The Apparent Choice
The 2024 election will be about whether our nation can sustain democracy or will slide into a more authoritarian mode of governance. This should be an easy choice given that this nation has been, from its very beginnings, about proving that a modern democracy can, not only survive, but thrive.
Democracy at Home and Abroad
Joe Biden, is the candidate seemingly representing the democratic option and domestically appearing to represent that old concern for the welfare of the ordinary people for which this democracy exists. His foreign policies, however, hardly represent any of the idealism of democracy. Since World War II our foreign policy has been used to extend our economic power, often with the help of covert operations and the military, all under the guise of spreading democracy.
All of that has led to our direct and indirect influence and interference with the sovereignty of many nations, sometimes ending in war. The list is enormous, including Iran, Haiti, Central American countries, South American countries, Asian nations, African nations. It is hard to find many nations that have not been affected by US intrusions.
Gaza
And then there is the crisis in Gaza in which the Biden administration, as representing the leadership of the dominant superpower of the world, has not only given Benjamin Netanyahu a free hand in the process of wiping out the Palestinians in Gaza, with modern weapons supplied by us, but also has been complicit in stopping even the most basic humanitarian aid to an occupied people. All of this while preventing any international influence to stop the massacre.
There is nothing of the basic precepts of democracy in how this is being handled, neither in international terms, nor even in domestic terms, since so many of our citizens are up in arms about this policy. We, as a nation, are projected onto the world stage as an uncaring, uncivilized nation, willing to generously support and encourage a genocide being carried out in full view of the world, while supporting a rogue leader. Meanwhile we seem to be working to prevent the rest of the world from its humanitarian attempts or even from its international judgement, attacking any who would question Netanyahu's rampage.
Biden seems to be acting in our name and with our tax money, damaging our international reputation, as though he has dictatorial power to personally decide how this nation should act on the international stage.
The Mandate
Here is the bargain that must be struck to salvage this election for the Democratic party, for Joe Biden, and for democracy. In order to secure the votes of those who are appalled by the direction of our foreign policy, especially in Gaza, a vote for Joe Biden must be seen as a mandate, not for a continuance of the direction of our current policies, but for a change of direction, once again reflecting the idealism of our democracy with its focus on human rights and support of those who are trying to develop the basis for democracies for ordinary people in other nations. In other words, it will be a mandate for a pivot away from our interference and focus on economics to a new focus on the good of the inhabitants of other nations, allowing them to find their own direction into the future.
This is, in fact, the only viable way to find common ground to work on solutions to global immigration, climate change, and global health issues.
Context
The fundamental idea of democracy from the American Revolution was that ordinary people were capable of effective governance of a nation, that they did not need some elite to run their lives for them. And that example spread across Europe, from the French Revolution to the Russian Revolution, with the First World War spelling the end of rule by monarchs and aristocrats in Europe.
That idea spread to South America, Central America, and the Caribbean Islands, to Asia and the Asian and Pacific Islands. It became a global phenomenon and a source of hope for all oppressed people. It was the source of the idealism of socialism and of communism. It could even coexist with capitalism if capitalism could be harnessed to support the egalitarian requirements of democracy.
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