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It's both dispiriting and terrifying to witness the current perilous state of our nation in a pilotless spiraling tailspin with no apparent good ending in sight.
Looking out the window we immediately see a mountain of inflation and public debt resulting from reckless government spending; huge masses of unvetted migrants parading through an open U.S. southern border; and rampant lawlessness resulting from lax criminal justice and enforcement policies.
Not much further ahead loom endless strings of stranded electric vehicles (EVs) and flickering industry and household lights resulting from climate salvation-premised energy shortages.
Global allies and adversaries alike have watched America’s leaderless decline regarding implications for their own economic interests and security.
They have observed a befuddled military surrender of Afghanistan leaving billions of dollars of advanced armaments, a strategic Bagram air base, 13 of our service personnel dead, and thousands of imperiled supporters behind.
They also have been witness to a White House that dithered as pre-assault Russian troops and weapons amassed at Ukraine's border; a huge Chinese spy balloon sailing unchallenged across the American landscape; and a president unsuccessfully pleading with Saudis to pump more oil ahead of 2022 midterm elections to compensate for domestic supplies he had willfully reduced.
Additionally, America’s friends and foes now see that same obviously cognitively deteriorating and ethically challenged president is undergoing political and legal scrutiny for foreign influence peddling they purpotedly already know about.
After all, many of them — including China and Russia — sent his family members big checks.
Meanwhile, many of them are also turning from Washington to Beijing for leadership while at the same time China and Russia strengthen mutual trade and military relationships, including ominous Ukraine and Taiwan alliances.
The world witnesses President Xi Jinping brokering renewed relationships between Saudi Arabia and Iran, as the Biden administration pushes to renew a disastrous Obama Iran nuclear deal brokered on the U.S. behalf by Russia.
American allies in the South China Sea region watch in fear regarding if and when Beijing will exploit Biden defense weaknesses as Chinese buildups and recent military drills around Taiwan seem to evidence serious war preparations underway.
Meanwhile, Beijing is also expanding economic relationships with Venezuela, Argentina and Brazil as a consequence of a new wave of leftist leaders who have swept into office across Latin America in recent years.
One might logically imagine that the American voting public would yearn for a return to successful domestic and foreign policies that so recently characterized the prosperous, peaceful, and optimistically trending previous Trump administration.
By all appearances, and much to the dismay of nearly two-thirds of his own party who don’t want him to do so, a failed Joe Biden plans to run again against one of the most successful U.S. presidents in recent history.
So what could possibly go wrong with these remarkable 2024 GOP advantages?
Briefly put, Donald Trump’s current negative campaign focus could prove to be its own biggest obstacle at a time when the country and world desperately need good reasons for a return to optimism about America’s bright future again.
For starters, recognize there’s no net voter gain in dwelling on entirely justified past grievances.
Yes, we now know, for example, that the FBI sat on clear evidence of Biden family foreign influence peddling on Hunter’s infamous "laptop from hell" they held for nearly a year as a complicitly biased mainstream media buried the story.
Did this action swing the 2020 election results?
And yes again, Donald Trump and key associates were spied on and legally harassed by federal authorities and a Democratically controlled Congress from the time he first ran for office.
This continued throughout two transparently political impeachments, sham kangaroo court Senate hearings regarding responsibilities for the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riots, and an armed DOJ-FBI raid on his private Mar-a-Lago residence purporting to look for secret documents he had full authority as a former president to declassify.
Rather than allow such egregious injustices to define him as a weakened victim, Trump can now demonstrate true leadership resilience and substance by focusing campaign messaging upon an urgency — now greater than ever before — to Make America Great Again.
Democratic opposition will welcome nothing more than a circular GOP firing squad with presumptive party leader Trump attacking other contenders such as Gov. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., whom some may regard a stronger presidential competitor.
Unfortunately, this Democratic Party wish is already occurring.
A Trump super PAC is hitting TV airwaves targeting and unfairly mischaracterizing DeSantis’s past votes to reform entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security, as well as to raise the retirement age.
Trump also accused the governor, on his TruthSocial network, of playing politics in requiring Disney to conform with the same regulatory policies demanded of all other Florida corporations.
The resoundingly good news in all of this is that, unless they totally blow it, Republicans have wonderful 2024 prospects to take control of the White House and Congress thanks to growing public awareness of liberal policy disasters, Biden family scandals, and favorable Senate seat alignments reversing numerical Democratic advantages of 2022.
The big priority — beginning right now — is for Donald Trump and all GOP candidate hopefuls to be very clear regarding exactly what they will do to act upon these opportunities for the good of the country, and to get those positive, constructive MAGA messages out to an understandably demoralized and legitimately skeptical public.
Larry Bell is an endowed professor of space architecture at the University of Houston where he founded the Sasakawa International Center for Space Architecture and the graduate space architecture program. His latest of 12 books is "Architectures Beyond Boxes and Boundaries: My Life By Design" (2022). Read Larry Bell's Reports — More Here.
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