Ever since the two least-admired figures in American politics decided to make yet another run for the White House — President Joe Biden’s fourth and former President Donald Trump’s third — the American electorate has expressed a hunger for a different choice in 2024. Though each has his loyal following, 70 percent of the voters do not want a Biden-Trump rematch. That means that if either major party chooses a candidate other than its presumed nominee, it could have a decided advantage in November.
Alternatively, this may be the year an independent or third-party candidate finally can win the U.S. presidency. This year’s aspirants include fringe people who have run unsuccessfully in the past, such as Jill Stein and Marianne Williamson. It also includes Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., a novice in politics but the scion of the Kennedy political family whose built-in name recognition and iconoclastic views on vaccines and other issues garner him over 20 percent in public opinion polls.
The most credible challenge to the two major parties comes from the nonpartisan group No Labels, which states on its website, “We are the voice of the great American majority who increasingly feel politically homeless [and] want a better choice for U.S. president in 2024.”
The group says it will decide in the spring whether to field its own presidential candidate. Democrats generally abhor that possibility, convinced it will siphon off Biden votes against Trump; but depending on whom No Labels names, he or she is just as likely to hurt Trump if he is the GOP nominee.
Meanwhile, a surging Nikki Haley in the Republican primaries is on course to disprove the conventional wisdom and deny the nomination to Trump.
Haley has demonstrated that she is the highly competent, tough-minded, common-sense GOP candidate voters have been seeking. She is also the country’s last best hope to ensure that neither of these two deeply flawed men is afforded the opportunity to return to the highly demanding and inherently dangerous duties of the presidency.
If No Labels is true to its word, it will announce that if either party nominates someone other than Biden or Trump, it will refrain from running its own presidential candidate this year, while continuing its bipartisan efforts on congressional and local elections.
If the group adopts this high-minded approach, not only would it upset the plans and expectations of Biden and the Democrats, who have cynically relied on a highly vulnerable Trump as their likely opponent — a gambit that looks increasingly risky for the nation — it would also confound U.S. adversaries led by China and Russia that were counting on engaging again with either Trump or Biden. Both have boasted of their personal relationships with Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin.
Trump has demonstrated his affinity for the world’s worst tyrants. After abandoning his “maximum pressure” campaign against North Korea, Trump said he and Kim Jong Un had “fallen in love” despite Kim’s horrendous human rights record, his reckless brandishing of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles and his naked threats against Japan, South Korea and America itself.
In contrast, Biden appears to have a policy of benign neglect on North Korea, essentially ignoring its growing nuclear-missile arsenal and its exchange of weapons technology with Putin to support his war on Ukraine. He deserves credit for providing weapons and other support to Ukraine and for rallying NATO members to do their share. But, given past U.S. guarantees for Ukraine’s security and territorial integrity, he has fallen far short in giving Ukraine what it needs to defeat Putin’s brutal, Hitler-like aggression.
For its part in the authoritarian quadrilateral, China helps keep both North Korea and Russia afloat, with its major sanctions-busting purchases of North Korean coal and its equally pivotal sanctions-weakening buys of Russian oil as well as its transfer of dual-use technology, which Russia uses for lethal purposes against Ukraine. But despite Beijing’s brazen circumvention of the sanctions regime, Biden refuses either to tighten the rules or to impose secondary sanctions on China for fear of provoking Xi — the same passive policy Trump followed, contrary to his much tougher approach on China’s violations of trade rules.
All four hostile powers would be more than happy to see either another Biden or Trump term. None would welcome a Haley ascension to the U.S. presidency, fearing a more assertive and realistic posture from a Haley administration.
As U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Haley strongly advanced Trump’s position terminating the Obama administration’s Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran. At times, she was even more forward-leaning than the administration itself on critical national security issues.
In 2018, for example, Haley said the Trump administration would impose new sanctions on Russia for supporting Syria’s use of chemical weapons against its people, an action Obama had said would cross a U.S. “red line.” But other White House officials said Trump wanted to defer secondary sanctions in the interest of cultivating good relations with Putin. His administration never followed the tougher line Haley advocated against the Russians.
During these perilous times, America needs such a steady hand in the White House. No Labels should help clear the way.
Joseph Bosco served as China country director for the secretary of Defense from 2005 to 2006 and as Asia-Pacific director of humanitarian assistance and disaster relief from 2009 to 2010. He served in the Pentagon when Vladimir Putin invaded Georgia and was involved in Department of Defense discussions about the U.S. response. Follow him on Twitter @BoscoJosephA.