Harris’s Selection of Tim Walz as Running Mate:

A Sign that Grass Roots Pressure Can Change U.S. Foreign Policy?

Democrats and progressives were, by in large, pleased by President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from his 2024 reelection campaign and the impending nomination of Vice President Kamala Harris to replace him. There was a palpable sense of relief that there was a fighting chance to defeat former president Donald Trump and the existential threat he represents to democracy. However, left-progressives continue to oppose the Biden Administration’s support for the genocide in Gaza and its twin failures to pursue diplomacy to end the war in Ukraine and to return to nuclear arms control.

Some on the left question calling our country a democracy given corporate domination of the media and politics and U.S. interference in overthrowing governments around the world. The danger to the limited democratic rights we have within the U.S. polity is real, however. Recall the January 6, 2021, insurrection, the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade and granting Trump immunity for official acts, and the former president’s statements about being a dictator on day one of a new term and assuring Christians they would not have to vote again after 2024.

Although the threat to democracy at home is real, left critics, peace advocates, and establishment scholars like Jeffrey Sachs and John Mearsheimer are correct in seeing U.S. advocacy of democracy abroad as rhetoric without substance. U.S. presidents and their foreign policy advisors have for nearly eighty years sought hegemony for the U.S. and its corporate elite.

A History of Recent U.S. Wars and Interventions

I don’t want to underestimate the difficulty that peace advocates face. Those of us favoring peace and diplomacy have been on a losing streak for decades. Although there have been occasional successes for peace forces, which I’ll return to below, this incomplete list of U.S. decisions for war and military action and against diplomacy is devastating.

• Invasion of Panama (1986)

• Gulf War (1991)

• President Clinton’s decision to expand NATO eastward despite promises to the Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia that we would not do so. (1993-94 and ongoing thereafter by successive presidents)

• Bombing of Yugoslavia (1998)

• U.S. withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (2002)

• The invasions of Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003).

• Intervention in Libya and overthrow of its government (2011)

• Overthrow of Ukrainian government (2014)

• Failure to implement the Minsk agreements on Ukraine (2014-15)

• U.S. pulls out of Iran nuclear deal (2018)

• U.S. withdraws from intermediate nuclear missile treaty (2019)

• U.S. rejection of Russian offer to negotiate on Ukraine (2021)

• U.S. and U.K. scuttle tentative agreement to end fighting in Ukraine (April 2022)

• U.S., NATO, and Germany announce (2024) U.S. deployment of “long-range strike capabilities in Germany” starting in 2026

These war-like actions occurred under Democratic and Republican presidents including during the Trump and Biden presidencies.

Victories for Pro-Peace Forces are Possible

The ability of the corporate elite to shape both the general outlook of U.S. foreign policy and specific international issues is great but not absolute. There are several examples of grass roots mobilizations that brought about a shift in U.S. foreign policy. In some cases, grass roots mobilizations moved the Congress and in other cases the mobilizations moved the president. These victories came from diverse sectors of society.

The Roosevelt Era

During the 1930s, two foreign policy goals of President Roosevelt were frustrated by grass roots isolationist opposition. FDR was headed to securing the ratification of U.S. entry into the World Court in 1935. A radio broadcast by Father Charles Coughlin and opposition by the Hearst newspapers led to members of the Senate being inundated with protest messages. The president no longer had the votes to secure ratification of the treaty. Today, we would view this example as an unfortunate retreat from participating in the world community in a positive and peaceful manner. Nevertheless, this is a particularly good example of the public having an impact on government foreign policy decision-making.

Roosevelt was far from being an interventionist in the early to mid-1930s, but the Congress went further in an isolationist direction than the president favored. The investigation by the Nye Committee (the Special Committee on Investigation of the Munitions Industry), increased the already common view that the U.S. should not get into another European war.  With an impending attack on Ethiopia by Italy in 1935, there was widespread sentiment in the country for neutrality legislation. Roosevelt sought to secure language which would have given him flexibility in the implementation of the Neutrality Act. He failed to get the freedom he sought.

The Vietnam War Era

Protests against the Vietnam War started with small demonstrations, but mobilizations became massive and eventually the majority of the public opposed the war. The protest movement contributed to President Lyndon Johnson’s decision to begin negotiations and to withdraw from his 1968 reelection campaign. In the wake of the massive October 15, 1969 Moratorium and November 15, 1969 March on Washington, President Richard Nixon reversed a decision to bomb the dikes in North Vietnam and to use tactical nuclear weapons. Soon after, Nixon began the policy of Vietnamization.

Beginning in 1970, the Congress, reflecting public opinion, took action to bring the war to an end. It repealed the Tonkin Gulf Resolution that authorized presidential action in Vietnam and then began using its control of the purse strings to put limits on the fighting. The enormous and unnecessary death and destruction continued for several years, but the U.S. eventually agreed to withdraw its forces in January 1973. The Paris Peace Accords signed by the U.S. and the Vietnamese parties provided for the unification of Vietnam and that “the United States will contribute to healing the wounds of war and to postwar reconstruction of the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam and throughout Indochina.” The peace advocates in the U.S. played an important role in ending the war.

The Reagan Era

Upon his accession to the presidency, President Ronald Reagan declared his opposition to the Soviet Union and his determination to avoid the negotiations which several of his predecessors had engaged in. Asserting that the Soviets were ahead of the U.S. in nuclear arms capability, Reagan pushed increased military spending, the development of the Strategic Defense Initiative, placing intermediate nuclear missiles in Europe, and aggressive anti-Sovietism. In reaction to these policies, a nuclear freeze movement erupted in the United States with over one million people gathering in Central Park in New York City on June 12, 1982. An anti-missile movement developed in Europe as well. These developments – along with the rise of a new Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev -- led to a reversal of policy by the Reagan Administration and the negotiation of the INF treaty to eliminate a class of nuclear weapons for the first time.

The Iraq War and the War in Syria

Over ten million people worldwide protested the impending invasion of Iraq on February 15, 2003. It was not enough to stop the invasion. Anti-war activists persisted. The invasion was based on the lie that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. A considerable minority of the public opposed the invasion and eventually a majority came to the same view. This reality was a factor in the Democrats’ success in the 2006 mid-term election and in Barack Obama’s victory in the 2008 election.

For his part, President Obama retreated from a plan for a major escalation of U.S. intervention in the Syrian conflict, in part because Congress members, both Democratic and Republican, heard from constituents that they did not want the U.S. to involve our country in another Middle East war.

Gaza and the Ukraine War

The Biden Administration’s conduct of a proxy war in Ukraine and its support for Israel’s genocidal war against Gaza are failing policies. Not only are the goals of defeating Russia and destroying Hamas unattainable, but the administration is also risking nuclear confrontation in one conflict and a general Mideast war in the other. Neither of these policies is popular with the public, but grass roots mobilization has focused on ending the genocide in Gaza. Although the majority of the U.S. public does not yet view Israel’s actions as constituting genocide, a large majority wants to see a permanent ceasefire in Gaza. Biden has on more than one occasion spoken in favor of a ceasefire, but he has refrained from using the United States’ power as Israel’s arms supplier and diplomatic protector to force a change in Israel’s behavior.

Harris’s Selection of Tim Walz

Democratic constituencies’ enthusiasm for Harris’s candidacy has led to volunteering, contributions to her campaign, and favorable responses by the public as a whole as reflected in public opinion polling. Trump’s selection of J.D. Vance as his running mate has proved to be a major glitch in his campaign. Would Harris’s choice of a vice-presidential running mate also be problematical for the Democrats?

The selection of Philadelphia as the site for Harris’s first appearance with her running mate made it seem that Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro had the inside track. On August 2, 2024, Axios reported that “White House, campaign and party sources” say “all signs point” to Shapiro. Pollster Nate Silver declared that Shapiro was the smartest choice because of Pennsylvania’s status as the most important swing state. However, Shapiro’s support for dismantling the pro-Palestinian encampment at the University of Pennsylvania was among several of the governor’s actions causing concern among progressives. The movement by supporters of a Gaza ceasefire and Palestinian rights to send uncommitted delegates to the Democratic convention came out strongly against Shapiro.

While pleased that Biden withdrew from the race, spokespeople for the uncommitted movement, which attracted 700,000 votes in Democratic primaries, want Harris to support an embargo on arms to Israel as a way of securing a permanent ceasefire. The selection of Tim Walz as her vice-presidential pick seems to indicate that Harris is listening to progressives, peace voters, and the uncommitted movement. Walz praised the uncommitted movement as “civically engaged.” As Business Insider put it, “Harris hands progressives a major victory by selecting Gov. Tim Walz as her VP.” Elianne Farhat, of the Uncommitted movement, praised Walz as a leader who has evolved on issues like gun control but that “it's crucial he continues this evolution by supporting an arms embargo on Israel's war and occupation against Palestinians in an effort to unite our party to defeat authoritarianism in the fall." Peace voters need to keep up their focus on the issue of ending the genocide in Gaza as well advocating a shift in U.S. foreign policy generally from war to diplomacy.