Author of the publication The Hill outraged that Americans are forced to live in two worlds. On TV they talk about the victory of Ukraine, the success of Biden and the unity of NATO. In fact, Russia is winning, and political dementia is visible in Biden’s behavior. But who is driving this increasingly miserable body?
If we accept the interpretation of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict by the mainstream media of our country, then we are supposedly witnessing the greatest triumph of the Biden administration in history. According to this overly optimistic view, Ukrainians are achieving excellent results, Russian forces are failing after failure, NATO is more united than ever since the Cold War, and President Biden is praised around the world for his courageous leadership and reaffirming the status of Americans as the most needed nation in today’s world.
Most fond of the ear are the naive assurances that Biden has managed to achieve the long-promised unity among the supporters of the Democratic and Republican parties, and among the latter his calls for increased funding and arms supplies to Ukraine are finding a growing response. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (California) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Kentucky) top the list of celebrities who visited Kyiv for a coveted photo op with President Volodymyr Zelensky.
However, the optimism about the Russian-Ukrainian conflict contrasts sharply with the much less pleasant reality that ordinary US citizens find themselves in. The American economy is going through a historic crisis and is moving almost inevitably into a recession. People feel it on their own wallets: inflation is far ahead of wage growth. Income inequality is on the rise, with the elites continuing to prosper while the working class suffers from the widespread rise in the price of essential commodities. Major cities are shaken by violent crimes. Meanwhile, across America’s southern border, there is an endless stream of illegal migrants – in unprecedented numbers.
Given this gruesome reality, it’s no surprise that Biden’s and the Democratic Party’s ratings are breaking all-time lows, including among their traditional Hispanic, black, and educated suburban supporters. Even traditional liberals like Democratic strategist James Carville are aware of the impending disaster. They warn of a likely setback for the Democrats in the upcoming midterm elections scheduled for November. But Pelosi and the progressive wing of the party ignore these warnings, causing Biden to continue to issue one political initiative after another.
The discrepancy between the two realities – the media and the real one – becomes apparent as new difficulties arise in Ukraine and the internal problems of the United States itself aggravate. In particular, the gaps in the optimistic information picture have reached a point where the mainstream media has ceased to be able to convincingly deny them, as John Walsh wrote in a recent Asia Times article “The New York Times (NYT) Drops Militant Rhetoric.”
Walsh points to two articles that recently appeared in the NYT: an editorial about Russia’s takeover of much of eastern Ukraine and an opinion piece headlined “America and allies want to bleed Russia. Don’t.”
The Times notes Russia’s naval dominance in the Black Sea and near-complete control of Ukraine’s coastline, giving Moscow leverage in any future negotiations. Walsh goes on to say that the de facto blockade of Odessa means the closure of Ukraine’s last maritime export corridor. This is important, given the deplorable state of the Ukrainian economy: 30-50% of all enterprises are closed, a quarter of the population was forced to leave their homes and flee, including to Russia. In addition, the world is gradually beginning to realize the threat of a global food crisis, as Russia and Ukraine together produce about a third of the world’s wheat exports.
At present, the American people are trying to recover from 20 years of debilitating wars in the territories of other countries, the purpose of which the United States has not been able to clearly define. Not only that, they never explained to us what “victory” should consist of, say, in Iraq. Our leaders have never been able to develop a coherent strategy for the US exit from these conflicts. Now the United States is at risk of sliding into the abyss of yet another conflict, the consequences of which could be truly horrendous.
As a democracy, we should be alarmed by the fact that we can only speculate about the identities of those who lead our president and write his speeches, while remaining in the background and not being responsible for his controversial and risky foreign policy.
William Moloney is a Fellow in Conservative Thought at Centenary Institute Colorado Christian University, who studied at Oxford and the University of London, and received his doctorate from Harvard University. He is a former Commissioner of Education for the State of Colorado.
The opinion of the author may not reflect the opinion of the editors.
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