign trail for one reason only: to keep Trump from winning.
I have previously criticized Cheney for poor moral judgment while serving on the January 6th Committee. For reasons that only she can explain, she participated in a cover-up of the truth about the events of that day in 2021. However, when put next to some of the other candidates and their records, her shortcomings in this category are not quite as glaring as they otherwise would be.
A bigger problem with Cheney is that since leaving Congress in January, stopping Trump’s re-election has been her sole political ambition. The inevitable consequence of this is that if she were to actually run for president, and win, she would have accomplished all she wanted to accomplish as president—before even being sworn in.
What would she spend the next four years doing?
As a case in point, she could have taken the opportunity to respond to Trump’s Hezbollah comment with a short but powerful vision of America’s place on the global stage. Instead, she tied herself even closer to the former president as he sinks into the expanding black hole of his own political narcissism.
Of the three presidential candidates at the center of this Hezbollah controversy, Ron DeSantis is the one that stood out as largely unscathed. While his comment on X was no more contributive than Cheney’s, DeSantis can afford to make that mistake. He has a record of forward-looking campaign rhetoric to fall back on, but more importantly, he is an accomplished government executive. He has made a major difference for the better as the governor of Florida. His image will not be dominated by his purposeful misinterpretation of Trump’s Hezbollah comment.
What is puzzling about DeSantis’ comment is that he really did not need to make it. After his performance in the last debate between Republican presidential candidates, he has risen to be the presumptive frontrunner when Trump bows out. Every time he speaks publicly, he intelligently mixes references to his gubernatorial record with a vision for what he wants to accomplish as president. It all sounds scripted, but such is the nature of the campaign rhetoric of a serious candidate.
Plain and simple: when he says he has a record and a vision, he means it.
So why does he slide up alongside Liz Cheney in throwing a cheap dart at Trump’s political self-portrait?
He is trying to do what is politically almost impossible: unify two factions of the Republican Party and bring onboard an equally split class of donors and political power brokers. As for the voters, a majority of Republicans are still in favor of Trump as the Republican candidate. At the same time, there are not enough Trump loyalists to defeat a generic Democrat; if DeSantis wants to win, he needs to bring onboard Trump-skeptic independents who are growing very scared of Biden’s apparent mental inability to be president.
DeSantis is making a serious effort to make all this happen. His criticism of Trump’s Hezbollah comment fits well into the picture:
- On the one hand, he must appeal to Trump voters, which he does with his political and legislative accomplishments;
- On the other hand, he must distance himself from Trump himself, which he does with comments such as this one.
He has done well in terms of his accomplishments; there are few conservative politicians in America who can rise to the same level as DeSantis in turning conservatism into practical policy.
His challenge is on the second front. He began putting distance between himself and Trump already during the last Republican debate; his jumping-in on Trump’s Hezbollah comment, while cheap in itself, makes sense from the ‘distancing’ viewpoint. It won’t win him any voters, but it will score him some favorable points with influential political operatives and donors.
The big leap for DeSantis will happen—if it does at all—when Trump leaves the race. It is impossible at this point to foresee how his voters will react, and if they will flock to DeSantis. All that the Florida governor can do at this point is prepare himself for Trump’s campaign departure, so that when it happens, he will be the inevitable go-to man for them.
If he fails, the election will be the Democratic candidate’s to win. However, if DeSantis succeeds, he will be hard to beat in the general election.
Cheap Shots from the Campaign Trail
Photo: Pete Linforth / Pixabay
The temperature in American politics is rising. You can tell that the next presidential election is just over a year away when candidates pick away at each other over all political issues, large and small.
When candidates vie for cheap shots at each other, nothing is sacred. Not even the heinous terror attack by Hamas in southern Israel.
First, former president Donald Trump explained (3:31:55 into the video) that Hezbollah, Israel’s Iran-backed, sworn enemies in Lebanon, are “very smart” people.
Then Liz Cheney jumps in. The former Republican congresswoman, whose political existence revolves around keeping Trump out of the White House, had this to say:
Right next to her, Florida Governor and Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis opined:
In a New York minute, three of America’s most influential politicians had managed to turn an atrocity and human tragedy into political badminton.
This little exchange along the campaign trail could have passed for cheap, rhetorical repartee and nothing more. But the topic—a diabolical terror assault on innocent people, mixed with foreign policy—and the fierce tensions between the people involved transform these comments into a cartoon, a grimace, of the state of the 2024 presidential campaign.
If anything, this shows how essential it is that America elects a president capable of moral integrity, political vision, and proven leadership. At least two of the people involved in this exchange do not pass that bar.
One of them is Trump, but that is not because of his Hezbollah comment. It goes without saying that he did not praise Hezbollah; anyone who has paid attention to the former president while he was in office, and to his performance on the campaign trail, knows that he would never praise a terrorist organization.
His comment, which Cheney and DeSantis purposely ripped out of its context, was a response to unwise remarks made by the Biden administration. Here is what Trump said (3:32:20):
Trump also expressed disappointment in Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. In her comment on X, Cheney alludes to this as an attack on the Israeli government for being caught off guard by Hamas on October 7th. Such criticism of the Netanyahu government would certainly be merited, just as President Bush and Liz Cheney’s dad, Vice President Dick Cheney, were caught off guard by the attacks on 9/11/2001.
However, Trump’s criticism of Netanyahu was not related to the Hamas attack. It referred to how Israel declined to support the American government in an anti-terrorist operation during Trump’s presidency. Cheney knows this, of course, just as she knows that Trump does not support Hezbollah. Ron DeSantis and Cheney blend together ‘smart’ and ‘good’ simply to score cheap political points.
The problem is that in doing so, they are dumbing down the public discourse and charging it politically where we need the very opposite: a dispassionate dialogue about America’s place on the world stage.
There was a time when foreign policy was not a topic for campaign rhetoric in America. It was considered virtuous that candidates for president of the United States maintained a united front toward the rest of the world. That time is long gone. Over the past 20 years, it has become perfectly acceptable, even among presidential candidates, to put differences in foreign policy on full display for the world to see. This has drawn the world into the presidential campaign, making them side with one candidate over another.
We are all smart enough to realize how such foreign influence can be consequential for the outcome of a presidential election. Therefore, it makes sense for presidential candidates to tone down their foreign policy differences—and, frankly, reduce the substantive differences as well. America should not go to war under one president, only to abandon all its war equipment in a faraway country under the next president.
It is, of course, impossible to ignore foreign policy entirely, especially in the face of a horrific incident such as the Hamas attack on Israel. However, it should not be difficult for intelligent men and women running for president to keep their remarks within the realm of what we can all agree on is decent and fair.
Donald Trump, Liz Cheney, and Ron DeSantis failed to do so. Trump started the controversy by making comments related to foreign policy. Again, nothing controversial per se. But his speech quickly deteriorated into a self-aggrandizing rant. He put the entire spotlight on himself, not foreign affairs. He, not the United States, took center stage.
This is very unfortunate. As president, Trump did make a major difference on the global scene. He contained North Korea; he was instrumental in formulating the Abraham Accords for peace in the Middle East; and he got the Europeans to do what they have not done in 75 years: take more responsibility for funding NATO.
However, when Trump spoke at the Club 47 event, he only made a passing reference to his historic accomplishments on the global stage. He did not place himself in the context of U.S. foreign policy or the global difference that America will make if he wins in 2024.
The former president’s biggest problem is that his unending focus on himself also keeps his campaign spotlight on the rearview mirror. The valid points he makes are drowned out by a cacophony of self-aggrandizement. His comment about Hezbollah is a good example. He simply explained that the terror group is a rational actor that responds intelligibly and predictably to political, financial, and military incentives. Yet he loses that point to the listener by revolving his entire political rhetoric around himself.
By making the next presidential election about him and the image he sees in the rearview mirror, Trump has become an unwise choice for president. This is sad, given that he was a good president—one of the best America has ever had, in fact.
I recently predicted that Trump would not be the Republican candidate for president. My prediction is not based on my judgment regarding his presidential record. There are other factors at work, but he is certainly not helped by his ballooning political narcissism. It does not help his case for a second term that his perception of foreign policy is inextricably tied to his own desire to show that he is smarter than everybody else.
In short, with his Hezbollah comment, Trump set himself up for the kind of responses that he got from Liz Cheney and Ron DeSantis. In addition, the campaign trail to 2024 is not exactly normal.
One indication of the abnormality is that Liz Cheney—who has not yet officially declared her candidacy—is out on the campaign trail for one reason only: to keep Trump from winning.
I have previously criticized Cheney for poor moral judgment while serving on the January 6th Committee. For reasons that only she can explain, she participated in a cover-up of the truth about the events of that day in 2021. However, when put next to some of the other candidates and their records, her shortcomings in this category are not quite as glaring as they otherwise would be.
A bigger problem with Cheney is that since leaving Congress in January, stopping Trump’s re-election has been her sole political ambition. The inevitable consequence of this is that if she were to actually run for president, and win, she would have accomplished all she wanted to accomplish as president—before even being sworn in.
What would she spend the next four years doing?
As a case in point, she could have taken the opportunity to respond to Trump’s Hezbollah comment with a short but powerful vision of America’s place on the global stage. Instead, she tied herself even closer to the former president as he sinks into the expanding black hole of his own political narcissism.
Of the three presidential candidates at the center of this Hezbollah controversy, Ron DeSantis is the one that stood out as largely unscathed. While his comment on X was no more contributive than Cheney’s, DeSantis can afford to make that mistake. He has a record of forward-looking campaign rhetoric to fall back on, but more importantly, he is an accomplished government executive. He has made a major difference for the better as the governor of Florida. His image will not be dominated by his purposeful misinterpretation of Trump’s Hezbollah comment.
What is puzzling about DeSantis’ comment is that he really did not need to make it. After his performance in the last debate between Republican presidential candidates, he has risen to be the presumptive frontrunner when Trump bows out. Every time he speaks publicly, he intelligently mixes references to his gubernatorial record with a vision for what he wants to accomplish as president. It all sounds scripted, but such is the nature of the campaign rhetoric of a serious candidate.
Plain and simple: when he says he has a record and a vision, he means it.
So why does he slide up alongside Liz Cheney in throwing a cheap dart at Trump’s political self-portrait?
He is trying to do what is politically almost impossible: unify two factions of the Republican Party and bring onboard an equally split class of donors and political power brokers. As for the voters, a majority of Republicans are still in favor of Trump as the Republican candidate. At the same time, there are not enough Trump loyalists to defeat a generic Democrat; if DeSantis wants to win, he needs to bring onboard Trump-skeptic independents who are growing very scared of Biden’s apparent mental inability to be president.
DeSantis is making a serious effort to make all this happen. His criticism of Trump’s Hezbollah comment fits well into the picture:
He has done well in terms of his accomplishments; there are few conservative politicians in America who can rise to the same level as DeSantis in turning conservatism into practical policy.
His challenge is on the second front. He began putting distance between himself and Trump already during the last Republican debate; his jumping-in on Trump’s Hezbollah comment, while cheap in itself, makes sense from the ‘distancing’ viewpoint. It won’t win him any voters, but it will score him some favorable points with influential political operatives and donors.
The big leap for DeSantis will happen—if it does at all—when Trump leaves the race. It is impossible at this point to foresee how his voters will react, and if they will flock to DeSantis. All that the Florida governor can do at this point is prepare himself for Trump’s campaign departure, so that when it happens, he will be the inevitable go-to man for them.
If he fails, the election will be the Democratic candidate’s to win. However, if DeSantis succeeds, he will be hard to beat in the general election.
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