Ukrainians have been asking me what it means for their country that President Joe Biden has decided to withdraw his candidacy and that Vice-President Kamala Harris is now the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party.
I think that it only means good things.
The Biden administration now has more time for Ukraine. Until last Sunday, Joe Biden had two jobs: president and candidate for president. Now he has only one job: to be president. This means more time for policy, including foreign policy. The people on his team who work on Ukraine will find it easier to get his attention. Aside from that: President Biden will now be thinking about his legacy. He knows that whatever policies he wants attached to his name must be formulated and implemented in the next six months.
Though it is impossible to be sure, I would guess that Ukraine will likely as central to a Harris presidency than it was to the Biden presidency. On a number of foreign policy issues, including Ukraine, the Biden administration began from traditional assumptions that were outdated, and then worked quickly to catch up. I do not think that this will be the case for Harris, in part because the Biden administration has caught up. The vice-president’s foreign policy team might well be more decisive on Ukraine than the Biden team. Vice-President Harris made a point of traveling to Geneva for Ukraine’s peace summit when it became clear that President Biden would not attend. In fairness, we should remember that President Biden visited Kyiv itself!
All of that, though, is far less important than the main issue, which is beating Donald Trump.
Harris has a better chance of doing so than did Joe Biden. If you are on Ukrainian social media, you are dealing with Russian bots and trolls saying that Harris is unpopular in America and can’t win. In the United States, the Russian bots and trolls are spreading racism and misogyny. The Russian demobilization serves the same goal: to stifle any hope for something good in both countries.
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Here are the basic facts. Just a few days into her campaign, Harris polls even with Trump, whereas Biden was behind by several points. Her campaign has been energetic and effective. She has mobilized several constituencies who might otherwise have been indifferent. Trump is obviously afraid of her (as are the Russian propagandists who support Trump).
Now, I understand that there are Republicans who maintain that Trump would have a good Ukraine policy, including people whose views on foreign policy I admire. Respectfully, I believe this this is wishful thinking. In some cases, Ukrainians also think wishfully, confusing a thoughtful proposal by a Republican with Trump’s own views or likely future actions. So let me take a moment to explain why I believe that a second Trump administration would be disastrous for both countries.
In Ukrainian terms, Trump is a Yanukovych figure, a wannabe oligarch backed by actual oligarchs and the Kremlin. Unlike Yanukovych, he is personally charismatic and politically talented. The essence of Trump’s agenda is the transformation of the American political order. Whether or not this succeeds, the attempt at regime change will remove the United States from the international scene for an indefinite period. Insofar as we have a foreign policy at all under a Trump administration, it will amount to allowing Russia and China to do what they want.
When thinking of how the United States matters to Ukraine, it is also worthwhile considering how Ukrainians (Ukrainian-Americans) will matter in this election.
Given the strange American electoral system, certain states matter more than others. Ukrainian-Americans are 1% of the population of Pennsylvania, and 0.5% of the population of Michigan. If Trump wins those two states, he will win the general election. If Harris wins those two states, then she will win the general election.
In Michigan, the number of Ukrainian-Americans is greater than Trump’s margin of victory in the state in 2016. In Pennsylvania, the number of Ukrainian-Americans is greater than Trump’s margin of victory in that state in 2016, and also greater than that of Biden’s margin of victory in 2020.
In other words, the votes of Ukrainian-Americans might decide whether Ukraine continues to exist.
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