The Tribune

with CHARLIE HARPER

America is seemingly awash in choppy seas. How will the US get its engines started again and start to move forward? And when?

Problems seem to abound. First, we have the national obsession with Donald Trump. A would-be assassin was apprehended along the fence line at one of his golf courses the other day, apparently preparing for an assassination attempt.

This news was accompanied by a lot of hand-wringing over the difficulties for the US Secret Service in protecting a presidential aspirant and former president whose proclivity for playing golf on his own exposed courses seems to ‘trump’ his preference for virtually any other activity.

The candidate himself continues to veer off and on track with dizzying frequency. He has essentially replaced Joe Biden as the old man of questionable and diminished capabilities in this bizarre race. Instead of disavowing much of the outright nonsense he peddled during his own disastrous debate showing less than ten days ago, Trump is doubling down. In the black jack card game, that’s an often-risky strategy. In presidential races like this one, it’s particularly risky.

Republican running mate JD Vance seems to be genuinely perplexed as to how to survive a cratering campaign. On the surface, Vance has very cleverly positioned himself as the GOP presidential candidate-in-waiting for 2028.

If Trump wins and doesn’t overturn the constitution to allow himself a third term, Vance will be the incumbent V-P four years hence and the clear heir to the throne. If Trump loses, Vance may well still be the front-runner for the 2028 nomination if history is any guide. Notwithstanding Barack Obama’s abandonment of then-vice president Biden in 2016 as his designated successor, many past vice-presidential candidates have moved up to the top of the next national ticket.

But as Vance watches his dispirited and depressed home town of Springfield, Ohio, reel in the wake of Trump’s idiotic allegation that Haitian migrants are devouring household pets there, he finds himself tethered to a partner who often resembles a demented demon. What to do?

Vance seems to have concluded that at this point, he has no option but to continue along the path of obeisance and allegiance to Trump. We’ll see how the vice-presidential debate goes in less than two weeks, but the Ohio senator has apparently cast his lot with Trump, for better or, more likely, for worse.

The media continues its fascination with Trump. There’s incessant speculation about the frustrations of his campaign advisers when Trump discards talking points linking vice president Kamala Harris to controversial and unpopular Biden policies on immigration, inflation, the hasty US military withdrawal from Afghanistan and America’s inability to persuade Israel to call off its war on its northern and southern neighbours.

South African entrepreneur and electric car mogul Elon Musk has signed up as a key ally of the ex-president, but Musk’s reorientation of social media platform X toward Trump seems to have generated as much criticism as actual assistance to the campaign. There are persistent reports that Republican operatives in the vote-rich state of Georgia have well positioned themselves to tilt November’s vote toward Trump. This only adds to the scariness of the prospect of Trump’s re-election.

But the candidate himself continues to fiddle while Rome burns. He retreats to the comfortable confines of his own golf courses, escaping the reality that his prospects in November’s vote may be dwindling every day.

Harris appears to be running a sane, sensible campaign, constantly reminding voters in swing states that what they see of Trump on their television screens is not a mirage. It’s who he is, she says, and she is artfully manipulating voter apprehension to energize her supporters.

Harris has not found it necessary to bow to media demands for more policy positions. She may be betting that not being Trump will be enough for her to win. It worked for Biden in 2020.

In the background, the current president continues in office for another four months. And Biden faces two quite serious issues overseas. While neither is new, both are intensifying, and are fraught with danger not only for the US but also for many of its allies in Europe and the Middle East.

Reporting from the Russia-Ukraine war is not encouraging. A Ukrainian offensive designed to surprise and disillusion the Russian military may have instead exposed manpower and materiel weaknesses in Kyiv’s own forces. In the Kremlin, Russian president Vladimir Putin appears to have concluded that his best tactic is to cynically weaken Ukraine’s power infrastructure and brutally attack facilities like schools and hospitals.

Respected American commentator Fareed Zakaria opined the other day that the Ukrainian capital seemed more discouraged than on his previous visits.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky is still pleading for more license to use American weapons in a more offensive posture in an attempt to frustrate and weaken his Russian foes. While the US and the UK conferred last weekend on whether to grant Zelensky’s wishes, no firm decisions have apparently been made.

Instead, America continues to dither until events on the battlefield seem to force their hand and then the US accedes to Zelensky’s wishes.

But Putin seems like a man determined to prevail, and as his sinister cyber warriors try to infiltrate and disrupt the American election, he remains intent on testing the American and Western resolve to continue their support of Ukraine.

It’s impossible to know how Biden and his national security team will respond. But it’s doubtful that the US president wants to be remembered as the leader who enabled Putin to enforce his will on Ukraine and expose Western weakness in the face of tyrannical aggression. It’s more likely that Biden will continue to gradually raise the war stakes by authorizing bolder Ukrainian countermeasures.

And every escalation by Moscow and Washington incrementally raises the possibility of tactical nuclear battlefield weapons use and, down the road, the dreadful prospect of an actual nuclear exchange.

All the while, the American secretary of state continues to confront Iran. In Ukraine, there’s evidence of increasing support for Moscow from the theocrats in Tehran who still insist on punishing the US for its support of the late Shah in the 1970s and Israel now. And Iranian proxies Hamas and Hezbollah continue to threaten the Jewish state.

While protests against American support for Israel continue to flare up in the US, the pro-Palestinian movement has moved off the front pages for now. There’s a lot of money and political muscle arrayed against a move away from basically unconditional American support for Israel.

In any case, it’s unclear how much influence the Biden administration has on Israeli president Netanyahu as he doggedly pursues a policy of steadfast aggression in response to the hostile Iranian allies on his borders. The ultimate threat of nuclear war does not now loom over this Middle East conflict as it does in Ukraine. But the potential for much greater regional escalation and chaos is real.

Maybe the fact that Biden is free of reelection pressure will work to his advantage in confronting these two major international crises. Indeed, front pages and newscasts full of Trump and his antics may allow the US president enough room to quietly work on successful strategies to repel Putin and disable Israel’s enemies.

That’s certainly something to hope for.