You Can't Handle the Truth

With exaggerated partisan attacks relating to foreign policy now at an all-time high, we all must take a step back and examine the facts

Poor me.  Every four years, or for that matter, every two years, my body becomes consumed by an internal struggle between rational reflections and emotional impulses.  While we may not feel it yet in 100-degree Nashville, fall is approaching.  And in even-numbered years, this means election season across all 50 states.  While the poisonous and divisive nature of American politics should make me want to look away, I somehow can’t help but peek at the dynamics of an election sure to rival, and even surpass, the bitter campaigns of 2016 and 2020.  Unlike in 2016, when the polls projected a landslide that never happened, or 2020, when the world was stuck at home, the 2024 campaign, promises to be perhaps the most bitter display of partisan warfare since the notorious election of 1876.   For those of you who have not read this corner of history, the nation was so deeply divided in 1876 that the disputed nature of the election results would have plunged the country into civil war without a last-minute compromise pulling us back from the brink. 

Despite this toxic environment, I cannot help but follow the dynamics of the campaign, as politics, even in my own country, is what I have spent my life studying.  To look away would therefore be a betrayal of my entire being.  Anyway, I am writing this essay not to divulge in the minute details of the latest news cycle or discuss domestic policy.  Rather, I will discuss some of the claims made in the (often literal) heat of the campaign trail relating to the multitude of problems that have exploded overseas since this decade began.  Since assuming office in January 2021, the Biden Administration has yet to experience a full calendar year without a major crisis erupting overseas.  The first crisis, as everyone painfully remembers, was the debacle in Kabul in August 2021.  Most painfully for Americans, the chaos in the Afghan capital at the time created a perfect opportunity on August 26 for the Islamic State to pounce.  Tragically, the lives of 13 American service members were extinguished in the attack.

Since the tragedy occurred under President Biden’s watch, it should be no surprise that Donald Trump and the Republicans have used it as a weapon to attack the credibility of the Biden Administration.  At a recent conference of state National Guards in Michigan, Trump slammed Biden for causing “the humiliation in Afghanistan (and the) collapse of American credibility and respect around the world.”  However, at least according to Trump’s former National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster, both presidents should be blamed.  While Biden ultimately executed the botched Afghan withdrawal, and in both McMaster’s opinion and mine, deserves a significant share of the blame, the idea of withdrawing in the first place was Trump’s.  McMaster specifically blamed Trump’s more populist advisors for persuading him, lest Trump’s political base be disappointed, to ignore the establishment’s advice to stay.  Since McMaster was a Trump Appointee, I must take him at his word.  And with failures by both Trump and Biden, the US Afghan campaign met an abrupt and disgraceful end.

I would also like to shine a light on a few questionable attacks from the Democratic side.  One of the hottest campaign topics this year has been the Biden Administration’s appalling record on illegal immigration.  While there are legitimate push factors in countries like Honduras, Haiti, and even Afghanistan, the massive spike in border encounters since the Biden Administration took office is hard to ignore.  The correlation between this surge and change of administration in 2021 is a giant flashing red light of nothing less than causation.  Since January 2021, Customs and Border Patrol has reported more than 8 million encounters at the Mexican border, with only a meaningful slowdown recorded starting in June.  While it is obvious that Donald Trump derailed a bipartisan compromise on immigration back in February, there would have been no need for congressional border negotiations at all had the Biden Administration simply upheld American immigration law rather than giving in to the Democrats’ most progressive faction.  While the Democrats will never admit it, Donald Trump was probably right all along about illegal immigration.

Another attack from the Democrats, albeit from 2016, which I would like to dispute is the claim that Trump was a “Russian asset” who “colluded” with the Russian government to rig the 2016 election.  And with recent indictments by the Department of Justice against another round of alleged Russian election interference, this emotionally charged narrative has reared its ugly head again- in my own backyard.  However, I need a cathartic release here, since I once believed it.  After all, Trump’s personal opinions on Russia and NATO have been, are, and always will be, completely abhorrent to me.  However, to say that the former president was involved in a high-level international conspiracy seems far beyond the pale- a reality that 2016 Sam ought to have recognized.  After all, a quick glance at Trump’s social media accounts confirm personal characteristics highly inappropriate for a career in espionage. 

For once, and hopefully never again, I use this newsletter to admit my own past failings.  It should be a lesson to all of us, whether in the United States or not, to avoid falling into the trap of sensational, politically manipulated narratives, no matter how tempting it can be to gaze at this train wreck of an election.  My internal struggle is certainly doomed to continue.