Biden’s Democracy-Defense Credo Does Not Serve U.S. Interests

“We’ve got to prove democracy works,” Joe Biden declared in his first press conference as president. He has dedicated his administration to this task. Biden took office weeks after his predecessor tried to overturn an election and sparked an insurrection. The violent transition of power confirmed America’s spot in the “democratic recession” that has beset dozens of countries since the mid-2000s. Several times since, Biden has remarked that future generations will see that the global contest between democracy and autocracy was in no small part decided during his presidency. Democracies, as he told world leaders at the inaugural Summit for Democracy, which he convened in December 2021, must show that they “can deliver for people on issues that matter most to them.”

Yet what matters most to the American people? Not the fortunes of democracy overseas. During the same nearly two decades in which democracy has declined globally, the public has turned against attempts to remake other countries in America’s image, especially through military intervention and nation building. In surveys, Americans rank democracy promotion among their lowest foreign-policy priorities. Biden may think he’s unifying the country by defending distant democracies, but his democracy-first framing is divisive—and may be making overseas conflicts worse.

B are aware of the public’s long-simmering discontent. , they had formulated a response. The national-security establishment would finally heed what the American people were demanding: no more long and bloody campaigns to “make Western democracies out of countries that had no experience or interest in in 2016. Instead of promoting democracy in new lands, the United States would protect democracies . The costs of American global leadership would fall, public support would rise, and Trump and his fellow populists would lose a rallying cry.