July 25, 2024
President Biden’s decision to end his candidacy for re-election last Sunday has been hailed as an act of selflessness, a gallant exemplar of patriotism without parallel in modern American electoral politics. It’s all of those things, of course, but it’s also the sober and considered decision of a seasoned statesman who understands that in the final analysis, the stakes of this election extend far beyond the territorial boundaries of the United States and far beyond the natural lifespan of anyone who’ll cast a ballot in November. Rarely in the annals of the American republic have its citizens been presented with an electoral choice that could be termed existential, not only for our own shared destiny, but also for those of far-flung allies and untold millions for whom the global balance of power literally hangs in the balance. Such is the case in 2024, when Americans must decide between a Republican ticket that has professed strong sympathies, if not explicit loyalties, to foreign strongmen and autocrats – proven and devoted adversaries of all democracies, including our own – and an incumbent administration sworn to sacred bonds of allegiance to like-minded Western republics, most of them crafted in the likeness of our own noble experiment in self-government. In the days since Biden’s announcement, and his swift and full-throated endorsement of Kamala Harris to succeed him in the White House, there has been virtually no public discussion about the foreign policy implications of this election. That is a testament to the grave domestic perils that we face and that, quite understandably, dominate our immediate impulses: The specter of civil unrest of the Jan. 6 variety, or worse, that could accompany a disputed result, whether or not such a dispute is even credible; the assault on civil liberties most egregiously waged and executed on women and their reproductive rights; the rupture of the Rule of Law personified by a former and would-be president who is a convicted, but unrepentant felon. But what of the collapse of global order and the undermining of our own national security that a Republican victory portends? Of all the mysteries inherent in this once Grand Old Party’s devolution over the last decade, none is more confounding than its abandonment of the post-World War II balance in which the United States is the main character and global leader. The Trumpist alternative is sometimes mistakenly characterized as mere isolationism, an echo of familiar “America First” refrains of earlier generations. But this MAGA iteration is a more sinister brand that has its standard-bearers shamelessly embracing the likes of Putin, Orban, and Kim Jong-Un. The Trump doctrine would pacify Russia’s naked aggression in Ukraine, leaving a valiant, fledgling democracy to be wiped out by the war criminal Putin next door. It would weaken or destroy 75-year-old alliances with European allies, who also happen to be among our most vital trade partners. It would walk away from the Pacific Rim at a time when China mobilizes and menaces its neighbors and North Korea’s dictator tests nuclear warheads. All await a second Trump term to get the green light to roll, unencumbered, into a new era of autocratic rule. Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw was the act of an American patriot, but it was also the hard-nosed decision of a wise and wary world leader who can see the disastrous outcome of an American surrender to our own worst impulses. In stepping aside, he may have saved more than just our own democracy. He may have saved democracy writ large.
