The Tribune

With Charlie Harper

US President Joe Biden’s life and job just got a whole lot more complicated and fraught this week, and on top of that, his stubbornly low popularity ratings in recent months have offered little consolation that he will be rewarded next year with another term in office.

And Biden’s continuing reluctance to hold regular press conferences with the mainstream White House press corps have not made things better. Most Washington reporters and their editors have become resigned to the fact that Biden sees little to gain from exposing himself to unscripted questions from them. It has been very rare indeed for Biden to hold an actual press conference where reporters can raise uncomfortable questions and issues.

In fact, the New York Times has reported that “In the 100 years since Calvin Coolidge took office, only Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan held as few news conferences each year as the current occupant of the Oval Office (Biden).”

Biden’s record as president is starting to make Donald Trump look like a great communicator with the mainstream US press. And since Trump was and is still despised by centrist and leftist journalists and their publications, this is a record not easy for Biden to emulate.

In that context, if you’re Biden this morning, here are some of the big issues on your mind.

First, there’s the US – Mexican Border. What a mess. When Biden managed to knock Trump out of the presidential saddle three years ago, people around the world looked forward to a rationalisation of American immigration policy that would cancel the callous, often inhumane treatment at the American border for Central American and other would-be immigrants seeking a better life for themselves and their families as a potential part of the world’s biggest economy.

Campaigning in the 2020 election season had led most observers to anticipate that the American government under the current administration would devise a sensible border policy that would eliminate the Trump administration’s cruelty without sacrificing the essential sanctity of the southern US border.

Instead, US border protections have been overwhelmed by the massive pent-up demand for passage into the US that steadily rose during Trump’s four years in office. Stung by constant Democratic ridicule of his failure to deliver on his promise to complete construction of a border wall, Trump and his allies in Fox News, Congress and elsewhere have hammered the current president on the failures of Biden’s own border policy.

Furthermore, Republican governors in Texas, and Florida especially, have continued to export illegal migrants who appear on their doorstep to big northern Democratic-governed cities like New York, Washington and Chicago, straining the social services of those cities and spreading uncomfortably for northern mayors the burden of housing, feeding and otherwise supporting the immigrants.

Congress, meanwhile, has been unwilling or unable to do almost anything about immigration policy reform, and the issue continues to make Biden look feckless and ineffectual.

And to underline the seriousness of the situation behind the lurid headlines, the reality persists that the US economic engine absolutely needs migrant labour. The New York Times magazine reported the following views recently on this subject:

“American consumers benefit from these migrants every time they find exceptionally inexpensive ways to get their lawns cut, their bathrooms cleaned, their houses built, their apples picked, their nails painted and their young and old cared for. The prices we pay for these services have been subsidised for generations by transnational migrants.

“To cite two relevant examples, economists at Texas A&M University have concluded that if immigrant labour were eliminated from the dairy industry, the retail price of milk would nearly double. More recently in Florida, construction projects stalled and their costs rose after the state passed new laws targeting undocumented residents. Furthermore, many economists say that recent migrants have also blunted the worst effects of post-pandemic inflation.”

This should sound familiar. Think about the services provided to many of us in The Bahamas and to our economy by Haitian, Jamaican and other migrants. But also consider the intermittent political flashpoint their presence in our society represents. Like our own leaders, Biden must keep an eye on this issue. He also needs to find and promote a rational immigration policy for the US to follow.

Next, there is the question of how to push Ukraine across the finish line in its existential fight with Russia. Biden’s gradual, inexorable ramp-up of arms and ammunition deliveries to Kyiv has been accelerating at a swifter pace in recent months. But battlefield results don’t reflect the increasing American and Western support for Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and his government.

Meantime, it looks in Washington like Biden will face increasing resistance on aid to Ukraine from Republicans in the House of Representatives. No matter whom the Republicans eventually elect to succeed the deposed Kevin McCarthy as speaker, voices opposing Ukraine assistance seem certain to get louder.

But Biden is obviously just as determined to see Ukraine survive as an independent nation and virtually certain future NATO member as is Vladimir Putin to see his southwestern neighbour restored to its Cold War-era status as subservient to an expansive Russia.

And it must seem to Biden that Putin’s strategy might succeed. That strategy seems centred on pursuing a war of attrition while Putin awaits the return of Trump to the White House or a weakening of American and Western European commitment to Ukraine – or both.

If that happens, the same Republicans who are undermining Biden’s efforts to support Ukraine will accuse him of squandering billions of dollars of military and other assistance to Kyiv in an ultimately futile effort to repel the Russians. The president cannot win on this issue unless Russia is defeated and pushed back out of occupied Ukraine.

Further intensifying Biden’s daunting challenges is the outbreak of the most significant fighting in half a century between Israel and Iran’s surrogate regime of Hamas in Gaza. If this conflict expands and intensifies as it looks like doing, aid and materiel now ticketed for Ukraine may have to be siphoned off to assist Israel.

Biden must even wonder if Iran, resolute foes of the “Great Satan” that their leaders call America, has orchestrated this Hamas-led attack on Israel precisely to assist their temporary allies in the Kremlin, while at the same time sabotaging a promising diplomatic effort to fashion a Saudi Arabian détente with Israel.

Hamas’ brazen and unexpected incursion into Israel and launch of thousands of rockets into the Jewish state brings with it the certain threat of resolute retribution from Israel and the inherent dangers of igniting a much wider conflict.

Biden has so much to legitimately worry about overseas. What about at home in the US?

Perhaps his greatest liability domestically is the fact that not only is he 80 years old this morning, but Biden increasingly looks, speaks and acts his advanced age. The contrast with Donald Trump and his still-vigorous campaign style is stark indeed.

And for reasons that analysts have not yet been able to explain, Biden’s popularity in the public opinion polls does not reflect the numerous accomplishments already racked up by his administration.

Biden is left to hope that by Election Day next year, voters will actually remember those achievements – and also that he will be able to make his case to voters in such a way that they are convinced he deserves a second term.

But the odds still favor Biden v Trump, Part Two, next November. While there continues to be media speculation about Democratic power brokers concerned about Biden’s visible frailty, no viable alternative candidate is in sight.

Forced to speculate, Democratic strategists identify California Governor Gavin Newsom, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo as potential alternatives to Biden. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg earns mentions too, as does Vice President Kamala Harris. But conventional inside the Washington beltway thinking essentially dismisses all of these as pretenders to the throne.

Some Republican pundits are trying to build support for former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley as the GOP alternative to Trump. But the former South Carolina governor still trails far behind Trump, and it’s difficult to imagine that Trump’s MAGA base would desert him in favor of an “uppity” immigrant woman. Haley would have a better chance to be nominated by Democrats, if one is to believe the conventional wisdom.