Potential 2024 presidential candidate Ron DeSantis has been a good governor, but with global conflict on the rise, what experience does he have on foreign policy? Since the answer is none, how can he be a viable 2024 Republican presidential candidate?
With such a void, his comments make news. A Reuters dispatch claimed that DeSantis asserted on the Fox News Channel “that Russia does not pose a threat to Europe and that Biden should be focusing more on China.” If this is what he really said, he is not qualified for the presidency.
Fox News reported the governor as saying, “They [members of the Biden Administration] have effectively a blank-check policy [on Ukraine] with no clear, strategic objective identified, and these things can escalate, and I don’t think it’s in our interests to be getting into a proxy war with China, getting involved over things like the borderlands or over Crimea.”
Crimea was part of Ukraine and seized by Russia. Does he favor the liberation of Crimea? Or not?
DeSantis was also quoted as saying, “So I think it would behoove them to identify what is the strategic objective that they’re trying to achieve, but just saying it’s an open-ended blank check, that is not acceptable.”
But what does DeSantis propose? If he doesn’t favor the no-win strategy of Joe Biden, would he supply better weapons to Ukraine?
His comments included this quotation: “I don’t think that they [Russia] are the same threat to our country, even though they’re hostile. I don’t think they’re on the same level as China.”
On what basis does he make this claim? Russia has invaded another country in Europe and has more nuclear weapons than China.
What’s more, Russia has infiltrated our FBI, as proven by the phony Steele dossier that was written in Moscow and used by the FBI to destroy former President Trump. How does DeSantis propose to weed out the Russian agents in the American intelligence establishment?
What DeSantis does not seem to understand is that the fall of the old Soviet Union was a deception, arranged by authorities in Moscow to confuse the West about changes in the Soviet Union and now Russia. A Soviet KGB defector by the name of Anatoliy Golitsyn wrote two books, New Lies For Old, and Perestroika Deception, trying to alert the American intelligence community and the American people to the plot.
James Jesus Angleton, former head of counterintelligence for the Central Intelligence Agency, had taken Golitsyn’s allegations very seriously and this search eventually led to uncovering such notorious characters as FBI counterintelligence special agent Robert P. Hannsen, a Soviet/Russian mole inside the bureau. His record of treason spanned 22 years, from 1979 to 2001. Robert S. Mueller, the Russia-gate special counsel, became FBI director after Hannsen was caught. But Mueller then failed to reform the bureau to catch future spies.
Golitsyn’s charges had been ridiculed as a fantastic “Monster Plot” by skeptical CIA officials who thought the KGB incapable of planning and carrying out such a plan.
Now we know better.
Still, the disinformation persists, especially among so-called “conservatives” in the orbit of Tucker Carson and Stephen K. Bannon.
Neil Patel, the co-founder with Tucker Carlson of The Daily Caller, insists that “…the American and European response to Russia’s Ukraine incursion has driven Russia and China closer together. He says “…the current strategy is drawing China and Russia closer together.”
In fact, they have been strong allies since a Russian operative, Grigori Naumovich Voitinsky, actually founded the Chinese Communist Party.
Our 2014 book, Back from the Dead: The Return of the Evil Empire, points out that Russia then had a strategic partnership with Communist China going back decades. Back in 2007, for example, Russia and China conducted an eight-day military exercise, “Peace Mission 2007,” with other members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. (Iran is an observer state.)
It doesn’t get much closer than that. And yet, Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping have gone beyond that, declaring a “no limits” partnership weeks before the invasion of Ukraine.
China’s new “Position on the Political Settlement of the Ukraine Crisis” doesn’t call the Russian aggression an “invasion” and doesn’t call for a Russian withdrawal. But it calls for an end to U.S. sanctions against Russia over the invasion.
Equally ominous, on the eve of the first anniversary of the Russian war on Ukraine, the government of South Africa, which receives billions of dollars in U.S. foreign aid, joined Russia and China in military drills together. This is not too surprising, since South Africa went communist under pressure from the West. But our policymakers would prefer treating the communist regime in South Africa as a shining example of black majority rule.
DeSantis needs to understand that Russia and China are, to this day, members of the world communist movement.
The role of Russia is confusing to some, since Russia has moved into a different phase of communist revolution, having neglected the capitalist stage of development outlined by Karl Marx, and is now trying to reclaim certain nationalistic tendencies offensive to liberals in the West in order to rally its dispirited and demoralized populace. China, on the other hand, has managed to fool the West into financing its capitalist stage of development on the road to world communism.
If DeSantis wants to be taken seriously on global affairs, he has to articulate why China and Russia both pose a threat to America and the world. He could begin by countering the communist propaganda that the expansion of NATO membership to countries on Russia’s border somehow provoked the Russians. In fact, the Budapest Memorandum of 1994, brokered by President Bill Clinton, included Russia’s promise to respect the territorial integrity of Ukraine, in exchange for sending its nuclear arsenal back to Moscow. Russia violated that agreement, leading to invasions of Ukraine in 2014 under Obama and Biden in 2022.
Ukraine is not a member of NATO but has every right to join.
Poland, an anti-communist nation, certainly is a NATO member. By supporting Ukraine, we support Poland and other nations, including the Republic of China on Taiwan, and South Korea, always in danger of communist aggression.
DeSantis should understand that former President Reagan would never hesitate about addressing the communist threat.
At the same time, as governor of Florida, a state full of refugees from communism, DeSantis should understand that the crisis stems in part from communist advances in the Western hemisphere.
The background is that, after Obama Secretary of State John Kerry declared in 2013 that the Monroe Doctrine was dead, Vladimir Putin traveled to Brazil, Argentina, Nicaragua, and Cuba. This wasn’t an accident. The Obama administration was inviting aggression against the U.S. and the invasion through the southern border. The Monroe Doctrine was supposed to protect U.S. national security interests in the Western hemisphere by prohibiting foreign meddling in America’s backyard. Since then, the situation has deteriorated.
Considering these facts, how does DeSantis play down the threat posed by Vladimir Putin? It makes no sense.
With an Emerson College survey in January finding Trump with a 26-point edge over DeSantis, 55%-29%, the Florida governor has a lot of ground to make up. Making gaffes and sounding incoherent on foreign policy won’t help
***
Why Donald Trump Will Not Be the Republican Nominee
Among Republicans, the conventional wisdom on Donald Trump is split, in particular on whether he will be the 2024 nominee. The arguments in favor boil down to four assertions:
Nothing matters until the voters have their say.
Never underestimate Trump.
He consumes the available oxygen in the political room.
And, most especially, polls showing a DeSantis surge and loss to Biden cannot be trusted due to biased lead-in questions, the underweighting of Republicans, and the focus on registered voters instead of likely voters.
In other words, Donald Trump, against the odds, remains the once and future Republican kingpin. Despite the very legitimate concerns regarding many of Trump’s decisions and actions, Trump retains his popularity with hardcore Republicans. Or so the argument goes.
Herewith are the counterarguments, focusing on the non-standard, that will prevail at the end of the day. In the spirit of the holidays, they are set to music as nine reasons Trump will never be the Republican nominee.
Grover Cleveland. Americans will tire of hearing that Grover Cleveland foreshadows Trump as the only president to hold office in non-consecutive terms. Trump is no Grover Cleveland, and the political climate of today is not the same as it was in 19th Century America. To boot, Cleveland was a popular Democrat, and at the time, he was only the third candidate to win the popular vote but lose the Electoral College to Republican William Harrison. Harrison won the nomination only as a fill-in after former Secretary of State James Blaine declined, and Harrison sealed the fate of his short-lived tenure by pushing for a high tariff regime, which was viewed as benefiting wealthy industrialists.
Actual Precedent. American history is filled with examples of one-term presidents who subsequently failed to secure a second term. In the 19th century, John Tyler, Andrew Johnson, and Chester Arthur all failed to win re-nomination. In modern times, while no incumbent has been successfully primaried, the effect has been the same. When Estes Kefauver won in New Hampshire, Truman left the race. After Lyndon Johnson beat Eugene McCarthy by a slim 7 points in New Hampshire and Robert Kennedy entered the race, Johnson famously dropped out in a nationwide address. Gerald Ford, by the narrowest of margins, won the nomination over Reagan on the next to last day of the convention. In his comeback, Reagan decisively beat one-termer Jimmy Carter.
The 11th Commandment. President Reagan famously refused to bad-mouth fellow Republicans. Trump has followed the opposite path, attacking Republicans in his way, including Senate candidates who displeased him (“MAGA doesn’t vote for stupid people with big mouths”), and most disturbingly those he appointed: Attorney General Bill Barr (“weak and frightened”), Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (“very disloyal” if he were to run against Trump in 2024), Vice President Mike Pence (“Mike did not have the courage to act” in rejecting Electoral College results). The ad hominem attacks extended to supportive foreign leaders (“f*** him” when Netanyahu congratulated Biden) and even family members. (After Ivanka supported Barr on election testimony, “Ivanka Trump was not involved in looking at or studying, election results. She had long since checked out….”) Ivanka has publicly sworn off all involvement in the 2024 election. Politics requires friends and Trump has few friends.
OODA Loop. Military strategy has developed a powerful, but deceptively simple doctrine known as Observe, Orient, Decide, Act, in a continuous loop, or the OODA loop. In 2016, Trump decisively won the OODA loop campaign, getting in the heads of his 16 rivals for the nomination, with unconventional attacks, jibes, nicknames, humor, 24/7 brashness, and, as it turns out, utter media domination. But a winning formula once has no staying power. The greatest counter to Trump’s tactics is the steely silence from DeSantis. Trump’s novel plan for 2016 is dead on arrival, and he has no replacement strategy. DeSanctimonious will not cut it this time. If anything, everyone is in Trump’s headspace, not least Ron DeSantis, akin to constant bombardment in military terms and the classic sign of a losing OODA loop strategy.
Preference Cascade. A preference cascade is one of the great social observations which shows that at times, a prevailing orthodoxy will suddenly and unexpectedly fail. It happens when individuals discover all at once that their own seemingly unorthodox beliefs are widely shared. Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit was one of the first to recognize in 2016 that Trump was the beneficiary of a preference cascade. In 2024 no such surprise is possible. Trump himself, his ego, and his tactics are too well-known to allow for a shocking coalition. If anything, DeSantis will win the preference cascade this round, as it is more likely than not that Trump will lose decisively in the early primaries and never recover to mount a serious campaign.
The Enemy of My Enemy. The dictum that the enemy of my enemy is my friend is the Democrat's only real strategy for 2024. Trump is the Democrats’ one hope for victory, the enemy of DeSantis they want and need. Hence the puzzle of criminal indictments. Push too hard and it may sink Trump from grabbing the nomination. Let the indictments linger and it angers core Democrats or may allow Trump to win. In Ron DeSantis, Republican voters have the complete solution, a true and simple opponent of the Democrats. They will take it.
Trump as Independent. The Democrat fallback prayer is that Trump retaliates against ungrateful Republicans, definitionally true if they fail to nominate him, by running as an Independent. Republicans should have no fear on this point. It is incredibly difficult to mount an Independent campaign and it will not be supported after a failed primary season. More to the point, it is not in Trump’s DNA to run as a sure-fire loser. The better reason would be that he has genuine first-term accomplishments. Trump, in the end, will treasure his legacy of throwing an election to the Democrats.
The Straw and the Camel. Just as one snowflake can ultimately set off an avalanche, it will never be known exactly which Trump mistake fatally harmed his candidacy. Let the historians fight. What is certain is that Trump regularly fuels controversy by attracting attention to himself over party and policy, never more so than the release of the Superhero NFTs. In the end, the decisive factor may simply be that Trump is limited to one term, making him a near lame duck from the outset.
True Victory. Biden is unlikely to be the Democrat nominee in 2024. But nothing will make this as certain as a Trump primary defeat to DeSantis. There is zero chance the Democrats will risk a campaign debacle pitting Biden against DeSantis: a youthful, vigorous, first-rate intellect and highly successful governor. Trump could step aside with the satisfaction that in the end, he defeated Hillary and Biden, passing the torch to the next generation.
Many reputations lie in tatters prematurely burying Donald Trump. Yours truly does not want that shame. If it happens, the best defense is the wisdom that “Prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future.”
So Republicans should be in high cheer this season, notwithstanding the poor midterm showing and the recent House Speaker turmoil. Trump will not be the nominee. DeSantis will be a stand-out, two-term president. Attention will turn to assure a meaningful Republican presidency. Winning the House and Senate. True fiscal rectitude. China disengagement. A 30-year nuclear power plan. Drill baby drill to supply Europe’s energy needs. A recentered America.
‘Tis the season for hope and wishes.
One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors. -- Plato (429-347 BC)
THE PATRIOT
Knowledge Is Power And Information is Liberating: The FRIENDS OF LIBERTY BLOG GROUPS are non-profit blogs dedicated to bringing as much truth as possible to the readers.
GUEST POSTING: WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE PUBLISHED ... DO YOU HAVE SOMETHING ON YOUR MIND?
Knowledge Is Power - Information Is Liberating: The Patriot Welcome is a non-profit blog dedicated to bringing as much truth as possible to the readers.
Big Tech has greatly reduced the distribution of our stories in our readers' newsfeeds and is instead promoting mainstream media sources. When you share with your friends, however, you greatly help distribute our content. Please take a moment and consider sharing this article with your friends and family. Thank you
Keep on seeking the truth, rally your friends and family and expose as much corruption as you can… every little bit helps add pressure on the powers that are no more.
No comments:
Post a Comment