United States of America eSeries: 'The American people don’t like to lose'

'The American people don’t like to lose'

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September 13, 2021

Stephen Collinson and Caitlin Hu

'The American people don't like to lose'

To hear Secretary of State Antony Blinken tell it, the withdrawal from Afghanistan could hardly have gone better.

Blinken on Monday became the first senior US official to testify to Congress over the chaotic withdrawal. As soon as he spoke, it became clear that the Biden team is not willing to accept any blame.

According to the unrepentant top US diplomat, the evacuation of more than 120,000 Americans and Afghan allies was an "extraordinary" success. Blinken said there had been no indication that the Afghan army and government would crumble in just 11 days, and he placed significant blame on the hardline Trump administration for tying US hands with a withdrawal deal with the Taliban. He also blamed the previous administration for allowing visa processing for Afghan translators and other US collaborators to stall. President Joe Biden's only options were to escalate the war or withdraw, Blinken claimed.

But he left a lot out. He skipped over an apparent lack of administration planning for the collapse in Kabul. He didn't really address the question of whether the US had sufficient troops to plan the stable, safe withdrawal that Biden had promised. And as an ex-staffer on Capitol Hill, he knew how to draw the sting from attacks by heaping praise on his interrogators.

Congress has the constitutional role of overseeing the executive branch. But given the polarization in Washington, such hearings often become political sideshows. This time, Democrats did everything they could to shield Blinken, while Republicans sought to paint the White House as weak and incompetent: The top GOP member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, accused Biden of presiding over an "unconditional surrender" to the Taliban.

"The American people don't like to lose. Especially not to the terrorists," McCaul said.

On Capitol Hill, politics make every issue seem black or white. But that approach is unlikely to produce satisfying answers about the complexity of what went wrong in Afghanistan.

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'This court is not comprised of a bunch of partisan hacks'

Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett wants people to know that she and her colleagues are no "partisan hacks" amid close public scrutiny of the top court's politics. In a speech at the University of Louisville, the conservative justice told listeners the court is defined by "judicial philosophies" rather than personal views or political parties, the Louisville Courier-Journal reports.

"It's not my job to decide cases based on the outcome I want," she reportedly said, just weeks after a string of controversial decisions by the court – including allowing a Texas law that bars abortions after about six weeks to remain in effect. Some of Barrett's most vocal backers have hoped otherwise, however; during her confirmation hearings last year, then-Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, rejoiced: "This is the first time in American history that we've nominated a woman who's unashamedly pro-life and embraces her faith without apology."

To mandate or not to mandate

It is a fact of life in the United States that an individual's views on health, foreign policy, the economy and the direction of the country are conditioned by their partisan beliefs. So it's probably not surprising that the country splits down the middle on the question of vaccine mandates — even with the Delta variant raging.

 Last week, Biden unveiled his most sweeping effort yet to tackle the pandemic, creating a wider vaccine mandate for millions of federal workers. He also ruled that companies of more than 100 employees should require vaccines for employees and weekly Covid-19 tests for those who have medical or religious reasons not to get the shot. Conservatives say this is an unacceptable infringement on American fundamental rights, and given the allergy to government stamped on US DNA, the issue is sure to rage through congressional elections next year.

A new CNN poll shows Americans split on the issue. Some 51% of respondents back mandates to increase vaccinations, while 49% were opposed. Clear but small majorities back proof of vaccination in schools and for sports events or concerts — figures that have risen in recent months. The poll's most telling finding comes in the partisan breakdown: In all, 75% of respondents who lean Democratic back wider use of mandates, but only 24% of Republicans do so.

These findings came on the day New York City started stirring back to life, with more than a million kids back in school and vaccine mandates starting to be enforced for gyms, restaurants and entertainment venues. Just as on almost every other issue, the pandemic is revealing two nations inside the United States: the urban, suburban and liberal cities of the North and coasts, and the more conservative South, where the virus still rages uncontrolled and vaccine rates are lower.

The longer this crisis lasts, the deeper the divide becomes.