What If a Democrat Wins?

The President of the United States

I need not go into the recent problems the President is having. Unless you just got back from Mars, you know what his issues are. Issues that are being discussed as possible crimes and misdemeanors for which a President can be impeached.  I am not here to say whether I think they are impeachable offences or not. Democrats are saying they are beyond impeachable. Republicans are saying they are not anywhere near impeachable.

That being said, it is very likely that an impeachment vote in the Democratically controlled House will succeed. And that the vote in the Republican controlled Senate will not result in removing him from office. 

None of this is new. So why are the Democrats doing this? In my view it has nothing to do with the high minded principles of our democracy they constantly cite. It has to do with keeping the President's problems in the public eye for as long as possible. What that means is that the President will be running for a 2^nd term under a cloud. About which the media will no doubt focus upon. A lot. As they already have been.

As I have said in the past, this will energize the President’s base. Which is a very large minority of the American people. But what it also does is energize the Democratic base who despise the President and his policies. As always it will be the swing voters that will determine the outcome. And I fear that this means  that the next President of the United States will be a Democrat. And the current direction of Democrats is clearly to the left. In some cases the extreme left.

This does not bode well for the economy in my view. If I am not mistaken - we are currently in the midst of the longest expansion of the economy in US history. Those of us that are invested in the stock market (about half the population) could not be happier about that. But that does not mean that these same voters will ignore all the President’s critics. 

Regardless of how one feels about the President, it cannot be denied that the President’s problems will impact the 2020 vote. Which makes the possibility of a Democrat winning the Presidency in 2020 very real.

What that will do to the economy is hard to tell. But the way all Democrats are talking, it will surely cause the expansion to stop and maybe even change course in the opposite direction. They all say that funding their elaborate give-a-way programs will be done via restoring the Trump corporate tax cuts that enhanced the current economic expansion. (...even increasing those tax rates beyond what they were before!) That should slow things down considerably. They must know that increasing corporate taxes is not nearly enough to fund what they propose. That does not, however, stop them from promising the moon! Besides - they think big business is greedy and the enemy of the people anyway 

But the economy is not the only thing I am worried about. It is the return to a foreign policy that is not all that favorable to Israel. Despite Democratic protestations to the contrary - depending on which Democrat is elected, at he very least we will be returning to the pre-Trump era where Israel gets blamed for everything. Including the stalled peace process. 

While there has always been lip service paid to Israel’s need for security as part of any peace deal, it was almost always mentioned as an afterthought. Of which the primary position of the US (on both sides of the political aisle) was the Palestinian narrative of blaming the settlements. Israel was always cast as unwilling to make compromises.

Former Vice President Joe Biden

This is the best we can hope for if someone like Biden wins. He was part of the last administration and has those views. This is not to say that Biden is anti Israel. He isn’t. But he is a ‘Blame Israel Firster’.

Elizabeth Warren, the current front-runner is a lot worse on this issue. She not only blames Israel for the lack of peace, she is promising to do something about it. After her lofty claims about loving the people of Israel she told J-Street that she plans to cut off military and financial aid if Israel does not do her bidding. And hopes to divide Jerusalem as part of a 2-state solution. (See the video below where she extols the virtues of J-Street!)

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders

Bernie Sanders has done her one better. While using his time working on a Kibbutz in Israel as a youth as proof of his support, he said that US aid to Israel ought to be redirected to Gaza. Perhaps that's why the 2 BDS supporters in congress (Tlaib and Omar) endorsed him. 

Here is what the former US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley said about that in a tweet:

Just when you thought Bernie Sanders couldn’t get any more radical, he outdid himself. He wants to take money we give to Israel to defend itself from terrorists, and give it to Gaza, which is run by terrorists?? Unreal. Why isn’t every other Dem pres candidate saying he’s wrong? 

Indeed! I don’t see how anyone who loves Israel can vote for any of those three Democrats. One of which will surely be the nominee of the party.

Former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley

A lot of people (mostly liberals) blame the President and the Prime Minister of Israel for changing the bipartisan support Israel has always enjoyed. Democratic support, they say,  has been weakened by them. Trump has nothing to do with the last President did just before he left office. For the first time in its history the US allowed the UN Security Council to pass a vote condemning Israel by not using its veto power. Had a Clinton won the election she would have no doubt continued down that same road.

Blaming Netanyahu is just as wrong. There is little daylight between his views on Israeli security and settlements and those of Benny Gantz, his opponent. 

It was the President that turned things around. US support for Israel has never been greater. And even a divided Israel that cannot seem to choose its own leader nevertheless agrees that Trump has been the most pro Israel President in US history. I think that is obvious.

Trump’s critics love to play down that support as resulting in nothing tangible. I strongly disagree. Attitudes mean something. An attitude of warmth that included moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem is something the vast majority of Israelis appreciated. The Presidents of the pre-Trump era (on both sides of the aisle) did not do that - even though they all promised to do so as candidates. 

Back to the Democratic front-runners. I don’t see how anyone that cares about the future of Israel can support any of them. They will make Obama seem like a saint compared what they are prepared to do.

I do not like any of the candidates. This is my dilemma. And I’m not sure there is anything that can be done to change things. If only Nikky Haley were running...