If Biden wins: 6 january 2020
If Trump wins: 7 october 2023
That’s not what I meant. I mean at what points were each candidate favored?
With hindsight
6 jan 2020 till 7 oct 2023: Biden
7 oct 2023 till now: Trump
probably more like a little more towards the end of october when it became increasingly clear that Biden's response wasn't great.
You don’t think Trump would have beaten Biden even after his post-Afghanistan nadir?
No, Trump literally advocated withdrawal from Afghanistan and it's something both presidents did well. USA had no business being there. And there was no support for a democratic regime, so as soon the Americans would leave, the Taliban would take over.
I don't see it as a failure of Biden, i don't see it as a mistake by Trump. It's something I credit both presidents with, and they handled Afghanistan better than any president before them.
It might unironically be one of Biden's best accomplishments on foreign policy. So many presidents said they would withdraw / reduce number of troops in Afghanistan, and didn't. And eventually Biden did it.
That neocons would whine about it... was to be expected. If they got their say in everything, USA would have troops and bases in literally every country.
This is the best way for progress in these countries, very slowly and it might take decades or a century. And at the end, the Taliban would just be another but weaker Iran. But it's not the task of the USA to boss the entire world around how other countries should govern. It's better to use diplomacy and cooperate where one can cooperate on (in this case: terrorism since IS-K is a much bigger threat). You don't spread democracy by ensuring everyone hates the USA more than their own undemocratic regime, indirectly giving them legitimacy. It's a road the inhabitants have to take theirselves, pushing for democracy has to come from within (unless international borders and laws are violated, which is when intervention would be legitimate). Fighting stupid regime change wars has never worked out well, the USA should know that by know and i believe a majority of people in the USA do (well at least until and after the war propaganda machine kicks in). Just ask Libya and Iraq today.
It was literally in Trump's platform, and some key appeal to his platform in 2016 was exactly because of his foreign policy views. It was the end of the neocon era of GOP being dominant or at least the only dominant power in the GOP. While isolationist, non-interventionism and alt-world views have increased in relevance. Trump saw a break with the past. I can't see how the Afghan withdrawal would have helped Trump at all.
Besides it was also way too early in the cycle to accurtaely say the race would have shifted. Trump never had a meaningful lead, and a lot of polling data would have been noise and not very relevant, as it happened before the 2022 midterms.
