Biden and Trump: Two Political Visions from the Same Source

By Armin Sijamić

In the last ten days, the American political scene has been buzzing about an interview and several statements. Tucker Carlson interviewed Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Donald Trump has been doing what he is known for – making harsh statements and threats. In both cases, the target is the current president, Joseph Biden, or rather, the policy advocated by a good part of the American political and economic elite.

"Demented old man" and "lunatic" are just some of the descriptions with which opposing camps "honor" the supporters of Donald Trump and Joseph Biden. With the help of media and social networks, the clash of two political visions in American politics has been simplified. Even those who follow political processes in that country superficially understand that the choice of the aforementioned duo for this fight is not our best. However, Biden and Trump are here, representing and simultaneously hiding the entire system behind them.

The clash has been going on for decades and will outlive them and the particular policies they represent. Biden and Trump will not achieve anything on their own, no matter how popular they are, even though things are set up as if one of them will destroy or save the United States and the entire world.

In this competition, the media plays an important role, and Trump lags far behind the opposing camp in this regard, although he has created a new social network for his own purposes, through which he "explains" the world to his followers. This lag is understandable if one looks at some of Trump's media appearances. All the numerous blunders that a president cannot afford to make show that he is not the right person for the presidential office. And why he is the most popular politician in the United States as such should be the most important question for all other politicians there.

Return to the Past

It is not difficult to present Trump, burdened by indictments and scandals, as a villain to the American public, which has been systematically depoliticized for decades. It was not difficult in 2016 either, when Trump was a candidate for the White House and challenged Hillary Clinton. At that time, Trump was presented as someone who would destroy the West, cause conflicts around the world, and start a civil war in the United States... The question of his victory was presented as a matter of life and death.

In that media campaign, Trump was also portrayed as an anti-Semite, even though at that moment his daughter Ivanka was married to Jared Kushner, a Jewish businessman close to the American Democrats and with personal ties to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Kushner was part of Trump's team and strongly lobbied for Israeli interests. At that time, American media outlets opposed to Trump published stories about Jews who would leave the United States out of fear of Trump. Then, when Trump won, there were articles about how Hillary Clinton was expected to lose and why her defeat was not a surprise.

Trump did not handle the role of president well, which was also proven by the mass dismissals and departures from his administration. However, Trump, unlike anyone before him, began to curb China and started imposing sanctions on that country and its companies, a policy that Biden continued. Last week, such a policy was clearly demonstrated by the numbers for the past year – for the first time in twenty years, the United States bought more goods from Mexico than from China.

Russia and NATO

If there is agreement on China, there is no agreement on Europe and Russia in the United States. More precisely, there are different ideas on how to control the European continent and prevent Russia from imposing itself as a dominant force in Europe. These differences have become more apparent since the collapse of the USSR, when part of the American elite questioned the purpose of NATO and why Washington had to "defend" European countries that did not adhere to previous agreements.

Namely, NATO member states are obliged to allocate two percent of their budget to defense. Fulfilling this obligation is essentially paying for membership in the world's strongest military alliance. However, this has not been the case with many countries for decades, but since Trump's time in the White House, this has also been changing.

Last week, at a campaign rally in South Carolina, Trump reiterated his old threat and message to Europe – if you want us to defend you from Russia, you have to pay. During his time in the White House, he insisted on this, so some European allies began to fulfill their obligations. The message from South Carolina sounded even more brutal, as he said he would "encourage" Russia to attack anyone who does not pay their dues to NATO and recounted his alleged conversation with an unnamed European leader to whom he said there was no free lunch, literally blackmailing him.
The media and numerous officials have justifiably reacted sharply to this statement by Trump, as the president of a country leading an alliance should not treat allies in such a way. But if we scratch beneath the surface, we see that this Trump policy was also implemented during President Biden's term. Europe began to rearm even before Russia's aggression against Ukraine. American weapons flooded the continent, and countries like Greece, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Finland are already allocating more than two percent for defense, meaning from the south to the north of Europe, all NATO members on the eastern flank, except for Bulgaria, which is on its way to achieving this.

Now it is the turn of other countries, which have the following calculation – we must allocate funds for defense regardless of whether Trump and Washington will defend us. Large arms supply contracts are expected across Europe, and American weapons are also arriving in the poorer Balkan countries.

While the war in Ukraine continues, what Moscow and Washington predicted is happening in Europe – the iron curtain between Russia and the rest of the continent is strengthening, and even Trump will not change this in four years, if he gets the chance. In the aforementioned interview with Tucker Carlson, who is politically close to Trump, Putin explained how the US dollar was removed from Russia and replaced with other currencies. Putin awkwardly wondered how they in Washington could not have foreseen this, adding that the services of the two countries communicate, while he repeatedly started, but did not finish, stories about agreements that the other side is currently not adhering to.

Strategic Interests, Biden and Trump

All of Putin's agreements with the American side were made without Europe, which now somehow has to pay for protection from Russia. In other parts of the world, others will pay for protection from the Kremlin out of fear of an American attack.

The strategic settings of American policy will not change even with the upcoming US elections, in which Trump and Biden are favorites. As time goes on, there is a greater chance that neither will appear before the voters, one due to court proceedings, and the other due to his age and inability to remember even the names of people he recently spoke with. The competition between Trump and Biden for the White House is certainly not a plus for America's image in the world, and the blame for why these two are the candidates also lies with past administrations that managed education and imposed depoliticization on the majority of citizens.

Therefore, it is more important than this clash of two veterans to follow the political and economic processes in the United States. The people shaping them will determine American foreign policy, and Trump or Biden can direct it, i.e., slow it down or speed it up, during their four-year term. The aforementioned examples of relations with China and the strengthening of NATO in the last eight years clearly demonstrate this.