The war in Ukraine has transformed Joe Biden’s presidency. In mid-February President Biden, despite a deceptively impressive record of accomplishments, was in what might nicely be described as the doldrums. His domestic political agenda was stalled; the fight against Covid was after some initial successes not going as well as the administration had hoped; Biden’s most memorable foray into foreign policy had been the withdrawal from Afghanistan that had been poorly planned and not well executed. All of this contributed to the President’s popularity being stuck in the low 40s and increased chatter that he would not, and should not, run for a second term in 2024. Worst of all, from the Democrats’ perspective, Donald Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican nomination next time seemed to have a fair shot at returning to the White House.

It would be an exaggeration to say Biden has turned all this around. Republican criticism has remained strong, and he is far from a shoo-in for reelection. However, his poll numbers have gone up for the first time in months. Additionally, the war has given Biden, who has long been more interested in foreign than domestic policy, a new focus for his presidency. Although Biden did not want this war, this may be the presidency he wanted.

The war itself has unified the American people unlike anything in recent years with substantial majorities agreeing with Biden’s basic position that the war is the fault of Russia and its brutal authoritarian President Vladimir Putin, and that the US should do what it can to support Ukraine without escalating the conflict. This virtual consensus is the foundation for this new phase of Biden’s presidency and a welcome relief from one where every domestic issue from vaccines to economic policy to voting rights breaks on partisan lines with Democrats on one side, Republicans on the other and Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema posturing and flattering themselves by passing off egotism and fealty to donors as some kind of belief in bipartisanship and a better way to do politics.

The key question facing the Biden administration is whether or not this consensus can last. If it does, Biden will be able to present himself as a kind of semi-wartime president. The US is not directly involved in the war in Ukraine, but the Biden administration, with the support of congress, has sent an enormous amount of military supplies and equipment to Ukraine and has been at the center of what amounts to an economic war against Russia. As long as American opinion continues to support Biden’s position on the war, his approval ratings will continue to benefit and Donald Trump, who has long had a sleazy relationship with Russia and has generally behaved like a political client of Putin, will have a more difficult time persuading voters that he should be sent back to the White House in 2024.

And that is precisely why the consensus is threatened. Trump and the people around him understand that the burst of hatred for Putin in the US over the last month or so is very bad for Trump’s political future. That helps explain why some on the right-wing fringes have broken with that consensus and presented views that are much more sympathetic to Russia and at times have sounded almost like the Russian propaganda coming out of the Kremlin. It takes time for these issues to move from the political fringe to mainstream conservative opinions, but it does not take a lot of time.

Two very recent examples of this can be seen in the discourse around both vaccines and the January 6th insurrection. In December of 2020 when vaccines were first introduced, only the far right-and a few people on the far left-questioned the vaccines, but by around April of 2021 anti-vaccine sentiments were extremely widespread among almost all segments of the GOP. Similarly, in the days following January 6th of 2021 most Republicans were critical of the insurrection. A few months later the all but official position of the party was that the events of January 6th, 2021 were not that big of a deal.

The war in Ukraine is likely to continue for quite some time. Even if the current phase of the conflict wraps up soon, and there is no guarantee of that, the questions of how to support Ukraine and the sanctions against Russia will continue for at least several more months and probably much longer. This is enough time for the GOP to move towards the pro-Russia position that the party’s de facto leader Donald Trump has long embraced. Rising inflation, more money being sent to Ukraine and Biden maintaining a strong pro-Ukraine position will all make it easier for far right views that this is Biden’s war, that the Biden family has long had a sleazy relationship with Ukraine and that the war is causing inflation, to become the more or less official position of the Republican Party.

Biden’s challenge is to maintain the consensus view of Putin and Ukraine by continuing to show the American people the horrors of what is occurring in Ukraine and why it is imperative that the US do something about it. The latter is more difficult than the former, but if Biden cannot do that, then the transformation of his presidency will be brief and the return to stalled policy proposals and low approval ratings will be swift.

Photo: cc/Secretary of Defense

Lincoln Mitchell