The calendar turns to 2024, and the world under President Joe Biden's watch is burning.
The United States' southern border has reached a historically catastrophic state; overrun border towns such as Lukeville, Arizona and Eagle Pass, Texas are the laughingstocks of the world. Further south in our hemisphere, socialist thug Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela threatens to infringe upon neighboring Guyana's territorial sovereignty.
In Eastern Europe, the Russia-Ukraine war, now nearly two years in the making, shows little sign of abating. In the Middle East, Israel's multifront war against Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and other extremists in Judea and Samaria is spilling over to a regional conflagration. U.S. military bases in Iraq and Syria have been attacked over 100 times since Hamas' Oct. 7 pogrom; the Iran-funded Houthis in Yemen fire indiscriminately at commercial tankers and control the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, a crucial global trade chokepoint.
In the Far East, Communist China's hegemonic ambitions grow clearer by the day; strongman Xi Jinping openly threatens the Philippines, and Taiwan sits squarely in Beijing's crosshairs. If that weren't scary enough, the U.S. arsenal is so depleted that Japan, which has been largely demilitarized since World War II, recently sold Patriot guided missiles to the U.S.
At home, Americans have not been this politically or culturally divided since the 1850s. And "Bidenomics," which this president stubbornly makes the basis for his reelection campaign, remains less popular than venereal disease.
Let's hope things don't get much worse in 2024. Here is a partial wish list for what I would like to see in the new year:
1. Defeat Joe Biden in November. It is difficult to describe just how disastrous the Biden presidency has been. Beginning with the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, the world has imploded under his negligent watch. At home, inflation has reached four-decade highs, the economy entered a recession, real wages have stagnated, and skyrocketing mortgage rates have put homeownership out of reach for an entire generation. Meanwhile, this most divisive of presidents censors dissident speech, compares his leading opponent to Hitler, and sadistically sics the full power of the federal government on his partisan opponents. At this late hour of the republic, it is incumbent that Joe Biden be retired to his Delaware basement.
2. End America's Drug Overdose Epidemic. The single most under-discussed but disproportionately important issue in the United States is the sickening rate at which Americans -- especially younger ones -- are committing suicide and dying of drug overdose-induced "deaths of despair." Whereas in 1992, drug overdose deaths in America tallied just over 5,000 annually, last year the number was roughly 110,000. Consider that the entire world partially shut down for years to fight COVID-19, which we now know was hardly any more dangerous than the flu. Our drug epidemic is far deadlier than COVID ever was. It is past time to conduct a whole-of-government effort against the lethal synthetic narcotics, such as fentanyl and the newly discovered opioid "nitazenes," that amount to Chinese-manufactured chemical warfare, dutifully laundered by the Mexican drug cartels, against America's youth.
3. End the Useless Proxy War in Ukraine. For over a year and a half now, the Volodymyr Zelenskyy regime in Kyiv has not been in any real risk of falling. Over that time, Ukraine's fight against its Russian aggressors has continued, but it has been primarily relegated to disputed areas of the Crimean peninsula and the ethnically divided Donbas region of far eastern Ukraine. It is not remotely obvious -- nor has it ever been obvious -- how the U.S. national interest is implicated over Russia and Ukraine sparring over towns and subregions that historically switched hands between sovereign powers and is today ethnically divided. "Support Ukraine's maximal demands to defend Taiwan and deter China!" shout the neoconservatives. Far better to simply do that: Redeploy our limited arms to our allies in the strategic Indo-Pacific region.
4. Support Israel in Its War Against Barbaric Jihad. Unlike the situation in Ukraine, the United States has an unequivocal interest in supporting Israel to the hilt in its now-multifront war against Sunni and Shiite jihadists. Many American citizens were killed in Hamas' Oct. 7 pogrom, and many more remain hostages in Gaza. Furthermore, the global jihad has been remarkably emboldened since Oct. 7, and Israel must now deal a fatal blow to the forces of darkness so that their vile supporters all over the world pipe down and take a seat. Finally, stability in the Middle East, a core U.S. interest, is best achieved when Israel is fully supported and otherwise left to its own devices; the Abraham Accords peace agreements are an enduring testament.
May this be a year where the forces of civilizational sanity prosper and the forces of civilizational arson and barbarism are vanquished. Happy New Year to all.
To find out more about Josh Hammer and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.