I’m starting this post while watching the first Democratic debate. Too many candidates, of course – I think that’s obvious. It’s kind of dizzying, frankly. John Delaney wants to double the earned income tax credit … whoopdee doo, right? What the hell is that fucker doing there? He wants to keep what’s working, like … private health care? What the fuck. This is like some kind of game show.
Highlights? Well, on night one, Elizabeth Warren put in a strong performance, but with nine colleagues to compete with on time – and sixty second answers – it’s hard to get to a substantive level on any issue. Foreign policy was, as always, a rough spot, with questions about “red lines” and “duty to protect”. In my mind, this points to one of the biggest drawbacks of these corporate-sponsored, major network hosted candidate forums. The questions strongly reflect what the mainstream media considers the broadly held political consensus on major issues.
With respect to foreign policy, when Lester Holt asks candidates where they would draw a “red line”, he’s drawing on the Syrian war debate during the Obama administration, when hawks backed the president into a corner of his “red line” comment, hoping to get another American invasion of the middle east out of it. Obama disappointed them, but has been called out for “fecklessness” ever since by the Joe Scarboroughs of the world. The idea that there should be some “red line” beyond which we plunge ourselves into a murderous, costly, and self-destructive conflict is simply ludicrous. I’m not a huge fan of Tulsi Gabbard, but she was the only one on that stage that seriously pushed back on that and on the “humanitarian intervention” question.
Then there was the question, again from Holt, to Elizabeth Warren about whether she would agree to any restrictions on abortion. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out the premise for that question. Trump has been running around the country, describing with glee his fairy stories about newborn infant executions at the hands of craven women and their nefarious abortion doctors. This question was an attempt to get the candidates to weigh in on mythical late-term abortions, and thankfully no one took the bait, though I wish one of these candidates would just swat that bullshit down, once and for all.
The second debate was kind of a crap show. I will return to that in next week’s installment.
luv u,
jp
What about policy? It doesn’t look good, frankly, and it’s kind of depressing. Hillary Clinton is mouthing platitudes about inequality and being a “champion” for ordinary people, but that seems pretty clearly an effort to close off demand in her own party for a progressive alternative, like Elizabeth Warren. If she makes the right noises for a few months, it will be too late to mount any meaningful opposition. She is, of course, a mainstream interventionist on foreign policy, a supporter of the neoliberal order on economic policy, and generally a middle-of-the-road Democrat (or what was formerly known as a moderate Republican). Looking for a white knight – say, a Jim Webb? Don’t even. I just heard him obsessing over Iran this evening, like pretty much all of his fellow mainstream Dems. Warren and Sanders would have to abandon their political distinctiveness – i.e. their hostility towards bankers and lobbyists – to seriously compete in this money-heavy game, thereby abandoning any reason for supporting them.