Sunday Morning Sensibility

Why is this man smiling?

Because on April 2nd he announced that he was running for president in 2024 and that the Former Guy should drop out of the race.

Sure, he's a long-shot for the nomination because to my eyes he's so freakn' normal.

Here's a guy with executive experience, a Reaganesque streak of high-minded foreign policy principles and a refreshing departure from the GOP's recent toxic embrace of election denialism, crazed conspiracy theories, withdrawal from world leadership and abandonment of our global partners and allies.  

Asa Hutchinson is the sole candidate to have actually served in the Reagan administration.  He also led the Drug Enforcement Agency and was the top border security official at the Department of Homeland Security under Bush II.  Former Arkansas governor too.

I am not so naive to recognize that isolationism is popular nowadays and that Hutchinson is basically alone in the foreign policy lane for his world view of a cooperative global outlook. But I also am realistic enough to recognize that history reveals that we've been punished in the past for abandonment of our global-minded principles.  

I take no issue with welcoming refugees to our country because I share the view that they love freedom and love America.  I also share the view that the US should assert global leadership as cooperation with our allies is key to solving global problems.  If we abandon international organizations than it is bad actors like Russia and China who will fill the void. It is belittling to characterize the largest European land war in more than 80 years as a mere territorial dispute.  That, my friends, is a moronic statement if I ever heard one.

Having recently returned from spending almost two weeks in eastern Europe I've gotten a sense of the objection to a return of Russian totalitarian rule.  It's more than just a bad vibe.

Yeah, this stuff isn't animating many GOP voters nowadays and perhaps that's a reflection of this old man's coming of age during the cold war.  Who knows.  Maybe I'm just pining for a reorientation to rules-based international order and Republican internationalism.  Our influence should extend to Europe, Asia and Latin America.

That doesn't make me a war-monger; it means a desire to return to a foreign policy that is not aimless isolationism.  That phenomenon is dangerous for America, dangerous for our freedoms and dangerous for peace and stability in the world.

It's a long road to 2024 and it's quite early in the game.  Some say that one fork in the path forward takes us on the road to perdition.  I sure hope not.

Time will tell.

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There is a population of conservatives, Republicans, center-right individuals and independent-minded voters who place a high value on facts and the truth. Marginalized because they refuse to embrace baseless conspiracy theories or demonstrate sufficient fealty and obeisance to the former guy - exile is their cross to bear.