2024-07-23 20:30:44
There are about 100 days left until the US presidential election. And after Joe Biden resigned from them, it will be about everything, points out Igor Lukeš, professor of history and international relations at Boston University, in an interview for Aktuálně.cz.
On Sunday, Biden endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, who subsequently confirmed that she wants to run for the Democratic Party’s official nomination. According to Lukeš, she would be a difficult opponent for Republican Donald Trump. “She is smart, insightful and can make quick decisions,” describes the fifty-nine-year-old politician.
Professor Lukeš is also convinced that the future of democracy will be fought for in the American presidential elections. “It’s a battle between two value systems. Trump is supported by people who have been trying for decades to reinterpret the American Constitution so that the president emerges from it as an imperial leader,” he claims.
What was the decisive impulse that made US President Joe Biden decide to withdraw from the November election?
His patriotism and belief that he must ultimately put the interest of his own country before his likes or dislikes. Belatedly, a sense of responsibility prevailed in him that he might not be in the shape to conscientiously assure the American people that he could handle the current danger for the next four years. This, of course, exposed him to immediate ridicule from former President Donald Trump, who immediately spoke of him in the worst language. Literally minutes after Biden announced that he would not run.
He teaches at Boston University and focuses on the history and politics of Central and Eastern Europe in the 20th century. He has lived in America since the seventies.
Since 2005, he has also been the honorary consul of the Czech Republic for the states of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont. In 2012, he received the CIA’s “Outstanding Contribution to the Intelligence Literature” award.
Photo: DVTV
A lot will be at stake in the November presidential election.
There are roughly 100 days left until the vote and there is clearly no time to waste. It’s about everything. You know, the media describes the election as if it were a battle between football teams, but in reality the stake is not whether Sparta or Slavia will lose, but literally and figuratively the future of democracy is being fought for. It is a battle between two value systems. Trump is supported by people who have been trying for decades to reinterpret the US Constitution so that the president emerges as an imperial leader.
“I will do everything in my power to unite the Democratic Party,” said Kamala Harris | Video: Reuters
In this context, anyone who does not see a direct relationship between the security of Europe and the national security of the United States is playing with the cards dealt by Vladimir Putin. The Transatlantic Alliance, the alliance between the United States and a united Europe, gave the world a peace that has lasted since 1945, and we should be grateful for it. This alliance needs to be maintained, strengthened and supported. Trump said at the Helsinki summit in 2018 that he trusted Vladimir Putin more than his own intelligence services. So yes, it’s a lot.
Let’s hold on to our hats
Biden endorsed his vice president Kamala Harris in the election and now it seems that she will indeed become the candidate of the Democratic Party and will compete with Trump for the White House. Can he beat him?
I met her personally only once, when she was questioning one of the witnesses at a Senate hearing as a senator for California at the time. And it was a complete concert. She is smart, insightful and can make quick decisions. I’m absolutely sure that if Trump had reason to be insecure in the debate with Joe Biden, which he ended up winning without a doubt, then we’ll all be holding on to our hats for the Harris duel because it’s going to be a ride.
Kamala Harris was Joe Biden’s shadow vice president. Is it penetrating enough?
Trust me, she is a very capable woman. That’s the one thing I would have absolutely no concerns about.
Some experts certainly express doubts about her experience in foreign policy.
That’s right, I’m not entirely sure he understands diplomacy as well as Biden. But Americans are not so interested in foreign policy. And she certainly learned a lot in those roughly four years in the White House. If she becomes president, she will be the person in the right place.
She is not yet the official candidate of the Democratic Party for president, although she is the closest to that. If that were to happen, who could she choose as her vice-presidential candidate?
This is a complex question and I have no doubt that various cynical calculations will be at play. People will say, well, Harris is a woman, part African American, and part Asian American, so here we have three categories that are problematic from the point of view of many voters – and I don’t even want to call them conservative.
As much as I hate to do it, I’d almost be willing to predict they’d pick a white man. And I would even go further and imagine that it will be a man who has, for example, military experience. One name immediately comes to mind, Mark Kelly. This is a former NASA astronaut and Arizona state senator, his wife Gabrielle Giffords served as a Democratic congresswoman and was shot in the head by an assassin in 2011. After treatment, she heroically came back to life and spent many years learning to walk and talk again.
Biden was a successful president
Would you expect Harris to follow in the footsteps of her predecessor, Biden?
In foreign policy, yes. And it has been definitely better for the last four years than the previous American approach to all other crises in Europe.
Do you mean helping Ukraine?
Of course, compared to, for example, how America behaved towards Hungary in 1956, when the free world in the West just watched as Soviet tanks crushed the uprising against the Soviet dictatorship. At the time, the United States looked as if events were taking place on another planet. Fortunately, that has changed under the leadership of Joe Biden.
What do you think was going on in the Kremlin after the announcement that Biden was withdrawing from the election?
Russia likes chaos. The Kremlin is under no illusions that they will somehow be able to take over power in the United States, but I’m sure they applaud the chaos that former President Donald Trump brought to American politics many years ago. After all, he continues until now, because he still hasn’t been able to admit that he lost the previous election.
As I follow up on your assessment of Biden’s foreign policy. Do you see his entire presidential term ending positively?
Biden entered the White House in a completely unprecedented situation – his rival refused to recognize the election result and already at that time had a huge influence on Republican voters. A number of Republican congressmen were unable to tell him, “Donald, what is this nonsense? The numbers don’t lie, you lost by millions of votes.” Our former presidents like Miloš Zeman or Václav Klaus and similar people without sufficient importance can say that, but not the president of the United States.
From that perspective, it was a rocky start, as more than 40 percent of American voters believed the lie that the election was stolen. Then when you look at all the other indicators that measure the quality of life in the United States, you can’t talk about bad results. Inflation, unemployment, gasoline prices – everything was brought under control after the pandemic. From this point of view, the Biden administration is undoubtedly one of the most successful governments in the United States. At the same time, Trump says of Biden that he is a fool and that he was the worst president ever. And that’s the problem with today’s post-fact era.
What do you mean?
Today, it just doesn’t matter what the numbers say, what the election commissioners, Republicans and Democrats, say. It’s what you say that matters, and if you say it over and over, people will start to believe it. When you put facts on the table on one side and someone else puts unsubstantiated theories on the other and people choose lies and trash the facts, we have a really big problem as a society.
Video: Biden’s desperate performance in the debate with Trump (6/28/2024)
“I finally defeated Medicare.” Biden staged a mental breakdown before Trump. | Video: Reuters