Explained: How US foreign policy will affect Biden’s re-election bid

Like many leaders before him, US President Joe Biden has had some of these questions thrust upon him, such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Some originated in previous administrations, such as the withdrawal from Afghanistan. Most are a mix of the two, such as Israel’s retaliation against Gaza and Iran’s role.

Given the magnitude of these conflicting crises and the fact that they are occurring during a fraught election campaign, it is not surprising that Biden’s foreign policy is under intense scrutiny.

So how might this administration’s foreign policy affect voter decision-making in November?

Back to Afghanistan

Many analysts trace the beginning of Biden’s foreign policy troubles to what is often described as the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. In isolation, and despite the entirely avoidable tragedies that have unfolded there, Afghanistan alone is unlikely to have an electoral impact beyond the hand-wringing of a few political pundits.

That’s not necessarily the case with other global crises that now grip the Biden administration — especially its response to Gaza.

It is very difficult to predict voter intent, especially this far from election day. But a look at the history of the impact of international issues on voter intent at the polls can help us understand how Americans think about their role in the world, and how that might influence their choice of leader this time around. can

1968 redux?

This year, the Democratic National Convention returns to Chicago, Illinois. Given the striking similarities between this year and 1968 — when the convention was also held in Chicago — the decision to return to the Windy City seems ominous.

In 1968, foreign policy was at the forefront of several serious and conflicting crises in American democracy.

Martin Luther King Jr. and the leading candidate for the nomination, Robert F. After the Kennedy assassinations, violent backlash to the civil rights movement, and an escalating war in Vietnam, the Democratic Party went to Chicago in crisis.

Anti-war protesters, fearful of American involvement in Vietnam, convened in Chicago in hopes of influencing the outcome of the nomination process. The convention descended into chaos and violence, much of it by the police, who arrested 650 protesters.

The Democratic nominee, incumbent Vice President Hubert Humphrey, lost the election to Richard Nixon.

Although the history and context of the United States’ role in the Middle East is very different from that of Vietnam, there are important domestic parallels.

As with Vietnam, today’s Democratic Party is divided over the Biden administration’s response to Gaza. In the Michigan state primary in February, more than 100,000 Democrats voted “uncommitted” as part of a coordinated campaign to send a message to Biden, demanding that he do more to stop the massacre of Palestinians in Gaza. In the 2020 election, Biden won Michigan by just over 150,000 votes.

The ongoing, peaceful disruption of Democratic campaign events by protesters is expected to continue and extend into the convention in August. Dissent is vital to the health of democracies, but media coverage certainly won’t demonstrate protest in this way. Divisions within the party are likely to be portrayed negatively. This coverage will continue to shape broader perceptions of Biden’s leadership strength and endurance.

Iran

Iran has also played an outside role in past US elections. Given the events of the past week, it may do so again.

Conventional wisdom suggests that handling the 1979 Iranian Revolution and the subsequent Iranian hostage crisis handed sitting Democratic President Jimmy Carter the most embarrassing defeat in modern American history.

A year before the 1980 election and in the midst of the Iranian Revolution, militant students seized the American Embassy in Tehran and took more than 50 Americans hostage. The crisis dragged on for more than a year, watched over by seemingly helpless US officials. An inept military rescue operation was a disaster.

With the revolution and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979, Carter’s authority was weakened beyond repair.

His Republican challenger, Ronald Reagan, successfully exploited Carter’s weaknesses, promising to “Make America Great Again.”

Like Humphrey in 1968, Carter lost in a landslide. The hostages were released on Reagan’s inauguration day.

This timing was no coincidence. Conventional commentary on Carter’s apparent vulnerability often fails to note that, after a failed rescue attempt, the Carter administration engaged in protracted, contentious negotiations with Iran until the dying day of his presidency. It was these negotiations that eventually resulted in a deal to release the hostages. Important questions remain about the role of the Reagan campaign in resolving the crisis.

Perceptions matter

The historical details of these foreign policy crises are important. But in the context of election results, how they are perceived and mythologized matters more.

Carter’s legacy, and particularly perceptions of his vulnerability, are now being significantly modified. But as events unfolded, the perception of Carter’s incompetence, his central role in a developing sense of American “restlessness,” and Reagan’s ability to project a contrasting image of strength and vitality cost Carter his election. As in 1968, that loss dramatically reshaped the United States’ role in the world and the course of world history.

Like Reagan after Carter, Biden pledged to restore America’s role as a force for good in the world after four tumultuous years under Donald Trump. He assured Americans that the “beacon” of American global leadership could be removed.

The risk for Biden is that he has not anticipated how much his own foreign policy could undermine that message and the strength of his personal appeal.

Polling suggests that nearly two-thirds of Americans support an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. Biden’s political impotence and personal desire to distance the United States from Israel, and his administration’s continued refusal to impose conditions on military aid, are fracturing the loose voting coalition that brought him to power. He will need this coalition, and the vote, if he is to win re-election.

More broadly, the perception of Biden’s lack of empathy for the plight of the Palestinian people, especially children, risks catastrophically undermining the deeply personal image of a compassionate, generous man that he has so carefully cultivated. have done This image was central to his appeal to voters in 2020.

Taken together, this means that the current president is facing a kind of pincer wave.

On the one hand, Biden appears to be presiding over a crisis in American moral leadership. The “international rules-based order” he pledged to uphold is, in the eyes of many Americans, being unevenly applied to America’s allies.

On the other hand, Trump, Biden’s opponent again, tries to exploit perceptions of his weakness and vulnerability to project a contrasting image of uncompromising strength. It is an image that appeals to a Reagan-like framing of an America that must be restored to its rightful position of unparalleled global dominance.

The sense that the Biden administration has lurched from one foreign policy crisis to another reinforces this narrative. There are also concerns that its foreign policy team appears to be focused on “wins” and “losses” rather than understanding and addressing the underlying, structural factors that led to those crises.

Fairly or not, the cumulative result, changing perceptions of other issues such as the domestic economy, is a much lower personal approval rating for the president.

Bad perceptions are mutually reinforcing. And when current polling — inconclusive as it may be — suggests a gap between the candidates that’s well within the margin of error, assumptions matter a lot.

Emma Shortis, Assistant Senior Fellow, School of Global, Urban and Social Studies, RMIT University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.