The Sanders Doctrine
One’s a democratic socialist, and the other’s a right-wing nationalist. In many ways, their views on international affairs couldn’t be further apart. But in 2011, when the United States joined the NATO military campaign to protect civilians in Libya, both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump initially seemed to support it. Then rebels murdered the country’s dictator, unleashing chaos that continues to this day. Nine years later, with Trump nearing the end of his first term as president and Sanders surging in the Democratic presidential primary, they appear to agree on something again. It’s difficult to imagine either of them authorizing a military campaign if confronted with a Libya-style crisis as commander in chief.
The shift underscores a central foreign-policy message of the 2020 presidential election: The days of the United States projecting power around the world primarily through its military are officially numbered. If the race pits Trump against Sanders, regardless of the outcome, the America that instinctively sent the cavalry to the rescue won’t be returning anytime soon.
This is the first U.S. presidential election to feature voters who were born after the Afghan War began. The “forever wars” in the Middle East have disillusioned younger generations in particular, who constitute a significant part of Sanders’s base. In different ways, both Trump and Sanders have seized on this despair. Central to the case they're making to voters is that as president, they would end these conflicts and refuse to have America serve as the world’s policeman.
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