Biden Refuses to Face Reality

It is never a good idea to conduct foreign policy or to run an election campaign by ignoring reality and shutting out dissent.

Annelle Sheline, who resigned from the State Department earlier this year in protest against U.S. support for the war in Gaza, noted the president’s stubborn refusal to listen to his critics:

In the past few weeks, public attention has shifted from Biden’s support for Israel’s slaughter in Gaza to another example of Biden’s intransigence: his unwillingness to withdraw from the presidential race after a catastrophic first debate. For Americans who have not been paying attention, Biden’s stubborn refusal to listen to ever-increasing calls for him to step aside may seem bewildering. This is especially maddening for many of my former colleagues inside the State Department, who had seen Biden as someone who, unlike Trump, would be guided by reason, morality, and U.S. interests. But to me and others who have watched Biden ignore both the moral and strategic imperatives for withdrawing support from Israel, the president’s current obstinance is unsurprising.

Opponents of the war have pointed to the president’s ideological attachment to Israel to account for his inflexibility in the face of disastrous policy failure. That does explain some of the president’s unwillingness to change course on the policy, but it misses that Biden simply won’t listen to outside critics about anything. As far as Biden is concerned, his critics have always underestimated him. He has convinced himself that he knows better. He has been encouraged in these beliefs by his narrow circle of yes-men, who filter what he sees and who never challenge his certainty that he is the greatest foreign policy president. The president is digging in his heels and refusing to end his reelection bid because of this same overconfidence in his own abilities and his usual dismissive attitude toward critics.