On 2024 and the Middle East
This year, we celebrate America’s 60th presidential election, an event that fully swallows the American psyche every four years. Perhaps “celebrate” is a strong word, given extreme public discontent with both major party candidates and the fact that it is a rematch of the previous election - one of the most contentious in a long time. Various issues hang over every election; in 2024, these include illegal immigration and the southern border, abortion rights, inflation, and more. Both candidates are running campaigns with domestic focuses, but there is one foreign policy issue no one can ignore: the situation in the Middle East. This issue threatens to hijack the 2024 election, particularly among young voters. As is always the case, however, an election encompasses far more than one policy issue, and we cannot allow ourselves to be blind to this fact.
The situation in the Middle East, of course, refers to the escalation in violence between Israel and Hamas since the terrorist assault on Israel on October 7th, 2023. In the following months, Israel launched a military invasion of Gaza with the stated goal of eliminating Hamas. The American public, historically pro-Israel, has been deeply divided over the issue, with 39 percent of Americans calling the treatment of Jews in Israel “genocide” and 34% saying the same of Palestinians in Gaza (for reference, only 72 percent called the Holocaust a genocide, indicating skewed public understanding).
Both President Biden and former President Trump have weighed in on the difficult issue - as presidential candidates they have to. Both have emphasized Israel’s right to defend itself, and denounced Hamas’ violence on October 7th. Nonetheless, there is considerable daylight between the two: Biden has called for restraint in the Israeli response, and has touted efforts to bring humanitarian aid to the battered region. In addition, Biden’s State Department has introduced a UN resolution calling for a ceasefire, conditioned on the release of Israeli hostages by Hamas. This has not been enough for some Democrats, who view his generally pro-Israel stances as unacceptable. Trump, on the other hand, advised Israel to “finish the problem,” ostensibly through a thorough military operation ensuring the demise of Hamas. However, Trump, who during his presidency made an effort to be viewed as the most pro-Israel president in history, has been less outspoken on the conflict, having campaigned against war in general, particularly in reference to Ukraine.
Ukraine offers an interesting campaign counterpoint. While the public generally supports Ukraine, dissatisfaction with the war and unwillingness to send money and weapons has grown since the beginning of the war two years ago. Additionally, there exists some semblance of an expectation that at some point or another, China may invade Taiwan, sparking another conflict which the U.S. will have to make tough decisions about. Back in 2021, the American withdrawal from Afghanistan was a highly criticized operation, and it was around that time that Biden’s approvals went into the negatives, from which he has still not recovered.
Foreign policy is an extremely complex issue with many different moving parts. All four of these sub-issues will be on voters’ minds in some form. Foreign policy is also one of many issues defining the election. No matter the impulse to slap Biden with the “Genocide Joe” moniker and call it a day (Trump would likely allow the same policies many criticize Biden for allowing, and perhaps would even support them more vocally), the effects of a second Biden term or second Trump term will be far more expansive than one war halfway across the world, even a war that personally impacts many Americans.
No one needs reminding how fraught the political environment was around the 2020 election. Trump vs. Biden Part 1 was a very difficult election, and many Americans were dissatisfied with the options - an issue that rings even more true today. In 2020, it is at least true that Trump was “running for reelection” in the traditional sense, by focusing on his accomplishments. However, it appears that Biden is opting for a renewal of his 2020 campaign, focusing on the fact that he is running against Trump, a man the campaign calls a “threat to America”. Despite Biden’s achievements, he seems to be running a similar campaign. Likewise, Trump is running his campaign this time around in a very Trump-like way; his PAC, after all, is named “Save America,” and he has joked (it has been debated whether or not it was actually a joke) that he “want[s] to be a dictator for one day” if elected. As such, it is rather clear that America is headed straight towards another extremely divisive campaign season no one wants.
The reality is that both Trump and Biden are politicians with campaign promises as well. While Biden’s campaign website lacks a platform, a second Biden term promises more of the same style of governance we have seen over the last four years. Biden did take his opportunity in the State of the Union address in early March to lay out some of his priorities, ostensibly for America, but also for his campaign. In the speech, Biden listed several key objectives: defending abortion access, expanding on his work to improve safety from gun violence, reducing costs for everyday Americans in many contexts, and forging a more fair economy built by the middle class. While Biden did mention the war in Gaza in his speech, it did not play a central role, as it is not the centerpiece of his campaign. This is for good reason; it shouldn’t be. As an incumbent president dealing with a difficult domestic political climate, Biden has to run a campaign based on many different issues.
The Republican Party was widely panned in 2020 for not issuing an official party platform; its platform was essentially “Trump Trump Trump”. While this still describes the Republican Party today, Trump has a list of policy issues on his campaign website, including calling for tougher border control, reducing crime and establishing law and order, election law reform, and more. Conservative political operatives around the country have been planning Project 2025, a shadow administration with the stated intention of “rescu[ing] the country from the grip of the radical Left.” Another policy issue that Trump has not regularly campaigned on but is certainly in his plans is a new Muslim travel ban. In October, he promised to sign a new, more far-reaching travel ban, also to include Gaza.
The travel ban is particularly relevant, as political messaging against Biden on the Gaza issue always ignores Trump’s record on the Middle East. While some voters on the left are discontent with Biden’s actions and statements, it is not imminently clear they would prefer Trump’s either. This is, of course, the nature of every presidential election; for every policy position one candidate has, the other’s may be very similar or very different. Biden and Trump are two very different candidates, and this is clearly laid out in exploring the differences in their aforementioned campaign priorities. A lot has changed regarding all types of U.S. policy between Trump’s first term and Biden’s first term, and if Trump were to defeat Biden in 2024 the country would once again experience tremendous change.
Presidents also have impacts on non-substantive issues. Over the course of their respective presidencies, both Biden and Trump have placed tremendous emphasis on reshaping the federal judiciary, with the hundreds of Trump-appointed judges who will serve for decades to come being one of the most important legacies of his first term. Biden has had similar, while not quite as great, success in appointing judges. There is also the issue of the Cabinet and the executive bureaucracy. The federal government employs thousands of presidential appointees with great power to carry out the president’s agenda, with broad impacts on public policy. This bureaucracy would look completely different under a Trump administration than it does under a Biden administration, particularly as Trump may be inclined to be even more careful in his vetting after facing resistance during his first term.
This is all to say that the 2024 election will be a monumental event with enormous consequences, of which the war in the Middle East will be a very minor part. American elections, in the words of Supreme Court Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson, are a “great and glorious thing.” Each presidential election charts a new course for the nation that guides everyone for four years, through struggle and hardship and (regrettably rare) times of national unity. The right to vote is a sacred right, and we do ourselves a disservice by not carefully considering every issue we have to consider in an election. Americans cannot fall into the trap of letting one minor policy issue dictate everyone else’s lives for four years. As such, given the totality of circumstances, Americans should go out and use their vote in the most reasoned way possible. May the best candidate win.