Has Biden Made America Great Again ?

‘America Is Great Again’ says CNN’s Peter Bergen.

It’s a grammar thing; he means greatER (comparative). Specifically, not greater than it used to be but greater than international competitors. And that opens a can of worms.

I learned of this article from Scott Adams on Youtube, where he discusses his lack of energy the day before. He puts it down to low dopamine, the ‘feel-good’ hormone that helps your brain motivate your body. (Alternative definition of ‘dopamine’: ‘the fool I’m married to.’)

Bergen is not an uncritical supporter of Biden, but perhaps CNN have prompted him to write a bright piece now to give voters a dopamine rush and stimulate them to go out and vote the right way. Only two weeks to go…

… to save civilisation, or at least the US. Bergen is a VP at think-tank New America, whose CEO Anne-Marie Slaughter used to work under Hillary Clinton and in 2018, while claiming NA was non-partisan stated that ‘Trump is defiling and degrading’ the Presidency.

The dislike of DJT is understandable: his best friends could not describe him as diplomatic or conciliatory. He reminds me of a man my father knew who, he said, would ‘pour oil on troubled waters’ - and then set fire to it.

Yet not all of the Don’s ideas were terrible. He understood that immigration is a systemic socio-economic challenge; but as in the UK there were those whom it suited (for different reasons) to reframe the issue in terms of racial prejudice.

Here is Bergen’s cheerful spin on it:

Immigration, which is often treated as a problem by Americans, underlines the continuing attraction of the United States.

He goes on to cite the exodus of Russians from Ukraine ‘since Putin announced a partial mobilization’, ignoring the 14,000 previously killed by the Ukrainians in Donbas; and the 140,000 who left Crimea after what the Brookings Institution calls Putin’s 2014 ‘illegal annexation’, ignoring the Ukrainian damming of the canal that supplied 85% of the pensinsula’s water.

Of course the elephant in the room is who put Poroshenko and Zelenskyy up to this sanguinary business in the first place, or indeed who sponsored the 2013/14 Maidan Revolution that empowered them.

No matter: Bergen’s happy takeaway is that

By invading Ukraine and failing to achieve its war aims, Russia is demonstrating that it is no longer a great power.

He’s calling the score before the horn has sounded, but glosses over that to note how many Russians have fled the mother country, including two who went to Alaska. A noble tradition - think of the 40,000 US ‘war resisters’ who ran to Canada 1964-75. (The future President Clinton dodged not only the draft but his commitment to join the ROTC so that he could return to Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar.)

Bergen turns his eye to China, which clearly does have its difficulties including Covid lockdowns and property market meltdowns (one problem he doesn’t mention is Biden’s recent sanctions that have abruptly hit China’s microprocessor industry.) Again he over-crows on the warmaking front - the advent of hypersonic cruise missiles may have made aircraft carriers as redundant as mediaeval castles.

As for poor Britain (struggling against headwinds for at least the last 100 years), so sad. The EU too: already their industries are starting to relocate to the US as gas prices soar, because someone (cough) smashed their supply.

Add in Biden’s raiding America’s strategic ‘in case of emergency, break glass’ energy reserves; the hugely expensive partial student loan forgiveness that will do so little to solve the problem; the ‘we beat Big Pharma!’ boast that won’t take effect before 2025; the Biden-⁠Harris Economic Blueprint that the New York Post called ‘58 pages of malarkey’ and ‘ financially illiterate’ and Fortune dubbed ‘a love letter to the unions’ (well, they would say that, wouldn’t they?)…

… and a picture emerges: the present US Administration is throwing in everything plus the kitchen sink to get through the November elections. It’s like planning for a great Christmas and let’s worry about the credit card bills in January; and much of the news media including CNN is going to play merry jingles to keep up the dopamine levels.

I have to make clear that I am not a GOP supporter - firstly because I’m not American (though much of my family is), and secondly because what I hear of senior US conservatives suggests that they would like to see the rich pay no tax at all and the poor starve (preferably in greater numbers if abortion can be banned.)

But I don’t think we should accept that America Is Great Again simply because the rest of the world is suffering even more; especially if America has caused many of their woes.