With America’s international leadership more critical than ever, the 2024 presidential race is likely to spoil the sauce.
In his recent statements, Republican Florida governor and prospective presidential nominee Ron DeSantis did not hesitate to question the bipartisan policy of supporting Ukraine in order to seduce his party’s isolationist base.
At a time of increasingly toxic partisanship in the United States, maintaining the consensus necessary for a strong and reliable foreign policy will be difficult.
Republicans divided
Right now, most Republicans in Congress are following their party’s traditional line of viewing the United States as an unshakable pillar of the Atlantic Alliance and the liberal international economic system.
Today, however, Republican candidates must contend with the party’s new isolationist base made inevitable by the rise of Donald Trump. It is this Trumpist base, hostile to any United States commitment to Europe and the liberal international order, that must now be seduced into becoming a Republican candidate.
In addition, Vladimir Putin has meddled in America’s “culture war” by declaring himself to be the defender of traditional Christian values against liberal decay. There is definitely a receptive audience in the Republican Party to I-don’t care about Ukraine, or even sympathy for Putin.
The enemy is Biden
Ron DeSantis’ comments on Ukraine clash with previous positions of the former congressman, who once advocated firmness against the Russian threat in Europe.
DeSantis calls Biden’s policy a “blank check” for Ukraine and suggests he would be inclined to turn off the faucet for military aid. He denies that Russia poses a threat to European NATO allies and blames Biden directly for the Russian invasion. He’s also not shy about mixing commitment to Ukraine with hot spots in US politics, including border security and the Biden administration’s so-called inaction in the wake of the Ohio derailment.
Ominous
Since the enemy is Biden and everything is Biden’s fault, Republican support for a strong engagement policy on Ukraine is bound to suffer because it is Biden’s policy.
Candidates for the Republican nomination will naturally tend to distance themselves from the President. As such, it will be difficult for the United States to continue to exercise the remarkable leadership that Joe Biden has shown since invading Ukraine. She will not help her European counterparts to overcome resistance from their respective audiences to continue their engagement.
This decline in American leadership will also be felt on the economic front, as Republicans will not hesitate to become policymakers by raising the debt ceiling. On immigration, partisanship will continue to poison an issue that has profound implications for us.
In the fight for Ukraine’s survival and the sustainability of democracy in Europe – and in many other areas as well – the weakening of American leadership through toxic partisanship poses a real risk for all state partners. -United.
