In the last year, President Trump proved to be a skilled politician and statesmen. His come-back win and Palestinian Peace Deal are ones for the ages. Politics aside, the lesson learned is this: Republican presidents achieve peace through strength, and Democrat presidents appease their way into wars. Go back to 1992, after the Reagan-Bush administrations had dismembered the USSR, dope-slapped Iraq’s army, and left China making wicker baskets instead of weapons. Then fast-forward to 2000, after the Clinton administration had squandered the “peace dividend” in just two terms.
The Clinton foreign-policy model was to appease geopolitical rivals, bend the knee to global alliances, and cut defense spending, which was adopted by presidents Obama and Biden, leading to one disaster after another. To be fair, Clinton and Obama were skilled politicians. To be blunt, neither man was a skilled statesman, resulting in a world of hurt that Biden drove to the precipice of world war.
The lessons learned are 20 years of Democrat errors.
The Silver-Tongued Devil
Fact: on Bill Clinton’s watch, 5.5 million illegal aliens entered the US, al Qaeda attacked two American embassies (August 1998), and the 9-11 hijackers entered the US (January 2000). Further, his “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy was the first step toward Joe Biden’s “woke” military madness. Horrible, but three very bad Clinton decisions sowed the seeds for the World of Hurt that still threatens the United States today.
In 1990, Secretary of State James Baker promised Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO would expand “not one inch eastward” in exchange for German unification. The Clinton administration, declaring “no written agreement” on the matter, ignored the “spirit” of the Baker-Gorbachev handshake and admitted the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland into NATO (March 1999). Russia has repeatedly cited this double-cross as the threat that justified its attacks on Ukraine.
In 1998, Clinton nixed several missile strikes that could have taken out al Qaeda’s leader, Osama bin Laden. Two years later, the 9-11 hijackers entered the United States. Three years later, the worst foreign attack on US soil took place, leaving 2,996 people dead and the USA $3.3 trillion poorer (source: New York Times). Ever notice how quiet he and Hillary get on the subject of 9-11? Now you will.
On October 10, 2000, Clinton signed legislation that granted China permanent normal trade relations (PNTR), the final US action needed to authorize China’s entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO). Since that day, Red China’s exports have grown from $249.2 billion to $3.58 trillion. These exports have allowed China’s military budget to explode from $14.6 billion in 2000 to $231 billion in 2024.
The Aggrieved Minoritarian
Fact: on Barack Obama’s watch, 2.5 million illegal aliens entered the US, Ansar al-Sharia killed the American ambassador in its infamous Benghazi attack (September 2012), and Russia’s military annexed Crimea (February 2014). Opinion: world leaders did not know what to make of a black president who believed his was a flawed country because of past sins – and America’s enemies detected weakness and opportunity.
Don’t scoff, because Obama told a 2015 prayer-breakfast audience that “slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ.” Earlier, he’d apologized to European leaders for the US being “dismissive, even derisive” to its NATO allies. Besides not knowing his audience, he erred in projecting himself as an elite globalist – and why is that? Because Obama projected his intent to put the “international order” before America’s selfish (best) interests, starting with the oft-critizised “apology tour” of his first term.
That globalist sell-out came back to haunt him in 2012, when he told Russian President Medvedev he’d have “more flexibility” to negotiate Europe’s missile defense after the upcoming election. By confiding America’s political reality to Russia’s president, Obama made himself look vulnerable. No wonder Russia invaded Ukraine, annexed Crimea, and Obama did nothing…just as the Kremlin expected. This was not missed by Syrian President Assad when Obama threatened a military response if Syria crossed a “red line” by using chemical weapons. Assad, of course, used chemical weapons on his own people, and Obama (of course) did nothing.
Maybe his inaction was a good thing. In 2011, Obama led the NATO intervention that toppled Libyan dictator Gaddafi, creating a power vacuum that begat a civil war that gave radical Islamists a foothold in Libya, resulting in a dead US ambassador in Benghazi. In 2016, Obama negotiated the Iran Nuclear Deal; which did not stop the Islamic Republic from covertly developing weapons-grade uranium, but did fund Hamas and Hezbollah (elsewhere, China’s military budget grew from $58 billion in 2008 to $146 billion in 2016).
The Empty Suit
Fact: on Joe Biden’s watch, at least 5.5 million illegal aliens entered the US, Russia invaded Ukraine (February 2022), Red China flew a spy balloon across the USA (January 2023), and Hamas killed 44 Americans and kidnapped another 12 in a surprise attack on Israel (October 2023). Still to be proven is the extent of his weaponization of the CIA, DOJ, FBI and NSA to harm his political rivals, while covering for his family’s political grift (the world’s worst kept secret).
100 years from now, historians will have Joe Biden at the top of the America’s Worst Presidents list. A frail and senile president, in whom world leaders saw zero capacity to make good decisions. A bitter politician, obsessed with erasing 100% of his predecessor’s policies and positions. A legacy of one blunder after another, starting with his very election. How bad exactly, you may ask, was his presidency.
Look at the problems he left the winning Republicans to solve. To wit, he left office with Israel and Russia bombing Gaza and Ukraine to smithereens, Iran about to have a nuclear missile program, global crime cartels operating freely on US soil, and China poised to deny rare earth minerals to the world’s advanced economies.
Woe to the Party’s Remnants
Nothing brings out a politician’s true feelings like being voted into irrelevance; starting with the dirty laundry being aired by their victorious successors, and going full postal with district-court blockades, slow-walking Senate confirmations, marching with Antifa, voting to shut down the government, and no cheers for Trump’s Palestine Peace Plan. This begs the question: do today’s Democrats even like their country and its people?