{"id":44604,"date":"2023-11-05T08:16:43","date_gmt":"2023-11-05T16:16:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=44604"},"modified":"2023-11-05T08:16:43","modified_gmt":"2023-11-05T16:16:43","slug":"which-country-are-ron-desantis-and-opponents-running-for-president-of-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2023\/11\/05\/which-country-are-ron-desantis-and-opponents-running-for-president-of-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Which Country Are Ron DeSantis and Opponents Running for President of Again?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations,\u201d George Washington wrote in his farewell address<\/a> as first president of the United States, \u201cis in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible.\u00a0 \u2026 it is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Four years later, in his inaugural address<\/a> as the country\u2019s third president, Thomas Jefferson announced \u201cpeace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none\u201d as an \u201cessential principle\u201d of his administration.<\/p>\n

That was all a long time ago, and many things have changed.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Florida governor Ron DeSantis, who wants very badly to appear in history books alongside Washington and Jefferson, can\u2019t seem to get his head around their best ideas.<\/p>\n

He seems to think that being president involves \u201cstanding with\u201d Israel, a Middle East ethno-religious garrison state that\u2019s been known to spy on the US (see, for example, the case of Jonathan Pollard), kill US Navy personnel (34 of them aboard the USS Liberty in 1967), assassinate American journalists (like Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh, shot while covering an Israeli Defence Forces raid in the occupied West Bank ), murder American students (like Rachel Corrie, run over by an IDF bulldozer in Gaza while protesting the destruction of a Palestinian pharmacist\u2019s home), and kill American civilian mariners (like Furkan Dogan, killed by IDF pirates on the high seas).<\/p>\n

As a governor and as a presidential candidate, DeSantis can\u2019t seem to make it for more than a few days at a time without pulling some kind of\u00a0 silly \u201cstand with Israel\u201d stunt.<\/p>\n

Sometimes it\u2019s signing legislation requiring all state contractors to swear a loyalty oath. Not to Florida or to the United States \u2013 to Israel.<\/p>\n

Other times it\u2019s lighting the state\u2019s capitol building up in blue and white to show \u201csolidarity\u201d with Israel.<\/p>\n

And always, always, ALWAYS it\u2019s pledging bigger welfare checks, more military support, and undying loyalty if elected president.<\/p>\n

Not loyalty to the United States, mind you, nor loyalty to American voters or American taxpayers.\u00a0 Loyalty to a foreign power \u2013 an overly demanding welfare queen of a foreign power, and arguably an openly hostile foreign power.<\/p>\n

Nor is DeSantis alone in his weird obsession. These days, pretty much every major party presidential candidate makes at least one visit to Israel to promise unlimited American blood and treasure in support of its rulers\u2019 interests, your interests be damned. And when those promises come back to bite us, they assure us that\u2019s because Israel\u2019s enemies \u201chate our freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n

Never mind all that Federal Election Commission business \u2013 where American presidential campaign are concerned, the Foreign Agents Registration Act seems more applicable.<\/p>\n

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter:\u00a0@thomaslknapp<\/a>) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations,\u201d George Washington wrote in his farewell address as first president of the United States, \u201cis in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible.\u00a0 \u2026 it is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":80,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-44604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/80"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44604"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44604\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44606,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44604\/revisions\/44606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44604"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=44604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}