American politics seems to have undergone a sort of implosion in recent years. No, I’m not referring to the increased partisanship and extremism that has dominated the news for the past few election cycles. What I’m worried about is a reduction in the scope of our concerns.
First let me say that I don’t mean to demean the concerns of those who are worried about who pays more in taxes or which party is more obsessed with pandering to lobbyists. These are definitely vital concerns which will impact the future of our country for many years to come and making the right decision requires a lot of knowledge about what exactly each candidate plans to do. However, there are bits and pieces that I feel are being largely ignored and placed by the wayside that should get some time of their own over the usual political redundancies. President Barack Obama and former Gov. Mitt Romney aren’t exactly under pressure from the media or the voter base to reveal their strategies for these concerns. The trouble comes when it’s revealed these bits and pieces can be more accurately compared to “big issues” and “massive chunks”
Being “tough” on foreign competitors is—again—apparently the latest campaign fad. China certainly leads as the most-maligned of them all, beginning another round of “hate” in our love-hate relationship with our second biggest trading partner. But all the focus is apparently being placed on the impact that China has on American jobs. There is very little light shed on what each candidate would do to stand up to China on the subject of diplomatic relations. Case in point: their opposition to external involvement in Syria. China and Russia are leading an effort to quash foreign peacekeeping efforts in the region on the basis of not wanting the west to meddle in their affairs. So what does America do? Ignore it, I suppose.
This is a conflict largely passing unnoticed by the American public at the very least, a great part of it because the candidates are unwilling to bring it up on the campaign trail. I give props to Obama for bringing the issue up indirectly in his address to the UN, but he should know that if he wants to look like he’s willing to stand up to China outside of the realm of economic sanctions and tariffs, he’ll have to figure out how to more heavily implicate them in the travesty that has resulted in thousands of slaughtered civilians in Syria.
Speaking of the Middle East and its ever-increasing woes, neither Obama nor Romney has come out with a detailed plan on how they want to manage the conflict between Israel and Iran. Yes, there’s quite a bit of the standard rhetoric about who doesn’t want Iran to obtain nuclear weapons more. I must have missed the part about how allowing massive bombs to come into the possession of a dictatorial theocracy would be a bad thing the first few hundred times it was reported. It’s style over substance once more, only this time that emphasis on style could have actual consequences. Obama says that he wouldn’t go to war if Israel did. Romney says he would. Perfect. Now can we figure out how we would go about not having a war in the first place? Once again, we come to the impasse of either insulting our biggest ally in the Middle East by urging them to back off, or letting a large-scale conflict develop in one of the most hotly contested and unstable regions in the world. Neither candidate seems to want to commit to either course of action. And they’re not really even pressed to take one.
Do you agree with Evan that domestic policy has overshadowed foreign policy? Please send any feedback to the opinion desk at opinion@dailycardinal.com.
