We are all entitled to an opinion about the race to the White House
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If the president of the US were not a leader who has an impact on all of our lives, the physical and mental well-being of President Joe Biden would not have drawn all the attention it has received, nor would we have heard all this noise or the many comments.
This reminds me of 1982, when Israeli forces invaded Lebanon, with Washington facilitating its mission with a series of vetoes and stances. I had moved to Britain three years earlier.
With great pain and even greater fear for my family’s fate, I followed the scenes of the brutal strikes on Beirut, as well as other regions in south Lebanon. I did not know where my family was, aggravating my anxiety. I was not sure if they were in our winter house in the capital Beirut or if they had managed to reach — despite the danger — our summer house in the mountains.
Indeed, an American friend of mine from university was shocked by the answer I gave as we watched the terrifying coverage on TV. When she asked about my family, I told her: “I don’t know anything about how they are doing because communications are down.”
“We are here studying political science and history, living in a democratic country with an advanced legal and governance system. We value rights, justice, accountability and good governance,” I told her. “You were born and raised in the greatest democracy the world has ever known ... and thanks to its democratic system, you can question your government and hold it accountable, unlike me. Today, look at me, your classmate ... I don’t even know if my kin in Lebanon are alive and I cannot defend them. I cannot defend them by questioning your government ... nor even by questioning my own helpless government.”
Much to her astonishment, I then went on to add: “Don’t you agree, then, that genuine, full democracy means allowing anyone to question any authority that directly affects their life? For example, the president of my republic does not affect your life as an American citizen in any way ... whereas your president, Ronald Reagan, affects my life and the lives of all Lebanese people. Accordingly, would it not be fair that we and the other nations of the world be allowed to participate in electing the president of the US?”
With this rhetorical question, the quick conversation ended. We then continued to follow the invasion, the massacres, the political and security changes with regional implications ... all the repercussions whose impact we still feel to this day.
If anyone argues that electing the US president is a ‘sovereign,’ purely American affair, they are speaking nonsense.
Eyad Abu Shakra
Yes, President Biden’s health is very important and everyone has the right to discuss it. The same can be said about the legal status and political discourse of his opponent, former — and possibly future — President Donald Trump. The entire world has paid and will continue to pay the price for the results of American elections, from Palestine and Syria to Ukraine and from Taiwan to sub-Saharan Africa. If anyone argues that electing the US president is a “sovereign,” purely American affair, they are speaking nonsense and are detached from reality.
But how did the political climate in Washington become like this? What are the dynamics that made the octogenarian Biden “indispensable” for the Democratic Party and the realization of the Democratic planners’ “vision?”
Is it conceivable that, in a system as developed as the American political (and electoral) system, no alternative strategy had been drawn up for the event that it became clear the candidate had a major flaw, one that has convinced the party’s base that it is at great risk of losing its bet?
It is strange. In the US, the vice presidency is an important position that requires the same qualifications as the president and is elected on the same ticket. Parties even seek to politically and geographically “balance” the ticket through the vice presidential candidate. Yet, some ignore this option in proposing solutions.
Here, I recall that when the Democrats chose Biden — an old white man from an eastern state who was a long-serving senator — as their candidate, many of the things that made her different tipped the scales in favor of Kamala Harris. Among other considerations, she was chosen as his running mate because she is a woman of Afro-Asian descent, relatively young, from a western state and had been a state governor, not a member of Congress. Thus, she balanced with Biden in various ways.
Before the last race, both parties had successfully balanced their tickets through their choice of vice president. For the Democrats, we have the tickets of John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson (east/southwest), Johnson and Hubert Humphrey (southwest/north), Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale (south/north) and Barack Obama and Joe Biden (north/east). For the Republicans, there were the tickets of Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew (west/east), Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush (west/northeast then south), Bush and Dan Quayle (northeast then south/north), etc.
The point is that if the interests of the various lobbies (who effectively determine who becomes president and vice president even before the polls) allow it, there is nothing to prevent, for example, an effort to convince Biden to step aside and have Harris lead the ticket, after it is balanced by the right candidate for vice president.
Of course, some could raise a variety of arguments and numerous objections to this, some of which might be legal. However, I do not expect President Biden’s plummeting chances of victory to be part of the controversy.
Moreover, considering the depth of the Democrats’ opposition to Trump and their determination to prevent him from returning to the White House, logic dictates that they should think outside the box. That is, the Democrats should consider exceptional solutions for what is an exceptional problem at both the leadership and grassroots levels.
- Eyad Abu Shakra is managing editor of Asharq Al-Awsat. X: @eyad1949
