Beyond the Polls: Foreign policy issue exposes a world of differences

Scott Wolfe, chair of the board at the Jewish Federation of Eastern Connecticut, said the rise of anti-Semitism in the United States is one of the scariest aspects of the current presidential campaign as the tragedy in Israel last October has taken a back seat to concerns over a reported 40,000-plus Palestinian deaths caused by Israel's military reaction."It's a pretty scary time to be Jewish right now," Wolfe said during a voter forum sponsored by The Day in May, when the question turned to U.S. foreign policy. "It was getting bad for decades, but it's really bad since Oct. 7."According to multiple reports, anti-Semitic incidents in the United States have doubled or even tripled in the past few years, driven by a backlash against the war in Gaza, where Israelis have been trying to root out the Hamas militia responsible for the Oct. 7 attack. Wolfe said he doesn't have any problems with pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses, but they shouldn't happen at the expense of Jewish students who feel harassed and threatened."This is not an easy time," Wolfe continued. "When you watch the news at night and you see the tragedy in Gaza, try to remember what triggered this. If there was TV coverage in World War II, can you imagine when the United States bombed the hell out of Dresden?"Wolfe's angst demonstrates widespread concerns among local residents about the future of American foreign policy, which was voted as the No. 2 issue in the upcoming presidential election during a series of voter forums The Day conducted earlier this year. In a second series of forums the newspaper held in May, about 50 residents attending meetings in Old Lyme, New London and Stonington offered their views of American foreign policy and what they would like to see the next president accomplish.Other Top 5 issues voted on by residents who attended The Day forums included misinformation and disinformation (No. 5), the environment and climate change (No. 4), immigration and border policy (No. 3) and protecting democracy (No. 1), which will be addressed in a story next month. To weigh in on any of these issues, readers are asked to email election2024@theday.com and include their name and hometown.Some speakers said they didn't want to see the United States get entangled overseas, while others thought the United States should strengthen its alliances and do more to support democratic countries like Ukraine. Several decried what they saw as U.S. support for Israel's bombing campaigns in Gaza.In addition to worries about the war in Gaza, now compounded by Israeli attacks in Lebanon as well as reprisals by Hezbollah fighters there, local residents said they were concerned about the ongoing conflict between Ukraine and Russia, tensions with China over the future of Taiwan and the possibility that the NATO alliance might come apart. J.W. "Bill" Sheehan, a Waterford resident and member of the town's Board of Finance, said he sees the United States retreating from the world stage under Republican candidate Donald Trump, possibly dooming NATO."He will favor dictators and autocrats over democratic-elected governments," Sheehan said in an email. "If he can work out a 'deal,' he will take it regardless of the future impact of that deal on the U.S. or the world."Julie Weber of Montville expressed concerns over abandoning allies, though she was ambivalent about how each of the political parties has conducted foreign policy, saying in an email: "If we discontinue supporting our allies, either the fight will invade our (currently nonexistent) borders or our military will need to put boots on the ground in foreign lands. Biden has weakened our stature in the world. Trump may engage in containment but he frightens our foes."Mark O'Neill of Preston focused on the domestic side of foreign policy, saying in an email: "While I think it's admirable if the U.S. supports democracy ... it is sometimes very difficult for me to see billions of dollars going out of this country left and right, when my wife and I, twice a year, literally have to beg and borrow to pay our house taxes ... the amount of homeless and poor in this country is staggering."At the first New London forum, residents talked about some of their top foreign policy concerns without coming to any resolutions, while in Old Lyme and Stonington they were asked to come up with policies they could agree on. By majority vote, residents at the forums said they would support humanitarian policies around the world; make peace a priority; maintain NATO; make better use of the United Nations; respect other cultures, and tone down talk of American exceptionalism."I believe that we should have real respect for other ways of thinking," said one forum speaker in Old Lyme who did not identify himself. "We need to stop operating out of this idea that we are better than every other country and therefore assuming the authority to decide what's good or not for other countries."Eric Fleury, a professor of government and international relations at Connecticut College, said the policy prescriptions that came from The Day forums were unobjectionable, though not very specific in sorting out the complex challenges facing America in the next four years. And neither Democrat Kamala Harris nor her Republican challenger did much in their presidential debate last month to differentiate themselves, he said, calling Trump largely incoherent, while the vice president was happy to play it safe.Fleury called Trump's vow to solve the Ukraine crisis on Day 1 "empty showmanship," but said he branded Harris's prediction that Trump would cede Poland to Russia if he won the presidency as "alarmist." Yet the two are very different on the question of the NATO military alliance, with Harris seeing it as a key to avoiding a world war and promoting free trade while Trump views it from a "gangster" mentality, he said, trying to extract maximum concessions and deference from European powers.As for their positions on the Middle East, Fleury doesn't see a lot of difference, though Trump would likely take a harder line than Harris, allowing Israel to bomb opposition forces "into the Stone Age," he said.Fleury said Harris likely improved her chances of winning on the foreign policy front by looking presidential during the debate and showing she could go toe to toe with Trump by jabbing him on all the members of his former administration, including foreign policy adviser John Bolton and chief of staff John Kelly, who have warned that he was unfit for office."People forget just how chaotic it was," Fleury said of Trump's presidency. "It's rare for a president to have so many former officials come out and say, 'This guy's a nightmare.'""I believe that we have become a global economy and as such what happens in one country eventually affects every other country in the world," said Christine Bennett of Groton in an email. "When banks fail in the U.S. ... it affected the economy globally. Global warming, which scientists have been warning us about since the 1950s, affects the world."Yet Trump's record includes bowing out of the Paris Climate Accords during his presidency, while one of the Biden-Harris administration's first acts was to sign back on to the agreement pledging significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Trump also took his America First policy seriously, as noted by the conservative website The Hill when columnist Donald Kirk wrote last month, "Trump ... shows no inclination to defend either America's allies in Asia or to honor America's 'commitment' to Taiwan."Trump also was unwilling to state during the debate whether he was hoping Ukraine would win its war against Russia. "I want the war to stop," Trump said when pressed on his views on Ukraine, going on to claim he would negotiate a deal between the warring parties before he assumed office.Harris immediately shot back that had Trump been president during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, "Putin would be sitting in Kyiv with his eyes on the rest of Europe." In fact, according to an analysis by the left-leaning Center for American Progress, the far-right Project 2025's policies advocate for "'transforming' NATO by handing over lead responsibility to deter Russia's authoritarian aggression to European allies and pulling back U.S. forces.""This proposition would endanger American security and prosperity and signal to allies and adversaries around the world that the United States is at best inconsistent, and at worst unreliable," according to the think tank. The Project 2025 document, which Trump has denied knowledge of even though his vice presidential running mate wrote the forward to it and dozens of the former president's closest allies were involved in writing it, cites the policy recommendations as an effort to "reorient the U.S. government's posture toward friends and adversaries alike … represent[ing] the most significant shift in core foreign policy principles and corresponding action since the end of the Cold War." For instance, Project 2025 would make members of the National Security Council and Situation Room more beholden to political pressures, while also making loyalty to the president a condition for prestigious foreign-policy posts, according to the analysis, while also "politiciz(ing) the military chain of command and U.S. intelligence agencies."Conservative commentary about Harris' foreign policy has mostly centered on her lack of specificity on her policy agenda. The centrist Politico website has predicted that Harris will most likely continue many of Biden's foreign policy objectives, including strong support for Ukraine and initiatives to encourage allies in Asia and the Pacific to more closely align to American goals of frustrating Chinese expansionism."Regarding Israel's war on Hamas," Politico said in a July article, "Harris has sounded more sympathetic to the plight of Palestinians, a stance that could mollify Arab-American voters and others who are troubled by Biden's support for Israel's war effort in Gaza."When it comes to international trade, the nonpartisan Council on Foreign Relations has noted Trump's argument that "the global trading system is rigged against U.S. interests and responsible for large trade deficits, declining U.S. manufacturing, and the offshoring of American jobs." Trump has proposed a "universal" tariff on most imports, which economists have said could cost Americans hundreds of dollars a year as costs are passed on to consumers.Harris, while in the U.S. Senate, disagreed with widespread tariffs, calling them inflationary. She opposed the Trans-Pacific partnership while in the legislature, and was one of 10 senators who voted against Trump's updated North American Free Trade Agreement that was renamed the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, saying it didn't protect U.S. workers or the environment.One forum speaker in Old Lyme, who didn't identify herself, said the problem with America's foreign policy is that it's largely tied to business interests."We make our foreign policy based on our economic advantages and our political advantages, staying on top economically, and I think that's what's wrong," the speaker said.l.howard@theday.com