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Some weeks, obviously, are more momentous than others. This past week may be looked back upon as being one of the most historic anyone alive has ever lived through. The world order shifted on its axis and nobody is quite sure what is coming next.
The world pauses and holds its collective breath as we all wonder the same thing: What is Vladimir Putin up to? Will he invade Ukraine? Is this all some sort of bluff or feint? Or is he deadly serious about reconstituting the Soviet Union's sphere of influence (of satellite states subservient to Moscow)? Is he just waiting for the Olympics to end as some sort of favor to China? Or will the troops eventually go home and the whole crisis blows over?
Today I am revisiting a nightmare. Perhaps it is the situation in Ukraine and Taiwan which caused me to think about this again, or perhaps it was reading an article entitled: "A Normal Supply Chain? It's 'Unlikely' In 2022." The article takes a big-picture look at the issue from all sorts of angles, but ends rather inconclusively. The COVID-19 pandemic changed a whole lot of consumer behavior, businesses made the wrong assumptions at the start of the pandemic, but we may never go back to the "old normal" again since some of these changes may become permanent.
For the first time since the Cold War, the nightmare of direct military conflict between what used to be called either "great powers" or "superpowers" seems not to be such a remote possibility anymore. Russia and the United States are in a faceoff over Ukraine. China, meanwhile, is testing the defenses of Taiwan in an unprecedented way. So I thought today was a good day to review a little history.
Welcome back to the second part of our year-end awards column! If you missed it, please feel free to check out [Part 1], too.
I boarded the train in one of those Eastern European capitals that make you feel like you've stepped back about a century in time. The train car itself did nothing to dispel this notion, as the windows looked like they had last been cleaned promptly after World War I... and forgotten ever since. The upholstery on the seats was worn and threadbare, but when I sat down in one, I found that at least they were well-padded and comfortable. I settled in and looked around at my fellow travelers.
There were a few groups of people strung out throughout the train car, who all ignored me completely. They looked like tired commuters on their way home, and this proved to be the case, as they all got off at the first dozen or so stops on the outskirts of the city. I thought I would be alone for the rest of the journey, but at the last suburban stop a very old woman got on and sat down across from me. She looked a little spooky, with an eyepatch over one eye, and a bandanna tied over her hair. A mystical perfume which hinted at far-off bazaars wafted its way over to me. Her wizened visage examined me critically, and I was surprised to see a small smirk develop on her face as she did so.
President Joe Biden had a pretty good week all around. He began the week in Europe, where he met with the leaders of NATO, the European Union, the G7, a few royals (just to mix things up), and Vladimir Putin. That's a pretty packed schedule, but Biden seemed to manage just fine. The Europeans were both visibly thrilled and massively relieved to be visited by a United States president who was, once again, a sane adult (and not a petulant little child-man). They heaped praise upon Biden -- mostly just for being "President Not-Trump." You may laugh, but please recall President Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize solely for being "President Not-Dubya," years earlier. But more seriously, Europe announced some deals with Biden (including, notably, a truce being called on the subsidy war over Boeing and Airbus airplanes). Not only were personal relationships either reaffirmed or begun, tangible diplomatic progress was made. Europe stood as one with the United States over the contentious issues of Russia and China, which only strengthened Biden's position for his meeting with Putin. The Putin summit didn't produce a whole lot in the way of tangible deliverables, but then again it didn't produce an American president willing to believe Russia's ex-K.G.B. leader over his own intelligence services either, so it has to be chalked up as a major improvement. Throughout it all, Biden stuck to one very simple slogan that summed up what his trip was supposed to be showcasing to the world: "America is back."
Joe Biden has returned America's foreign policy (or at least the face of it to the rest of the world) back to normalcy. The president of the United States is once again treated respectfully by foreign leaders, mostly because he understands that allies are indispensible in the modern world -- and he knows the difference between allies and dictatorships (no matter how much dictators might try to flatter him and build up his ego). Our allies have welcomed our return to sanity and comity, and Biden's outreach is already bearing fruit on his first trip abroad. The trip's biggest test will come when he meets with Russia's Vladimir Putin, but he will do so knowing that Europe is largely backing the United States. That is all a drastic and relieving change from the past four years, when Donald Trump could barely stand to be in a room with Europe's leaders, would casually and viciously denigrate NATO and other bedrock alliances, and then throw his arms open wide for the likes of Putin and North Korea's Kim Jong Un. Or, to put it more succinctly, we are experiencing a return to normalcy.
To begin with, let's review a basic fact: the Senate filibuster was not created by the drafters of the United States Constitution. The filibuster is not actually mentioned (either by name or in any other way) in the Constitution itself. The Constitution merely states that each chamber of Congress "may determine the rules of its proceedings" -- that's it. The filibuster is merely one of those rules; one that has evolved over time. In my lifetime, the filibuster changed from requiring a two-thirds majority vote (67) to only three-fifths (60). Nothing is sacred about either one of those ratios (and I leave it for others to point out, on the grim centennial anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre, the historical importance of the term "three-fifths" in the Constitution's original language). But the fact that it already has been recently changed shows that the filibuster rule is subject at any time to any changes that a majority of the Senate agrees upon. No constitutional amendment was necessary to make this change back in the 1970s, as it is merely a Senate rule. So a simple vote changed it.
Republicans, these days, just seem rather lost. They used to be so good at coming up with semi-cohesive talking points to use against Democrats, and they have always admirably been able to all sing from this same songbook every Sunday morning (for the political chatfest shows on television). But these days, all the issues they choose to highlight are all so incredibly short-term that the problem usually disappears before their politicization of the issue really even has a chance to take hold.
Case in point: Republicans' heavy lean on school reopenings. They've been so convinced this is going to be a big winning issue for them, they rode it all the way to getting a recall election called for California's governor (Gavin Newsom). But by the time Californians vote on it (later October or early November of this year), everyone will already be back in school again.