John Bolton, former Drumpf National Security Advisor, announces (on Good Morning Britain, of all places) that he will run for president in 2024.
John Bolton is a very smart guy, and not remotely the alien monster the media bills him as. But this will go nowhere.
Bolton is a blunt instrument - a club wrapped in barbed wire. He's a power-player who will get down in the dirt, and an administrative machine who knows what kind of scheming, blackmail, and intimidation it takes to manage a bureaucracy successfully. On an administrative level, he'd be a great president. But he'll never get the chance because a guy like Bolton makes a lot of enemies and victims, but very few friends. He is the antithesis to Joe Biden - Bolton is always firing on all cylinders, he's disciplined, stays on message, and he's both more honest and a better liar than Joe. But Joe Biden is living proof (living, at least, from toes to shoulders) of what being a back-slapping deal-maker with no particular principles will get you.
So Bolton won't get anywhere near sitting at the big desk. But he's goddam well-qualified for it.
I honestly don't know much about him, but I do know there's no chance he ends up the nominee. I'd be very surprised if it's anyone other than DeSantis.
Yale-educated, Summa Cum Laude. Took a student deferment while in college, then enlisted in the National Guard for four years and Army Reserve for two. Completed Yale Law while in the Guard. Has freely admitted since 1995 that he enlisted in the National Guard upon graduation in 1970 because it reduced the odds he'd be sent to Vietnam. He'd supported the war, but decided that the Johnson and Nixon administrations had so bolloxed it that it was a futile struggle so he did what he could to avoid it. Unlike George W Bush, Bolton didn't have the protection of a powerful daddy (his dad was a fireman, mom a homemaker), and unlike anyone including Joe Biden (5 deferments before being "medicaled" because he'd had asthma as a child), he cops to avoiding Vietnam.
The guy is not a "statesman," if that word has any meaning anymore. The Washington establishment fears him because of his integrity and his bluntness. You can disagree with his principles and convictions, but it cannot be denied by any remotely objective analysis that he has them and has a long history of refusing to compromise them. He's pissed off not only Democrats, but has without fail pissed off the Republican presidents for which he's worked, including both W and Trump.
He's a foreign policy hawk, and unabashedly convinced that American foreign policy should pursue American interests first. That got him associated with the Neocons, but that is an absurdity. The Neocons advocated nation-building and regime change, and Bolton opposes those notions. In Bolton's view, American power should not be used to attempt to spread Democracy, because that's a fool's errand. American power pursues American interests and forces other nations to toe the line. So, the Neocons hated Bolton.
Bolton is the only DC guy I'm aware of that takes a realistic view of the nature of foreign relations and admits it. He sees foreign relations as a war that must be fought because there is no stasis to be achieved. A nation either expands its influence on the world, or it will be controlled by the nations that do. And he believes that the United States is uniquely qualified to influence the world. I have a lot of sympathy for this view, because China and Russia aren't qualified for it and no other nations are even in the race.
Bolton's appeal to me is that he won't conceal his views under happy horseshit like "peaceful coexistence" or "detente" or "a thousand points of light" or "compassionate conservatism." He's a realist. But that is also why he'll never be president. He scares people. Especially politicians. Foreign politicians above all.
