Oof. This guy has been the biggest positive surprise of the US presidents in my lifetime. Expectations were low, but he actually turned out to be a good president (from a European perspective). No new wars, no more talk about shifting defense focus to Asia, generally nothing unreasonable. Good support for Ukraine, no doubts about NATO - rather the opposite. Basically, the rich uncle on the other side of the pond has been a good one.
I presume that his attitudes and staff selection carried the day, and maybe could have done so for another term. But his mental capacity was clearly declining, and he is in fact expected to handle some things personally.
The US was in Afghanistan for twenty years. Everything the US did there collapsed in a few months after twenty years. It seems like after the second Osama was killed everything done there was a waste of time and money for the US. It's a terrible situation, but it's a terrible situation whenever there is a country using religion to justify oppression and war. The people have to be willing to get rid of the oppressors.
US had to learn the age old lesson too it seems - you just can't conquer Afghanistan (well maybe apart form wiping almost its entire population but even russians didn't do that). And its not a place for democracy, its tribal to its core and nobody likes giving up power held over many generations. It doesn't matter much how superior you think your cause is or advanced equipment deployed.
There were just 2,500 U.S. troops in Afghanistan before they pulled out, and below 10,000 for years before that. There are more U.S. troops in countries like Germany, Italy, or Spain.
In the end it was a very small commitment for the US, with huge gains not just for Afghan people but also for the US.
I'd argue that zero troops and zero dollars in Afghanistan should be the goal. Afghanistan knows that if they try to raise up another Osama what will happen, so I would argue that what happens there, even if it's terrible, doesn't actually affect things in the US anymore.
We can invade a bunch of countries in South America, Africa, Asia, and Europe and possibly "improve" lives there, impose our will, while sucking money out of America ostensibly forever.
Or we can sanction human rights abusers, offer proper asylum, and if there are any real on the ground changes from within the country then possibly support in a similar way to support in Ukraine.
Once you invade a country you're committing to a certain responsibility to do right by it and the people living there. Either follow the Prime Directive or don't, but you can't just choose whimsically based on whatever is convenient in the moment. Blame the Bush admin if you really want to blame someone.
How does the prime directive apply when you are attacked directly.
I do agree that Bush deserves the blame for turning what should should have been a hunt down and destroy Al Qaeda mission into a sprawling invasion of various countries in the middle east
Afghanistan or the Taliban didn't attack the US – bin Laden did, who had no position in the Afghan government. Taliban refused to extradite Bin Laden to the US, and the US refused any compromise such as extradition to another country. All of that is a rather different thing than "they attacked us".
Regardless, Obama, Trump, and Biden had to deal with the situation as they found it, whether they agreed with the lead-up or not.
Counterpoint: after World War II we still have troops in both Germany and Japan who are now our allies. Any kind of occupation, and our occupational forces were small, was always going to be a long term commitment. Instead we just straight up abandoned our allies.
This was not a win, and the Biden Administration lying about it at every single stage of the process until the final troop was out was downright cowardly when all we had to do was continue to commit to sit on our asses while Afghani society rebuilt itself.
They reverted months after we left, which means the only way to hold it off would have been to stay forever and make them the 51st state.
Anyone who didn’t want to live under authoritarian Islamist rule should have left during that 20 year period. I find it hard to believe the whole place reverting was a surprise.
The US invasion and attempted puppet government in Afghanistan made life much worse for women in Afghanistan because it drove regular people to support the extremist Taliban, who themselves became more extreme as the war went on.
Just because the US could take control and pretend to make progress doesn't mean it actually changed people's minds. In fact it actively poisoned the concept of women's rights in that region for decades
Enough ordnance lying around for them and their army and menfolk to have fought if they wanted to. At some point we have to say enough is enough. Thousands of American lives, trillions of American dollars, and 20 years ought to have been enough. If not, then it's just not a job that is reasonably accomplishable by a foreign state. I wish them all the best in building a free society for themselves over the next decades, but they'll have to do it without American boots on the ground.
Maybe its China's turn to try to conquer the graveyard of empires.
Owing to the change of administration, the Biden administration was obviously responsible for implementing the terms of the agreement as negotiated by the Trump administration.
I think both parties get an approximately equal share of the credit or blame.
That's not the fault of the US though. We were there for years and years trying to foster democracy, but you can't help a country/culture that doesn't want to help itself.
> He got us out of Afghanistan too... this was a huge win and was very risky. Doesn't get enough credit for this one.
Thats because Trump agreed to get us out of afghaniston. Biden oversaw the absolutely disastrous execution, abandoning untold millions of military equipment in the hands of the taliban.
Trump's plan involved getting out even quicker. How was it going to be less disastrous?
It is always the same story, Dems bad, I would have done it right. He had a 'credible deterrent', and would have completely ended the Ukraine war (that had been going on since 2014). Just like he claims now he will end the war, and bring back all the Americans imprisoned abroad if re-elected. It's one thing to say that sort of stuff and present a plan for doing so. Trump says it, and then pivots to even more bullshit.
Do you really think a different president, with effectively the same military leadership, was going to execute the pull-out in a broadly different way on a shorter deadline, and call it a success?
Unfortunately his domestic achievements have been somewhat mediocre.
His signature achievements essentially were one time cash payments to people.
I really do think his major failure was not pushing for a lasting achievement like implementing federal parental leave. He had the chance, but opted for a 1 year extension of child tax credits.
And of course the US has an illegal immigration problem. European right on the rise from 1/10th the number of illegal immigrants the US gets.
"His signature achievements essentially were one time cash payments to people."
Look at the $300bn climate funding in the Inflation Reduction Act and the impact on bringing chip manufacturing onshore with the Chips Act. All this with a nearly divided congress.
Easily the most effective US president of my lifetime.
The CHIPS act has stagnated since its announcement, it comes with onerous DEI requirements on new chipmaker facilities which just compounds the shortage of skilled labor. There has been no progress on construction of announced facilities since the bill's passage.
The IRA has nothing to do with Joe Biden. It passed because Joe Manchin decided at the last minute that he hated what China is doing with trying to monopolize stuff like solar panels and batteries.
There's a reason people jokingly refer to him as President Manchin.
The US economy is extremely robust right now and the European countries that took a balanced budget austerity approach are in shambles. Look at England. Just carnage over there.
Deficit spending makes sense when the spending invests in the future. Every mortgage holder understands this implicitly. If these deficit levels concern you the obvious first place to start would be on the revenue side, by letting the Trump 2017 tax cuts expire.
Can't wait til Jan 2025. I'll be taking full advantage of the home energy rebates to rewire the electric, install modern insulation, and install energy efficient heating/cooling in my 1930's Craftsman. The rebates should cover up-to $14,000 of that cost which will be a great help.
1/10th the number of illegal immigrants? The US gets less illegal immigrants than Europe per capita. If you look at the charts from the last 10 years of the immigrants as percentage of population you recognize that the US is seeing slower growth while European countries see faster immigration. This is happening while the US has a high immigration rate of desirable skilled workers.
> And of course the US has an illegal immigration problem. European right on the rise from 1/10th the number of illegal immigrants the US gets.
Those are also the backbone of a lot of agriculture in the US, either a president tackles it and food inflation rises or you keep the status quo and prices steady.
There's no winning strategy, whomever tackles it will have it backfire someway, the US depends on exploiting cheap labour for its low margin industries.
Trump's strategy of making lots of noise about building walls to stop illegal immigrants while not actually building or stopping them seems to be working reasonably well.
Genuine question: is the European right actually on the rise? It seems somewhat localized to France, where Macron just unexpectedly outmaneuvered both Le Pen's party and the left coalition that formed to counter Le Pen, securing himself a surprise victory in the snap election everyone thought would be a disaster for him. In the EU as a whole, Ursula von der Leyen just won another 5 years as the President of the European Commission, which seems like a continuation of the status quo in the EU rather than a turn toward the right.
This is all from my naive perspective as an American.
Edit: I'd appreciate a reply instead of a downvote. As I said, I'm asking a genuine question.
Biggest party in the Netherlands is radical right (PVV). In France they barely got a parliamentary majority against Le Pen, in a country that's not particularly good at coalitions, so doesn't look like it will last. Hungary has been on the authoritorian track for quite some time. Poland just managed to get off it, but we'll have to see if it will stick. Italy got a neo-fascist.
Generally you see radical right gaining more votes in Europe, even if they don't outright win everywhere. You also see that other parties adopt ideas from the far right. This means that policy is changing in that direction and that the discourse is more around those topics. Meanwhile research shows that this doesn't actually make voters vote less for the radical right parties, so those other parties are not gaining anything from it.
I see, thanks for the info! Interesting that Poland managed to get off the authoritarian track as you said, when they're so geographically close to being embroiled in war again. I'd think that would lead people to lean toward that kind of "follow the strong leader to get us through war" thinking, but obviously I'm glad it doesn't.
Makes one wonder whether they just like his fascist leadership style or there are some rather direct incentives involved. Russian secret services like to stir the pot in other countries in order to weaken them.
A few German right-wing dudes seems to have more or less provably received money and favors from Russia.
The right-wing party in Poland (PiS) still won the latest election (as in - got the most votes), but didn't anyone willing to form the coalition with them that would secure enough votes to form government - other major parties campaigned on being explicitly anti-PiS. So, even though PiS won, they are the opposition now, and the wide anti-PiS coalition is in power.
Also to add, PIS was mired in the passports for sale scandal, which was a significant reason for them losing the election. People didn't vote against anti-immigration and far-right behavior, they voted against PIS hypocrisy.
Here in France, the media isn't so prompt as to call last election's results a "victory" for Macron's party.
Quite the contrary, his party now finds itself with (considerably) less parliament seats that it had, and when it could get a majority by appealing to the "moderate" right, he now has to compromise with the opposition. His party doesn't even hold a relative majority anymore.
Sadly my country hasn't been the only European one where fascism is creeping up again. The far rights came out on top in the last European Parliament election in Belgium, Italy, Austria, Hungary and France. In the other countries, its scores are steadily, dreadfully, increasing with each passing election.
Personally, I blame the increasing economic inequality and austerity politics lead in Europe since the 80s.
My personal opinion as a non-European who has voted in the UK elections as a Commonwealth citizen: the far-right tends to win broad support in European Parliament elections mostly as a reactionary bulwark against the EU's Open Borders policy (and rightly so). People tend to vote somewhat rationally for national elections.
Honestly, from my perspective, the rise of rampant immigration (and that too contributed by people of my community) is going to damage the entirety of Europe in the long run. Already I've seen firsthand the skewing of the demographic pyramid in the younger generation (0-18 yrs), a lack of worthwhile job prospects for second generation immigrants, and the rising tide of anti-national behaviors from members of migrant communities. As Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed rightly said, the next generation of terrorists will not come from Saudi Arabia or the Middle East, but from Europe. The kind of venom that mosques here in Europe spew is much worse than the extremely highly-monitored mosque sermons in the Middle East, from Egypt to Oman.
From my Muslim perspective, Europe will be a lost cause in a single generation, unless there is a MASSIVE cultural upheaval that stomps and quashes the current migratory trend. Austerity and inequality are just the sparks, but the bigger powder keg is the growing base of increasingly alienated migrants who have to face the austerity and inequality (see Leeds riots very recently). European society was never structured to take in so many incompatible migrants like American society is.
There ought to be a clear distinction between indigenous Muslims who migrated post WW2 all the way to the 80s and 90s, and the recent migration waves which outnumber the former. The former have been able to acclimatize to European culture while still maintaining their roots (not to mention that it was harder to migrate back then - you needed a job already for starters). The latter bring the same tribalistic beliefs of their homelands over here. And trust me, the former DESPISE the latter, and it's an understatement. Not because they want to pull the ladder up after them, but because the latter import the same foul culture that the former wanted to escape from.
As a Muslim, I don't want to see people praying on the roads and streets of Paris. I didn't want to see people chanting "From the river to the sea" for Gazans (who have a very strong reason for being despised by the rest of the Middle East). I don't want to see Muharram processions in Barcelona either.
Fun fact, the Middle East has one of the most relaxed migration policies across the world, yet a lot of European migrants are actually unable to migrate because they are criminals back home (the first condition to obtaining a residence visa is a police clearance).
Muharram processions are specific to the Shia community. Allowing one and not letting Sunnis or Sufis do some arcane street ritual/procession is recipe for disaster. Best to not allow anything. Let these rituals be relegated to the mosques and Imambaras, not on the streets where they hamper with the daily lives of non-Muslims.
Indigenous Muslims that you had mentioned are my absolute favorite kind of people, that I've eschewed the rest. The rest could actually learn a thing or two from them (but of course they won't).
I believe the immigration problem is mostly fear mongering by the far right. In France less than a thousandth of the population could be classified as "immigrants".
I am not saying we shouldn't have a sound immigration policy, but closing/controlling the EU's borders is highly unrealistic. Just look at Italy's far right government: they promised to stop all immigration to the country but since Giorgia Meloni's investiture, the numbers have never been higher.
The solution should reside in providing better integration and opportunities to migrants, who could very well be part of the solution to Europe's demographic crisis. The most diverse European cities are also the most productive.
Austerity and inequality are the direct results of deregulation, financialization and privatization of previously fine public services. Despite the right's endless whining, immigration has very little real impact on the economy, and crime, overall, has gone down in the last decades.
> The solution should reside in providing better integration and opportunities to migrants, who could very well be part of the solution to Europe's demographic crisis.
The issue is that Europe has already taken in far too many migrants than it can possibly integrate. Right now, taking more migrants isn't a feasible situation if they're impossible to integrate.
The solution to Europe's (or any country's) demographic crisis isn't more migrants. It's making a conducive and affordable environment for families and childbearing. Cheaper healthcare, affordable childcare, cheaper education, etc. and that's just scratching the surface.
> Despite the right's endless whining, immigration has very little real impact on the economy, and crime, overall, has gone down in the last decades.
So is that why Sweden, whose population is 10% non-Swedish now, has had to declare publicly that their crime rates have skyrocketed over the past decade? Why Poland, which took very few migrants pre-Ukraine, has had a very low crime rate? Call me right-wing, but while some of their claims might be horseshit, others are more than obvious truisms.
> The most diverse European cities are also the most productive.
The most diverse cities were already major production centers before migrants entered the picture. For a more accurate reference, compare the levels of non-residential investment into these cities pre and post the migrant crisis.
>In France less than a thousandth of the population could be classified as "immigrants".
France is obviously one of the few countries in Europe that could uniquely integrate its migrant population, but your numbers are wildly inaccurate too. Out of a population of 67 million, 8.7 million were foreign born. Sure foreign born could mean a lot of things, but that still isn't "less than a thousandth" of the population. And a significant number concentrate in the major cities, further ghettoizing them.
I don't believe you can convince your population to raise more children, sure you can make it easier for those that want to, but demographic decline is a worldwide phenomena. It's the endgame of the demographic transition.
What happens in Sweden is mostly due to a resurgence of organized crime. I don't think closing down the country's borders (which, again, isn't feasible by any realistic mean) woulf fix the problem. To find a culprit, you should look at poverty rates which is always much more strongly correlated to crime than ethnicity or whatever else. Here's an article from the Guardian that explores this, for what it's worth: https://theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/30/how-gang-violence-...
When speaking of immigrants I always think of illegal immigrants from Africa, which is what the right talks about anyway. In that regard, I believe my figure of one one thousandth is more accurate.
And how again did organized crime become resurgent in Sweden? Was it not driven by scores of unemployed immigrant youth finding an outlet for their skills, coupled with a relaxed policing culture that was developed in good times?
We're not talking about closing down borders here. We're talking about strongly monitoring the kind of migrants you bring in. The UAE and Singapore are both heavily migrant driven populations, yet don't see this resurgence of crime that we see only in Europe, because they actually preselect their visitors and residents.
As it stands now, it is tougher for me as an affluent non-European to migrate to Sweden, or any other European country (except Switzerland apparently, where I'm at now) for the long term, than it is for me to settle in the UAE or Singapore. It is tougher for my highly skilled friends in tech who want to move to Europe, so they've chosen to move to Singapore instead. On the other hand, both the UAE and Singapore are making it much harder for low-skilled migrants to get in, while they find it much easier to go and settle in Europe. And they are, in hordes.
> And how again did organized crime become resurgent in Sweden? Was it not driven by scores of unemployed immigrant youth finding an outlet for their skills, coupled with a relaxed policing culture that was developed in good times?
In short: no. Read the article whose link I posted above.
> We're not talking about closing down borders here. We're talking about strongly monitoring the kind of migrants you bring in.
And how could we do that ? We can't put policemen along every 4m of the European border. We are already doing random border controls, I don't think we can do much better without bankrupting ourselves.
> The UAE and Singapore are both heavily migrant driven populations, yet don't see this resurgence of crime that we see only in Europe, because they actually preselect their visitors and residents.
I don't think comparing the EU with the UAE makes much sense here. The situations are very different. Also, the UAE depends on massive numbers of foreign low-skilled workers to run the country. There are usually only allowed to stay for the duration of their work, and are hidden away from the rest of the country. There are many reported cases of worker abuse and inhumane working conditions. Overall, I'd wager there to be much more violence in the UAE than in Europe. In any case, you were speaking of values earlier, I don't think Europe has much to learn from the UAE in that department.
As for Singapore, I don't know what to say. It's a city-state, obviously it functions very differently than a continent-sized loose economic union of several country. Not that their ways have nothing of interest to us...
I'll conclude on our exchange, feel free to disagree:
You seem to believe about everyone can get into Europe, which is far from being the case. Famously in France, Macron's government last immigration law was the last one in a series of about a hundred similar ones since WW2.
I am yet to hear of an immigration policy that isn't just "give them less rights, give more money to the police, etc.", which as we have seen is only effective if our goal is to worsen the situation.
The influx of young abled men and women should be a net positive for Europe, and France, where businesses are always complaining of not being able to find enough low-skilled workers. Instead, we are too busy pushing back and making their lives harder to the point of making integration almost impossible and ostracizing them from society, thereby creating the conditions for crime to flourish.
Ah, my mistake. The political commentary and analysis I'd been reading had been saying that, while Macron's party lost seats, his goal may have been to defang the far-right before they got any "real" power in 2027. I guess the commentary was implying that his goal may have been to let the French people see what the far-right would do with their political power, while not risking the presidency.
It sounds a little bit like 4-D chess now that I type it out, I'm not sure I believe it myself.
> It sounds a little bit like 4-D chess now that I type it out, I'm not sure I believe it myself.
The thing is with Macron, he managed to make the journalist class believe he's a genius (he's not dumb, but still miles away from being as brilliant as presented). So whenever he trips on a stone, you get an army of journalist explaining to you how he planned for it all along.
> securing himself a surprise victory in the snap election everyone thought would be a disaster for him.
This is totally incorrect. Macron's party arrived 3rd in number of seats when previously it had a relative majority. He lost over a hundred seats in parliament and many key roles. Additionally his coalition is weakened because his allies really didn't appreciate his move and are already openly questioning his leadership.
He is in a way worse position now than he was before the snap election, and while you can say nobody won, no one can seriously question the fact that Macron lost hard.
As for the rise of the far right, it's happening in more countries than just France: Germany, Netherland, Italy, etc.
> He is in a way worse position now than he was before the snap election, and while you can say nobody won, no one can seriously question the fact that Macron lost hard.
Good point. I replied to another comment below, I'd been reading political commentary/analysis saying that maybe his goal was to defang Le Pen's party by letting the French people see what they'd do with power before the election in 2027. But as far as I'm aware he never actually said that was his goal, it's just a guess, and from a hard numbers perspective he called a snap election and lost seats.
> maybe his goal was to defang Le Pen's party by letting the French people see what they'd do with power before the election in 2027
That's what he said in private at some point, but that wasn't his initial plan. We have another reported conversation that explain his plan was to benefit from the divided left to reconquer an absolute majority for himself.
It's only after the left managed to make a coalition that he started floating this idea of letting the far right ridicule itself.
But even if that's a stupid plan, he haven't achieved that either, the far right gained over 50 seats, and their electorate are now even more angry because they consider they got robbed of the election.
So no idea what commentary you were reading, but I'd recommend not to trust that source ever again on that topic at least.
He miscalculated super hard regarding LFI. I genuinely think he did not expect Glucksmann and Faure to basically sweep the antisemitism/antisionism under the rug that hard for the elections to get access to Melenchon's militants.
RN, through no skill of their own, is in ideal position right now. The coffers are going to be full, they have 3 years to clean up their candidates and get the messaging correct, and they have absolutely nothing to do with the coming EU budget restrictions. And R! is finally dead after having served their purpose of shifting the discourse.
The far-right parties are on the rise in most EU countries. But in most EU countries they have not managed to make it into government in enough numbers to be relevant, yet.
But the rhetoric of the centrists/moderates has been shifting towards the right as well, on the topic of immigration, and especially with regards to certain ethnic groups.
The UK may have just managed to get a majority, but that's a peculiarity of their electoral system. As a fraction of the votes, their far right gained a larger share than in previous years.
Similar effects can be observed in plenty of countries, among those Sweden, Germany to some extent, Italy, Hungary has been way left for a long time, etc.
To be honest, the UK elections might be parliamentary, but they have a very Presidential character to them, just as is the case in India and Canada. People still vote for the PM face. This time, they didn't want to vote in Rishi. Put Boris Johnson on the ticket, and I'm certain the results would have been extremely different.
Comparing the most recent election in the UK and the one before it the vote for the right (Reform) increased by 2% points (14% overall) versus the vote share for UKIP in 2019
The other right wing parties (Conservatives, DUP) got 25% between them
Where as the more progressive parties got over 50% of the vote - Greens got 6%, LibDems 12%, Labour 34% plus SNP and Plaid Cymru
To say the right did well in the UK election just isn’t true
There's no "EU as a whole". Europe is made of vastly different countries with their own politics and the people care much more about the national politics compared to EU level politics (at least based on what I have seen).
It doesn't help that the EU parliament (elected directly) does not have much power compared to the commission.
> I presume that his attitudes and staff selection carried the day, and maybe could have done so for another term. But his mental capacity was clearly declining, and he is in fact expected to handle some things personally.
Biden's presidency makes me wonder if we really need a head of state these days. Is it really necessary to have such a single powerful figure in the executive branch?
The biggest exception (IMO) would be in times of crisis, where a strong executive is necessary.
I feel two ways in this, you probably need one voice for certain key tactical decisions, but the fact that everyone feels the presidency is this important in America supports the idea that the presidency has gotten way to powerful. Loosely speaking, the person who is president shouldn’t matter as much as who is in congress.
This is how it works in most European democracies.
The balance between the President, the Prime Minister and the Congress or Parliament is different in different countries. In most of Europe, the President is mostly a "figurehead". The President does the diplomatic stuff, wines and dines with foreign leaders, maybe has the ability to veto laws or pardon people, but it's the prime minister who actually runs the government and appoints the cabinet.
I think this varies varies between countries. Sweden indeed has an almost (formally) powerless monarch. I think the UK has a monarch with some real power but that does not put it to use? And how Denmark, Netherlands, Norway etc fare on this scale would be interesting to learn.
> you probably need one voice for certain key tactical decisions
I agree. Having a unified vision is the other key thing a president brings. Unfortunately though we barely see the fruits of a unified vision with how divided the two parties are today.
> Is it really necessary to have such a single powerful figure in the executive branch?
As an ignorant outsider, my impression is that the president is only supposed to 'preside' over things. Delegate and appoint people. Sign bills as a ceremony.
The real decision-making should be happening by the people's representatives in congress, while the Supreme court can guard against decisions which would violate the constitution.
But then parties form, partisanship happens, and congress stops making meaningful changes. Blocking anything that the dems put forward apparently gets votes for senators. You don't even need filibusters to prevent votes; just the suggestion of one.
So without a working congress, the President and the courts end up picking up the slack, and wield more power than they should.
I naively wish that there was some way for congress to actually be a congress, and for each member to vote his/her conscience on every single matter.
The problem isn't the head of state but the head of government. The solution to that is reduce the powers of the President.
I have been having thought that the office of President should be split. With separate head of state and head of government that runs the executive branch. Another option would be to have triumvirate with command in chief that commands the military. Maybe the President has power to dismiss the others, or there is system than one person can't take over, like the CnC can never be executive.
You could do that with current structure by giving all the executive power to the Vice President, and then President would be left with head of state role. They would run as slate, with the visible, charismatic President, and the unknown, competent VP. If the President dies, the VP loses all his power.
The two historical examples that immediately come to mind (and explain the Latin term) both didn't end well.
I agree with the rest of the points you make. I think in Europe, the CnC is always a military post and needs to have done officer training and risen through the ranks, whereas the head of government (whether nominal or actual) is strictly a civilian role.
Whether European models would scale up to something the size of the USA is another question.
I've said that the US needs an elected king. The guy you want to have a beer with, to throw out ceremonial first pitches, even to welcome other heads of state is the king. The person who runs the government and balances congress is the president and should be super boring. I'm imagining George W Bush as idea King material while Gore would have been ideal President material.
In parliamentary republics, the President is the powerless head of state, and the Prime Minister is head of government. There are lots of terms for head of government like Chancellor, Chief Executive, and First Minister. "King" has too much baggage of being inherited.
Most limited Presidents have fixed terms, but I don't think there needs to be term limits for the figurehead. I was thinking that the head of state would attract those who want the spotlight.
This is a weird way to formulate the question of how you could better constitute the US federal government.
(because if you were gonna make a change as fundamental as not having a primary leader of the executive branch, you probably wouldn't try to limit your changes to that)
This is a very partial view. A good number of people, including American democrats were disgusted by his unwavering support to the current genocide in Gaza. Many believe he could have stopped it with a phone call and explicitly refused. I know many who swore they would not vote for him, regardless of the circumstances.
The US public is not as supportive of Israel as it used to be but support is still broad. The opinions you're reflecting are a small minority. I would expect that democrats lost votes on their "both sides" approach here since more centrists would have move to the right then people on the left who at best can not vote in protest. Stronger support for Israel would have not only reduced Palestinian suffering in the war but would have also likely gained support for the democrats.
For example, Israel was pressured to delay its offensive in the beginning of the war after the Oct 7th attack, which likely caused more casualties and prolonged the war and it was pressured in other ways that prolong the war. There was certainly nothing like "unwavering support", e.g. there was intense pressure to avoid an operation in Rafah, e.g. with the US administration saying the population could not be evacuated, but then Israel ignored that, and the population did evacuate.
On the other hand, there is virtually no chance that the US could have forced Israel to stop the war because Israelis view this as an existential threat. No threats or measures the US would take would override that view. This is likely why Biden is not able to stop the war by making a phone call.
I think it's important for people that want the war in Gaza to end and to see less casualties and suffering to understand this calculus. Israel's and Hamas'. What those people seem to be working towards in practice is a prolongation of the war, more suffering by everyone, and possibly the election of Trump in the US.
> On the other hand, there is virtually no chance that the US could have forced Israel to stop the war because Israelis view this as an existential threat. No threats or measures the US would take would override that view. This is likely why Biden is not able to stop the war by making a phone call.
No chance? That's a very unimaginative view. Here's one way to do it that would have caused Israel to immediately stop: "If you keep going against what we are publicly saying, we will no longer veto security council resolutions against you, and UNGA will move forward with sanctions once they realize we're not going to protect you anymore."
Biden tried to threaten and stop Israel and this is one reason for it taking so long. It took like five months to start invading Rafah, which is crazy. And the main reason is Biden administration stalling it. Thank G-d now Dems will be busy with their political infighting and survival and the hot stage of this war will be over soon and Gazans can breathe a bit and start thinking about their future.
Israel is acting towards its declared objectives which it views as existential: The removal of Hamas from power in Gaza and the return of its hostages. Hamas is acting towards its declared long term objectives of destroying Israel at any cost.
It's ok for you to disagree with those objectives, or Israel's assessment of threat, but you can still see how a truce that leaves Hamas in power does not align with Israels' declared objectives. If you can offer a truce to Israel that removes Hamas from Gaza and Israel rejected that then I'd support your argument but that option is not on the table at the moment (partly because it does not align with Hamas' objectives). From Israel's perspective the proposed truce neither guarantees the return of all Israeli hostages nor the removal of Hamas from Gaza.
Israel's current government is also unlikely to work towards the proposed truce because it involves releasing Palestinian prisoners which will be seen as a win for Hamas and also a potential for future violence. This is where Israel is divided internally with many (most?) supporting a truce and parts of the government working against it. But most Israelis would still see the truce as temporary and agree that Hamas' survival in Gaza is not acceptable after Oct 7th. If Hamas was to e.g. leave Gaza (like the PLO left Beirut) then many options open up for ending the war and moving forward (including removal of the current Israeli government).
Again regardless of your opinion/politics you need to see this from Israel's side if you want to be able to achieve a solution. The Ukraine/Russia conflict is similar in that you need to understand what both sides are looking for and what they're willing to concede before you can end that war. Just saying that you think the war should continue until Russia is repelled from the entirety of Ukraine, while potentially a reasonable moral position, may not be a practical one or one that minimizes the number of people getting killed. I say that as someone who is 100% supportive of Ukraine. There's the idealistic outcome and then there's reality.
It's certainly true that if Israel has no other alternatives, and under the assumption it views Hamas' survival in Gaza as an existential threat, then it will continue to use force to achieve that objective, which will certainly lead to more people getting killed. Israelis and Palestinians.
If this is the scenario we're looking at, and we want to minimize Palestinian suffering and casualties, then we should be looking at how this force can be used in the most optimal way to achieve these objectives. For example, a truce that gives Hamas a chance to rebuild its defenses and re-establish control over broader areas of the Gaza strip is almost certainly going to lead to more suffering and casualties.
Israel just passed a law calling a UN agency a terrorist organization, thus making them legitimate (in their own twisted minds) targets in an ongoing genocide. Earlier that same legislator denied any prospects for a 2-state solution making it absolutely clear that they aim to at best keep Palestine in a state of domination, what the ICJ has ruled as apartheid.
I think it is a mistake to claim Israel is acting with anything but genocidal intent. Even their own legislator shows this genocidal intent when it validates obviously invalid targets. Their aim is not the removal of Hamas from power in Gaza, but the elimination of civilian order of Palestinians in Gaza. And it is clearly and obviously moving towards that goal.
Hamas is not an existential threat to Israel. They don’t have the military nor political capabilities for that. At best they are a threat to Israels ongoing policies of apartheid. But in that regard, so is the ICJ.
> PALM BEACH, Fla. — Former President Donald Trump declared Tuesday that Israel must “finish the problem” in its war against Hamas, his most definitive position on the conflict since the terror group killed 1,200 Israelis and took more than 200 hostages on Oct. 7.
> Many believe he could have stopped it with a phone call and explicitly refused.
This seems to take all of the culpability, motive and free will away from Netanyahu. I'm not saying Biden couldn't make that call, but why do we assume Bibi would have actually stopped if so?
To a lot of outsiders it honestly looks like to some extent Israel controls US foreign policy. It's not a good look. Why does the US have to tiptoe so much around this issue? Why does Israel have such leverage? What is this leverage?
I always say, imagine if it was France instead of Israel. Then you see how crazy the situation is.
A strong West-allied military in the Middle East is extremely valuable.
If France started a war of aggression, the US would also 100% stand with France, especially if it started with France being hit with a terrorist attack. I’m not sure what you are trying to say.
From my layman's perspective, it's because a lot of people in the US just plain support Israel. I think that's because of religious connotations but again I don't really know. I've even seen an Israel flag being flown in the same yard as a Trump 2024 yard sign, here in my tiny northwest Iowa town.
Because critics always say what they don't want but rarely think through what they do.
The very likely case of Palestine replacing Israel would be a rapidly anti-US, anti-Western, anti-Democratic government and a loss of a very valuable port in the middle east due to the, y'know, rapidly anti-US issue.
Also depopulating Israel of Jews would almost certainly result in another Holocaust. Because Hamas - the most likely-to-govern organization for Palestine - has long enshrined Jew murder in its charter.
Depends what was in the phone call! If he said "I'm going to drone you and everyone in your cabinet and all of your family" that would probably have done it, coming from the one person on earth who can credibly make that threat.
Biden's aides could probably come up with a more nuanced and more statesmanlike but equally effective threat than that, of course. Any US president would have great leverage to threaten an Israeli PM personally or politically, or threaten changes to US foreign policy that would work badly for Israel.
> Any US president would have great leverage to threaten an Israeli PM personally or politically, or threaten changes to US foreign policy that would work badly for Israel.
US Presidents aren't dictators and there is no way _any_ policy change too bad for Israel wouldn't have led to serious financial issues for any party. AIPAC is damn well connected.
In any case, I don't believe Netanyahu would have caved. No matter the threat - the crimes of Oct 7 were way too serious for any Israeli PM to leave unanswered. It was the equivalent of 9/11 - and just like the US back then, who completely flattened Afghanistan in retaliation, there is no way any other Israeli PM would have had any other realpolitik option than to fight until Hamas is gone off the face of the planet.
It’s more like 10x worse than 9/11. Israel is a fairly small country of 9m people. So much of the population was connected to those killed. If you scale it to the US it would be as if 41,000 Americans were killed. Our response would be off the charts in such an event.
> there is no way _any_ policy change too bad for Israel wouldn't have led to serious financial issues for any party. AIPAC is damn well connected.
Well, yeah, it might not have been good for Biden financially or for the US strategic military position in the region. That's exactly why he didn't make the call - it's not that he doesn't care about the slaughter of innocents, but he cares about other things more.
Biden's wise choice exemplifies true leadership, and ultimately, it's a testament to the enduring influence of Barack Obama, the Democratic Party's revered elder statesman, who remains a powerful force to this day.
"in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, which started in 2014."
Russo-Ukrainian War: "The ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War began in February 2014. Following Ukraine's Revolution of Dignity, Russia occupied and annexed Crimea"
Trump would (has promised to do so on live television) just give Ukraine to Russia. Biden/USA/allies have stood down Russia, which has been seriously damaged both by battlefield losses, by not achieving their strategic goals and instead entering a second Afghanistan, and by the rapid conversion of the EU economy to no longer need Russian energy.
I think you are spot on (and a bit puzzled why you got downvoted). The energy transition in Germany away from Russian gas was a economic achievement I didn't think possible. It costs Europe dearly but has accelerated renewable transition remarkedly.
Failing US infrastructure has been singled out as a major pressing issue by US Engineers (professional societies, etc) for at least 15 years that I'm aware of.
It's been cited before 2016 as a trillion dollar problem.
The point is that this something that one POTUS chose to talk about and frequently hyped "Infrastructure Week" and also something that another POTUS chose to do something about.
^F informs us there are 33 instances of "war" on that page, most in "award", "forward", etc. Two as the actual word "war".
Of course it's a good thing, why on earth would you imagine it not to be?
> You were the one who could not find it not me and then you got confused with award and forward
Please don't be silly. I found all instances of the character sequence "war". Most instances were within full words, two instances were the actual word war.
Then you asked me to help you to search within the text. Most people on HN are capable of finding such things themselves. Why you struggle with this is a mystery.
There are certainly things Biden can be criticized for but your comment is hyperbole that has little bearing on reality -
> most of the major cities here are no longer safe
objectively, nearly every major cities is safer now than at virtually any time in the past 50 or so years.
> massive hordes of illegal immigrants
This uptick trend has been noticeable for the last 30 years so I'm not sure how this is attributable to Biden. Additionally, as a percentage, we are still not yet relative to the percentage of population that is an immigrant as compared to the late 1800s.
https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/frequently-requested...
> But yes, I agree, ignoring the reality of all of those things, pretty good!
But yes, I agree, if you ignore reality, you can blame Biden for everything :)
Haha, he says he is European, talks about decions he's noticed from a "world stage" point-of-view, and you respond with your partisan vitrol.
I'm not sure you can claim moral lapses when you've cited propogandized and exaggerated far-right talking points. I think felonies, positively adjudicatied rape accusations, and paying for sex while your wife is pregnant are all the new standards for a POTUS that lacks moral fiber....
>The Trump administration in February 2020 negotiated a withdrawal agreement with the Taliban that excluded the Afghan government, freed 5,000 imprisoned Taliban soldiers and set a date certain of May 1, 2021, for the final withdrawal.
>And the Trump administration kept to the pact, reducing U.S. troop levels from about 13,000 to 2,500, even though the Taliban continued to attack Afghan government forces and welcomed al-Qaeda terrorists into the Taliban leadership.
> He came to power under questionable circumstances, winning none of the bell weather counties, most votes ever received (even more than Obama), massive dumps of mail in ballots after the close of the election day, etc.
Honestly, I think the rest of your point can be safely ignored after saying something like this
They have been 100% better than the 4 years previously. I make 2.7x more than I did in 2020 and my net worth has 5x'ed. I knew a lot of people in my team at Amazon that got laid off - they all landed better jobs or other jobs at Amazon.
Most importantly, I no longer have to contend with a pandemic due to a world-beating vaccine rollout championed by Joe Biden.
Also - I don't know what kind of soup you're buying, the kind I like hasn't changed price much. It's around $3.60. I'm also aware that a 10% tariff as championed by the last President will raise prices even further on things I rely on - like out of season fruits.
I presume that his attitudes and staff selection carried the day, and maybe could have done so for another term. But his mental capacity was clearly declining, and he is in fact expected to handle some things personally.