Reflections on the Dystopian Debate
by Janet Singer, CGB Political Director
I felt compelled to watch the Republican debate last week and am very thankful to have had the company of a virtual group of iron-stomached Crimson Goes Blue members while doing so. Though I read about all the candidates constantly, I rarely watch them in action, and it is good to have an unfiltered reality view every so often–-but not too often.
The debate was shocking. Though I know that a viable Republican presidential candidate has to appeal to the Republican primary voter, witnessing the candidates’ vitriol, reckless disregard for decency, facts, and our institutions was truly astonishing. A young conservative voter, Alexander Diaz, posed this question: “Polls consistently show that young people's number one issue is climate change. How would you as both president of the United States and leader of the Republican Party calm their fears that the Republican Party doesn't care about climate change?” And here was the response from provocateur Vivek Ramaswamy: “The climate change agenda is a hoax…And the reality is the anti-carbon agenda is the wet blanket on our economy. And so, the reality is more people are dying of bad climate change policies than they are of actual climate change.” So I guess the response to young voters who fear that the Republican Party doesn’t care about climate change is “Yep!” There were similarly extreme statements about shooting migrants at the border and criminalizing abortion. There were commitments to shut down the federal Department of Education, the FBI, the ATF, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the IRS, and the Department of Commerce. Candidates vowed to fire the fictitious 87,000 IRS agents featured in GOP fundraising appeals and double the number of Border Patrol agents. They asserted that if God made you a man, you played sports against men; that the nuclear family is the greatest form of governance known to man; and that Americans are bound by a common set of ideals that set this nation in motion in 1776—among them that God is real, there are two genders, and reverse racism is racism. Nikki Haley, Asa Hutchinson, and Chris Christie were the only ones who—at least occasionally—made points that were not extreme during the 2-hour spectacle.
To be clear, I don’t believe any of the debaters has a chance to overcome Trump’s overwhelming lead for the nomination. It’s early to make such a prediction, but I believe that only an extreme external event–a heart attack, an early felony conviction, some kind of mass rebellion at the Republican convention–could change that.
It was disturbing to listen to the candidates spewing ugly out-of-touch rhetoric, but it left me with two concluding thoughts. 1. The Republican candidates for president are so out of touch with the population who will vote in the general election that I feel confident in our ability to win the presidency. 2. We must do everything in our power to make sure that we do in fact win, because if Trump or any of the extremists on the debate stage becomes president in 2024, they will have both the will and the means to destroy our democracy.
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