Biden: Take Charge, for Heaven’s Sake! No More Waiting for Obstructionist Republicans to Cooperate! Play Hardball!
It’s time for Biden to “speak softly but carry a big stick”. To be a leader. A strong leader. No more being passive and waiting for obstructionist Republicans to cooperate regarding the Ukraine crisis and our border crisis. He needs to bypass Republican political obstructionism, which weakens us and only serves to help Russia, by using executive orders to implement urgently needed policy solutions. It’s in the interest of the nation. It’s also essential to boost his popularity, removing concerns that he’s too old to be an effective president. Time is of the essence for the nation and for his reelection. Biden can wait no longer to take charge.
It’s high time for Biden to use national security executive orders to give more military assistance to Ukraine: 1) in the interest of our own national defense; 2) in respect of his promise to do “whatever it takes, as long as it takes” for Ukraine ‘s successful defense against Russia; and 3) in fulfillment of the USA’s formal commitment to defend Ukraine’s territorial integrity as a signatory of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum. While the Budapest Memorandum has not been voted as a treaty by Congress, it is a legally valid, binding contract since Ukraine fulfilled its side of the bargain by transferring all its nuclear weapons to Russia, in exchange for the commitment by the United States, Russia, and Great Britain (UK) to guarantee its territorial sovereignty. We must honor our word, we cannot abandon Ukraine after it relied on our promise, exposing itself to a Russian invasion by no longer having a nuclear deterrent. Failure to abide by our commitment to Ukraine would be an egregious moral failure, ruining our reputation as a reliable partner worldwide, and possibly leading to the collapse of NATO, a critically important alliance which has served our national defense for over 70 years.
It is also high time for Biden to take matters into his own hands and solve the border crisis once and for all through issuing national emergency executive orders requiring 1) all asylum applications to be made at U.S. consulates in the country of residence, not at our borders; and 2) construction of “The Wall” to be completed. Those measures would be coupled with 1) a new major Peace Corps infrastructure and schools program for developing Central American countries in social and economic difficulty, since an economically and socially prosperous Central America would preclude migrant crises and significantly benefit our own economy; and 2) an annual congressional vote on the maximum number of immigrants to be admitted each calendar year, in order to avoid serious domestic political strife. (Requiring all asylum applications to be made at U.S. consulates abroad, preferably in the country of residence, just like for tourist and business visas, would not only be effective to prevent waves of migrants coming to our Mexican border, it would also be a humane measure, sparing migrants from undertaking long dangerous treks to our border.)
Biden’s executive order should be to prevent entry of all foreigners without visas or asylum papers. There should be no “5,000 illegal entries per day” threshold for closing the border, as he recently agreed to in a failed bi-partisan proposal. The goal should be zero daily illegal entries, the legitimate right of all nations. At the time of entry, all admitted foreigners should be issued a high tech federal ID card which must always be in their possession, with the requirement to regularly update their residential address, personal email and phone numbers. The card would be necessary for employment, for renting or purchasing a residence, for renting cars, obtaining phone, gas and electric utilities, and for hospital admissions. (Issuing a federal ID card to all U.S. citizens also makes sense, having the important benefit of preventing voter fraud disputes, in addition to containing individual health information, useful in case of emergency hospitalization. All European democracies have mandatory citizen ID cards; the United States is the outlier among advanced democratic nations respecting human rights.)
President Biden should make clear to all Americans and foreigners that our asylum law came about in reaction to the Holocaust. It only applies to persons individually persecuted by their own government, not to persons fleeing poverty and crime in their own country, or persons simply in opposition to their government. Given that according to public knowledge there is no systematic government persecution on the basis of religious belief or race in Central America, the vast majority of migrants from there clearly do not qualify for asylum. As for asylum granted in cases of political persecution, for logical practical purposes, it is limited to targeted individuals, not to the population at large opposed to a particular government, otherwise the USA would have to open its doors to hundreds of millions of foreigners critical of their governments, a totally unrealistic and absurd situation.
Importantly, Biden should also take the time to explain why the inflation we have had since Covid exploded in 2020, was a cost-push inflation (as opposed to demand-pull inflation due to excess aggregate demand) not due to his stimulus policy but only to Covid supply chain disruptions and then to Russia invading Ukraine, resulting in soaring energy and agricultural prices worldwide, as global economic statistics prove. He is mistakenly blamed by many Americans for inflation he had nothing to do with and which he could not have prevented.
Biden must also explain the difference between inflation and price levels, since most Americans do not understand the difference, due to our mediocre public schools and their deficient curriculums. All our citizens must understand that price levels are determined by the free market, and that we normally do not have price controls since they are counterproductive. Competition is the free-market mechanism for prices to not remain excessive. Furthermore, Biden must explain to the many Americans who are ignorant about economics that his bold economic stimulus policy response to the Covid pandemic was instrumental in preventing a deep depression and in promoting a rapid economic recovery. If the majority of Americans understood this (they don’t because our public schools inexplicably don’t have a serious economics and finance course in their curriculum), Biden would be highly appreciated.
Additionally, since most of our public schools are very mediocre due to a deficient curriculum, all too many Americans don’t realize the importance of helping Ukraine defeat Russia’s illegal and immoral invasion, similar to Hitler’s invasion of Poland in World War II. And they don’t realize Biden’s remarkable accomplishment in orchestrating the Western defense of Ukraine with our allies. Well-educated Americans hold Biden in high regard, only the undereducated are critical of him.
Scandalously and disgracefully, the defense of Ukraine is now imperiled by Republicans who are openly for dictatorial Russia, betraying our national interest, our national defense, our national reputation, and our moral and legal commitment to defend Ukraine. It is legitimate to suspect many of today’s Republicans would have backed Hitler during World War II, and would want to install a dictatorship in our country, with them in power, of course. Biden must publicly underscore the scandal and disgrace of Trump being friendly with Putin, a murderous dictator, and his wanting to dismantle NATO, exactly what Putin would want so that he could easily invade more nations after Ukraine. Biden must make the case against Trump and his Republicans, for the good of our nation, of Ukraine, of democracy worldwide.
Finally, Biden must explain that to eliminate poverty, addiction, and crime, our public schools must be made as good as the best private schools, with strict class discipline, lots of homework/study hall, along with an enlightened curriculum, including 4-year high school courses in psychology accompanied by group therapy and good parenting workshops; morality and empathy; economics/investments; logic/critical thinking; and detailed 20th Century history.
© Edward Sonnino 2024
March 5, 2024
