Americans gear up for an action-packed election season
Campaigning never seems to end in America — a dynamic driven mainly by the media and the money spent on politics to entertain, titillate and usually infuriate ordinary Americans
Mona Eing + Michael Meissner
Trump and Biden remain the unrivalled candidates of their respective political parties, but criminal trials and low approval ratings could hinder their chances of clinching the presidency.
Americans gear up for an action-packed election season
With just a little more than a year until America’s pivotal elections, few voters seem happy about how things are shaping up. In US politics, a year can seem like a lifetime, because so much can happen to shift dynamics in radically different directions.
As a wise philosopher once said, prediction is difficult — especially about the future.
But if the current trends hold, the 2024 presidential election looks like a movie sequel that Hollywood is geared up to produce just because so many people saw the original even though they didn’t like it.
The two leading actors are familiar faces – current President Joe Biden and his predecessor, Donald Trump; both have low overall favourability ratings yet maintain the pole position and a seemingly unlockable grip on their respective parties.
The basic plot remains the same: the main struggle for power in the world’s most influential country with a vibrant economy is an internal fight over the nation’s identity and culture. High-minded discussions about issues either on the domestic or foreign policy fronts aren’t what the media and various candidates focus on these days.
The Middle East barely registers as a blip on the radar screen in America’s political debate.
The main struggle for power in the US is an internal fight over the nation's identity and culture. High-minded discussions about issues either on the domestic or foreign policy fronts aren't what the media and various candidates focus on these days.
Campaigning starts early
Campaigning for president and Congress starts much earlier in America than it did in the past, and other electoral democracies have much shorter campaign seasons.
In a sense, the campaign never ends in America, a dynamic driven mainly by the media and the money spent on politics to entertain, titillate and usually infuriate ordinary Americans.
The four main fixtures of the upcoming election season
1. Donald Trump still owns the Republican Party
After months of campaigning, millions of dollars spent, and the first presidential debate with ratings rivalling the NBA basketball championship, the rank order of the candidates trying to win the GOP nomination basically remains the same.
Former US president and 2024 Republican Presidential hopeful Donald Trump gestures during the South Dakota Republican Party's Monumental Leaders rally at the Ice Arena at the Monument in Rapid City, South Dakota, September 8, 2023
Donald Trump, the first presidential candidate in America's history to be criminally indicted four times, retains an overwhelming lead in the Republican primaries.
Nikki Haley, Trump's former ambassador to the United Nations, may have gained slightly in the pack competing with the former president. However, Trump still has a substantial advantage over others and gets the most media attention.
Donald Trump, the first presidential candidate in America's history to be criminally indicted four times, retains an overwhelming lead in the Republican primaries.
2. President Biden is unrivaled in the Democratic Party, but he faces many vulnerabilities
As the incumbent, Biden has inherent advantages that make it almost certain he will be the party's nominee in 2024, even as he faces minor challenges from two lesser-known rivals as well as a third-party candidate from the left.
But Biden remains relatively unpopular, and his approval ratings have been underwater since the fall of 2021. A majority of Americans disapprove of Biden. Within his own party, Biden faces increasing scepticism about his ability to lead the country, with two thirds of Democratic voters (67%) saying that the party should nominate someone else besides Biden. Biden's age and mental acuity are cited as concerns among many voters.
US President Joe Biden address a campaign rally on the first anniversary of the Supreme Court's Dobbs v. Jackson decision which struck down a federal right to abortion at the Mayflower Hotel on June 23, 2023 in Washington, DC.
Adding to these challenges are a criminal case against his son Hunter Biden and House Republicans launching a new Congressional inquiry that they think could lead to impeachment proceedings against Biden, and there's a lot of uncertainty clouding Biden's pathway to re-election next year.
Biden faces increasing scepticism about his ability to lead the country, with two-thirds of Democratic voters (67%) saying that the party should nominate someone else besides Biden. Biden's age and mental acuity are cited as concerns among many voters.
3. The race is razor thin, and America remains sharply divided on partisan and ideological lines.
Although it's still very early in the campaign, most recent polls have Biden and Trump tied at the national level. The electoral college count, the system that actually matters for getting elected for president, is even closer. Control of both houses of Congress
4. The national mood is sour, and key sectors of the electorate are not enthused to vote.
A fourth dynamic in the 2024 election campaign is the fact that most voters view the two leading political parties as being too extreme on cultural and economic issues, as John Halpin recently argued in the Liberal Patriot.
Both parties are dominated by stridently partisan and ideological voices, which is distasteful to most American voters, who seek more moderate voices. It also creates disincentives for disengagement from political life. In a recent poll, about half of younger voters expressed low or lukewarm motivation to vote.
The Middle East is barely a blip on America's political radar
In this current political landscape, Middle East policy issues barely register outside of a narrow elite set of experts and media figures who fixate on various aspects of US policy in the Middle East.
Quite often, this narrow debate, mostly centred inside of Washington DC, is conducted in such a way that is more reflective of the domestic political divisions inside of America than it is to actual policy debates about what the United States should do in the region.
Student loan borrowers demand President Biden use "Plan B" to cancel student debt Immediately at a rally outside of the Supreme Court of the United States on June 30, 2023 in Washington, DC.
If anything, the Middle East is mostly seen as a liability and offering little more than risk or peril to a particular political leader, which explains why Biden's two predecessors, Donald Trump and Barack Obama, spoke a lot about getting out of the region and getting actors in the region to take care of their own affairs and depend less on the United States.
Biden echoed those themes in his first year in office, but then shifted gears in 2022 and has had his team engage more closely on some key issues, including a possible normalisation deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel.
Nevertheless, most Americans see greater peril than promise when they think about the Middle East.
On the economic front, Americans are mostly concerned these days about inflation, and the risk of higher gas prices is one way the Middle East can be seen as intruding in negative ways in America's political discussion.
On the economic front, Americans are primarily concerned about inflation, and the risk of higher gas prices is one way the Middle East can be seen as intruding in negative ways in America's political discussion.
On the security front, the threat of another costly, lengthy war that drags US troops and risks American lives looms large in the imagination of many Americans, an aftereffect of the two decades of wars in Afghanistan, Iran, and other parts of the broader Middle East.
Even the potential payoff for America from investing in possible peace and normalisation deals in the Middle East is seen as low by most Americans interested in politics and the 2024 campaign.
Consider that three US presidents who only served one term had dedicated considerable time and attention to Middle East diplomacy during their four years in office, and they didn't get re-elected.
President Jimmy Carter had the success of helping broker a historic deal between Israel and Egypt but failed to get re-elected in 1980.
President George H.W. Bush prosecuted a quick, not costly and mostly successful war to remove Saddam Hussein's Iraq from Kuwait and launched the Madrid Peace progress in 1991, and he didn't get re-elected the next year.
And finally, Donald Trump held a signing ceremony for the Abraham Accords in the fall of 2020, just a few weeks before he lost re-election.
These three former presidents failed in their re-election bids for reasons other than the Middle East. Still, their relative successes in achieving something in the region didn't appear to give them any boost with American voters.
In conclusion, most American voters are unhappy about the situation inside their country today and are discontent with the choices that appear to be on offer for the 2024 campaign.
They are also discontent with how the media and political parties operate, and their concerns are primarily focused closer to home.
For the Middle East to matter more in America's politics, it would have to offer something different from the usual conflict, headaches and doom and gloom that it is seen to have served up over the past few decades.
A silver linings playbook of sorts for the region – one that talks about the positive trends in the region and makes the case to Americans that they stand to benefit from a more secure and prosperous region – might help shift the discussion in America.
Still, the odds of that happening look slim between now and next year's election.
