Afghanistan is a permanent stain on Biden's presidency
I may vote for him again, but I don't see how I can ever really respect him.
Biden’s “brand” has been described again and again as “decency”. I was always a little dubious of that narrative, particularly after the way he rammed a draconian drug-war bill through in 2003 using a dirty procedural trick in the conference committee which made those who opposed it have to vote against Amber Alerts, a near political impossibility (although my former congressman Jim Oberstar did bravely stand on principle, voting “nay”, but it still passed the House 400-25).
But it’s with Afghanistan that, in my view, Biden has truly foreclosed his claim on decency. Ignoring the dire warnings of military brass and foreign policy experts, he pigheadedly blundered forward with a hasty withdrawal that predictably turned into a humiliating, chaotic rout. He had been agitating to bug out since early in the Obama administration, and now that he has the top job, nothing and no one was going to dissuade him. So much for the “deep state”, I guess?
But hey, it’s not all bad news. The return of the Taliban has fueled a sales boom for burqas, and prices have surged, presumably creating a windfall for the vendors who sell them. On the other hand, it must be a really bad time to own an electronics shop, as the Taliban prohibits watching TV or playing music. (While the oppression of women and girls should obviously take precedence in terms of human rights concerns, I honestly can’t imagine living without TV and music, two of my ardent pastimes.)
Some might wonder: if I’m so disgusted with Biden, why do I still envision myself voting for him again in 2024? Simple: he’s likely to be running against Donald Trump. No matter how bad Biden is, it’s an incredibly long way further down before he could descend to the heretofore unprecedented depths Trump has plumbed. If only the GOP still nominated guys like Mitt Romney and John McCain (although Sarah Palin was admittedly a major problem), my vote really would be up for grabs in ‘24. But it’s a sad commentary on how far we’ve fallen that it really will be a question of the lesser of two evils, a narrative I used to push back on. That was a lot easier to scoff at when it was, less than a decade ago, Obama vs. Romney: a contest between two good and fundamentally decent men. Those were the days! We had no idea how good we had it.