As one would expect, U.S. Rep. Andy Kim was ready, willing and able to discuss foreign policy issues around the globe — both detailing his time in Afghanistan and analyzing current issues in East Asia and Europe.
The Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate — speaking Wednesday at the latest Meet the Candidates event at Fairleigh Dickinson University — said he was concerned with a movement toward “America First.”
“I certainly think it is in our best interest for the United States to continue to be a global leader, to continue to try to assert the international system and the recognition of the norms of international laws, as a country ourselves about to celebrate our 250th anniversary,” he told the crowd. “What does that mean, if we don’t stand up for other nations that are trying to protect their democracy and their freedom? It’s a very legitimate conversation to have.”
Unfortunately, Kim (D-3rd Dist.) told the crowd, it’s not the conversation that’s going on in Washington, where conversations are about politics, not policy, he said, and where the most complicated issues are reduced to binary choices — ones in which those who do not agree with you are immediately your enemy.
“I feel like we’re becoming this nation that’s addicted to anger,” he said. “We’re losing touch of this idea that we’re part of something bigger than all of us.
“I’ve often framed it as this crisis of empathy that we’re having as a nation right now. This idea that, ‘I’m always on the right side of history and, if you don’t agree with me, you’re on the wrong side of history.’”
Kim summed it up this way: “I think we need a lot more humility in our society right now,” he said.
###
Three things about Andy Kim
A few things you may not know about U.S. Rep. Andy Kim:
Son of immigrants: He is the son of immigrant parents from South Korea. His father overcame polio to earn a Ph.D. in genetics — later working at Coriell Institute for Medical Research in Camden.
“My father is someone who saw great minds and scientists of the generation before him nearly rid the world and nearly eradicate the plague of polio that disabled him — and he wanted to try to pay that forward by curing the next great disease, so he dedicated his life trying to cure cancer and Alzheimer’s,” he said.
Unusual college road trip: After graduating from Cherry Hill East, he attended Deep Springs College, a junior college in California that accepts only 13 students per year. The students study and work on a farm that sustains them.
“I wanted to try something different,” he said. “My mom always had this line when I was younger: ‘If you’re comfortable, you’re not trying hard enough.’”
He went on to the University of Chicago, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa before becoming a Rhodes Scholar.
Impressive friend group: Kim studied at the University of Oxford with Pete Buttigieg, the U.S. secretary of transportation. They used to talk about how they could change the world. They still meet regularly — meetings they set up themselves.
“We would have lots of conversations in the pubs in Oxford about government and about politics,” he said. “It’s really meaningful to have somebody that I’ve known for so long in a place where we can now try to implement some of the things we talked about and hold ourselves true. We always make sure we communicate with each other directly to schedule things. We never get staff involved; we want to stay true to our relationship.”
Current U.S. Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), who was on the selection committee that chose Kim to be a Rhodes Scholar, has become a longtime friend.
By now, almost everyone knows the story of Kim, a Rhodes Scholar who worked in the State Department before surprisingly jumping into the race for Congress in 2018 — and then, even more surprisingly, winning the first of what has become three terms.
Through the more than hourlong conversation with FDU’s Peter Woolley, the founding director of its School of Public and Global Affairs, Kim showed himself to be smart, passionate, humble — and seemingly more committed to public service than political power.
He offered thoughts on China (saying its biggest concerns may be internal rather than external) and on the fear of conflict between China and Taiwan (he said a direct conflict between the U.S. and China would cost tens of thousands of lives and produce a global economic meltdown not seen since the Great Depression).
As a highly regarded expert on foreign relations (he served as a civilian adviser to Gen. David Petraeus in Afghanistan and worked as a national security adviser under President Barack Obama), Kim said his biggest concern moving forward was a push to pull back from being a global superpower.
The conversation on Ukraine isn’t about strategy or level of support — but whether the U.S. should be there at all. That’s not good, Kim said.
“What we see right now is the emergence and the growth of a new neo-isolation — a proposal that I think is very dangerous,” he said.
“America First, on the national level, translates to America Only. This idea that America is big enough and strong enough to just handle itself, and that we shouldn’t have to worry about what happens outside, is disregarding the fact that so much of our global power and strength came from our ability to shape the global order after World War II.
“The international system that so many people rage against, like the UN, are actually structures that have helped our country to be so strong going forward.”
###
Kim wasn’t afraid to say that elected officials in Congress are a big part of this problem.
“We have to resist the idea that everything can be produced to binary positions,” he said. “I really do think that that’s something that has just caused so much toxicity. It’s sad that, so oftentimes, colleagues of mine are fueling this — just weaponizing divisions in this country for their own political purposes and games, to try to supercharge their careers and get viral moments.
“Even committee hearings in Congress — they’re no longer there to actually do the position of oversight. They’re what I call performative governance: They’re just for theater.”
Kim said he’s running for Senate and determined to stay in government because he has seen the good that government can do.
While working in the Obama administration, he was a key adviser in the plan that helped the U.S. and other nations fight back against ISIS after the Sinjar massacre, preventing a genocide of Yazidis.
“It was just an absolutely mind-boggling experience (seeing) what the United States could do to save 50,000 people on top of the mountaintop in the middle of enemy territory on the other side of the world,” he said.
“I often say: ‘I saw the best of America. I saw the best of our country. I saw a government that could inspire, a government that was truly trying to think through how to help people and use our power in this country in a way that could save lives.’ So, it gives me hope.”
