[This may be an important shift in the electoral debate about U.S. foreign policy. In the first debate among Republican candidates ahead of the 2016 election, held in August 2015, terrorism dominated much of the discussion of the threat posed to the United States, with many of the candidates talking about the Islamic State.]
By Adam Taylor
 |
|
From
left, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, Rep. Tim Ryan (Ohio), former Housing and Urban
Development secretary Julián Castro,
Sen. Cory Booker (N.J.), Sen. Elizabeth Warren
(Mass.), former congressman Beto O'Rourke (Tex.), Sen. Amy Klobuchar (Minn.),
Rep.
Tulsi Gabbard (Hawaii), Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, and former congressman
John Delaney (Md.) stand onstage before the start of a Democratic primary debate, Wednesday, in Miami. (Brynn Anderson/AP) |
During the first debate among Democratic primary candidates
Wednesday evening, the assembled presidential hopefuls were asked a simple
question: What is the greatest geopolitical threat to the United States?
The 10 candidates gave different answers, with Washington
Gov. Jay Inslee suggesting that Trump himself was the greatest threat to
America, while Sen. Amy Klobuchar (Minn.), singled out the situation with Iran
in the Middle East.
But otherwise, there were some fairly consistent themes.
China was named by four candidates, while both climate change and the threats
posed by nuclear weapons were named by three candidates.
“China, without a question. They are wiping us [out]
economically,” said Rep. Tim Ryan (Ohio).
Not mentioned in the list of greatest threats, and barely
mentioned at all during the debate in general, was terrorism and the subsequent
war on terror that has helped to define almost two decades of U.S. foreign
policy.
The most notable reference to terrorism in the debate was
arguably an error — when Ryan suggested that the Afghan Taliban “started flying
planes into our buildings.” The remark prompted boos from the audience in
Miami.
“The Taliban didn’t attack us on 9/11,” Rep. Tulsi Gabbard
(Hawaii) interjected. “Al-Qaeda did.”
This may be an important shift in the electoral debate about
U.S. foreign policy. In the first debate among Republican candidates ahead of
the 2016 election, held in August 2015, terrorism dominated much of the
discussion of the threat posed to the United States, with many of the
candidates talking about the Islamic State.
During a later Republican debate in 2015, the word terror
was mentioned a whopping 81 times by the candidates and the moderators. In
contrast, that same word was mentioned three times Wednesday evening.
It is possible that the 2020 candidates featured Wednesday
will discuss their thoughts on the threats posed by terrorism in greater depth
in later debates or that candidates who will debate Thursday will focus on
terrorism more greatly.
It may also be a reflection of the different priorities of
Republican and Democratic voters.
In a Monmouth University poll released December 2015,
shortly after the Republican debate, 46 percent of Democratic voters ranked
jobs and security as their top priority, compared with 36 percent who listed
national security and terrorism. In contrast, 57 percent of Republicans said
national security was a top issue, compared with 41 percent who named jobs and
the economy.
But if the lack of discussion of terrorism this week
continues, it may be a reflection of the shifting ideas of what poses a threat
to the United States. The 2015 debates took place ahead of a sudden spate of
high-profile terrorist attacks in Western Europe, many orchestrated by groups
with links to the Islamic State.
These attacks undoubtedly changed the tenor of the 2016
presidential debate — even among Democrats. While the first Democratic
candidate debate in October 2015 only mentioned terrorism briefly, a huge
Islamic State-orchestrated attack in Paris the following month forced the
candidates to talk in depth about extremism during their next debate.
“Together, leading the world, this country will rid our
planet of this barbarous organization called ISIS,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)
said, using an acronym to describe the Islamic State.
The attacks in Paris and elsewhere helped focus the foreign
policy section of the 2016 debate around terrorism. A Pew poll from July 2016
found that voters thought that terrorism should get more time than any other
subject in presidential debates between the two final candidates, Trump and
Hillary Clinton.
For Trump, who tweeted frequently about terrorism but had
never held elected office nor a government position, the subject matter may
have been an advantage. Nate Silver, a polling expert with the website
FiveThirtyEight suggested in March 2016 that Trump’s tweeting after terrorist
attacks helped him capitalize on anti-Muslim sentiment during the campaign.
Trump has spoken about terrorism less frequently since
taking office, however, perhaps a reflection of data that shows that terrorism
attacks have declined since 2017 and the military defeat of the Islamic State
in Syria and Iraq.
In January 2018, Trump’s then-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis
unveiled a strategy that placed less emphasis on terrorism and more on the
threat posed by great powers such as China. Mattis resigned from his position
in December 2018 as a rebuke over troop withdrawal from Syria.
In some ways, a shift to focusing on the threat posed by
China rather than that posed by terrorism would be a reversion to a norm. Even
in 2007, candidates were already stating that there had been too much of an
emphasis on the latter over the former.
“I think that what’s happened with the last seven years of
the Bush administration is America’s faced, over the long term, with two very
serious challenges, one of which they’ve been obsessed with, which is the issue
of terrorism,” John Edwards (D), a former senator from North Carolina, said in
2007.
“The other is the rise and strength of China, which they’ve
done virtually nothing about,” Edwards said.
