24 Thoughts on the Fox Business GOP Debate
1) The combination of the debate being just 2 weeks after the last one and its elimination of two of the candidates really drives home that this is basically reality television. Ridiculous graphics, music, ding ding buzzer and crane shots just reinforce that reality.
2) Did not know that Patrick Stewartâs character from that Starz show would be a moderator.
3) Rubio sounded so good. Those complete sentences, one right after the other. Fear him.
4) But seriously, there are a limited number of winning campaigns in American politics. One of them is the âyoung guy who is uniquely poised to face generational challengesâ, like JFK, Bill Clinton, Obama. Rubio is smart enough to recognize that even if he disagrees with those liberal icons, he can learn something from their campaigns â just like Obama is smart enough to recognize that even though he disagrees with Ronald Reagan, Reagan demonstrated how to have an astonishingly effective modern presidency, up to and including getting a less ideological frenemy successor in place to secure your legacy.
5) Kasich is to the GOP today what Bill Clinton was to the Democratic Party in 1992. But theyâre not ready for him yet. Then again, the Dems werenât ready for Bill Clinton in 1988, when he notoriously bombed giving the DNC keynote address.
6) The reason Kasich sounds reasonable to Democrats and anathema to conservatives (Frank Luntzâs focus group savaged him despite Luntz serving up softball questions) is not because Kasich is liberal (he isnât), itâs because modern mainstream liberalism is mostly predicated on utilitarianism, and Kasich is a right-leaning utilitarian.
7) Indeed, one of the root causes of liberals and conservatives not understanding each other right now is that conservatives are deeply committed to an ideology, âsmall governmentâ â which they believe is necessary for freedom â but mainstream liberals are mostly committed to whatever advances specific policy goals. Liberals donât care about the governmentâs size so long as it âworksâ; conservatives see anything that increases the role of government (from raising the minimum wage to bailing out banks) as decreasing freedom.
8) Of course, what qualifies as âsmall governmentâ is up for debate, as seen in the exchange between Rubio and Paul about military spending. But Rubio and Paul are still both profoundly committed to some form of small government ideology, and Kasich is not, at least not rhetorically. He frames everything in terms of utilitarianism, in terms of making practical executive decisions that will help the most people. Itâs safe to say that he believes small government solutions are best most of the time, but as he himself said in the debate, âphilosophy doesn't work when you run something.â For most mainstream Dems, that comports with our general worldview. For conservatives, it just sounds feckless.
9) Trump appeals to another deeply held ideological conviction on the right, and that is respect for authority. Generally speaking, this is not a value for progressives: we tend to see the presence of undocumented immigrants, for example, in terms of a combination of economic good and general fairness, and the fact that people broke the law to come here is a relative side issue that can be settled with paying back taxes and a fine. For people who strongly value respect for authority, breaking the law is the biggest issue, full stop. THEY BROKE THE LAW! Trump succeeds because he unabashedly plays the authority figure and that deeply appeals to people who feel (not unreasonably) that the institutions of the country have run amok and we need a strong authority figure to put them in line.
10) The Respect for Authority wing and the Small Government wing often have as much difficulty understanding each other as liberals and conservatives. Thatâs why Trump can talk about progressive taxation being fair and not offend the Authority people while Rand Paul can favor âamnestyâ without offending the Small Government people â but their stances really piss off each otherâs crowds.
11) There are progressives who are strongly motivated by Respect for Authority (theyâre outraged by bankers breaking the law, for example), and Trump could win over those progressives, and more Republicans, if he werenât such an asshole. But his not being able to shut up about Carly Fiorina, a woman with whom heâs gotten himself in trouble before, demonstrates why thereâs a ceiling on his candidacy, even within the Republican Party. He could maintain every supporter he has now and he still wonât win the nomination because heâs holding steady around 30% of the party â the Authority crowd â and he cannot build beyond it. (It doesnât help that his answers to questions are thinner than his hair.)
12) Importantly, delegates are appointed proportionally in the first 10 primaries, so 30% of each can still keep Trump in the race for a while. But the last 40 primaries are winner take all, and by that point the field will have narrowed significantly, and 30% just wonât cut it.
13) Trump claims that nobody talks about North Korea. Um... Tell that to Seth Rogan.
14) Ben Carson appeals to yet another group on the right, the one that I think progressives most often forget about: really really nice people. These are the folks, disproportionately Christian, whose political ideology often comes down to, âIf everyone were just nicer to each other and did what they were supposed to do, the world would be a better place.â I know people like this personally, and they often really do try to live their life by that creed. Itâs admirable. And Carsonâs mellow affect gives the impression of a nice guy, not a dick like Trump or a politician like most of the rest of the field. You could go to church with him.
15) And speaking of Carson, note to self: If ever in a disagreement about something or accused of being inconsistent, just say some combination of the words âBenghaziâ, âterrorist attackâ, âliarâ, and âvideoâ, and people will cheer.
16) The audience booing at Hillary Clinton being described as âexperiencedâ (which she unassailably is no matter what you think of her personally), is a significant part of the reason why I take pleasure in supporting her. Intellectually, I support her because sheâs progressive enough, sheâs the best positioned person to uphold Obamaâs legacy, and I trust her to make appointments to the Supreme Court. Emotionally, I support her because sheâd be the first woman president and because she makes the other side go bonkers. I know, itâs not terribly mature, but as I wrote a year ago in the LA Times: âAs far as many of my fellow progressives and I are concerned, we offered an olive branch [with the conciliatory Obama] and the conservative movement replied by finding new and creative ways to call him the âN-wordâ.â Now they can deal with the woman of their nightmares.
17) Republicans call Hillary radical, but most of her proposals are tweaks to the existing system that would make it better for one group or another. The Republican proposals include things like deporting 11 million people, rewriting the tax code down to three pages, and other truly society-shaking experiments. In the lower case âcâ sense of the word, Hillary is much more conservative than these radicals â and Bernie probably is too.
18) As much as I disagree with its substance, I do appreciate Rand Paulâs ideological coherence and general sense of knowledge. When he waves his pen around while talking about defense spending, heâs professorial in a way that I find pleasantly familiar, and when he pointed out to Trump that China isnât in the TPP deal, I almost cheered. But there was a great irony when he was talking about needing to bring power back to the legislative branch and away from the executive. Iâm like, âDude, youâre a professorial Senator! Use the job you have to organize your peers and take power back! Doesnât that seem more likely to be effective than running a doomed presidential campaign?! That is, of course, unless your campaign is mostly just meant to raise your profile...â Oh, wait. Thatâs it.
19) Nobody has more successfully raised her profile in this race than Carly Fiorina. From failed HP exec to Fox News host in waiting. Not bad!
20) Of all the Republican candidates, sheâs the one Iâd most want to debate one on one because she speaks very intellectually about issues but in ways that are easily disproven. Like, she says that government intentionally creates a problem, then steps in to solve the problem, and thatâs how we get socialism. Really? You think that government specifically created the housing bust which almost shattered the world economy to enact Mitt Romneyâs healthcare plan? And if the government really did pull off that incredibly elaborate, years-long plot, how can you claim that government is incompetent? Only a real political outsider (or as itâs known to people who actually know things, ignoramus) could think that the U.S. government is able to hatch and execute a scheme that complicated.
21) Jeb Bush, the ultimate âinsiderâ candidate, had a relatively good night. But I feel like thatâs only because expectations were so dramatically lowered by previous debates. His comment about how âhigh growth is the path to lower carbonâ ludicrously inverts the entire challenge of fighting climate change: until very recently, economic growth was inextricably linked to the burning of carbon. Thatâs what âaddiction to oilâ and other common phrases are all about. Fortunately, thatâs changing, in part because of seed money for solar power that was in Obamaâs 2009 Recovery Act, and now the solar industry is taking off on its own. But the challenge of climate change is to permanently break the link between economic growth and burning carbon, not to somehow address carbon through growth.
22) Bringing things full circle, Ted Cruz unintentionally offers up the best argument Hillary has against Marco Rubio in a general election. Cruz says that he, like Rubio, is âthe son of an immigrant who came legally.â Which is great. But the reason Cruz and Rubioâs parents could come legally is because they were Cubans, who have a streamlined path to citizenship. I can see Hillary on a debate stage saying, âSenator Rubio, I just want other immigrants to have the same opportunity that your family had because they were Cuban, and I think itâs a shame that you donât.â
23) Rubioâs response to that line of attack would inevitably be to say that he does want immigrants to have the same opportunities and he does want comprehensive reform. (Itâll be the general election by that point so itâll be in his interest to support it). And then Hillary can trap him by saying, âYou supported immigration reform in the Senate and then voted against it because youâre under the thumb of extremists in the Republican Party. Hell, you stood on stage with Donald Trump for like 100 debates and never stood up to him. If you stand for nothing, sir, what will you fall for?â
24) And then she can break into âMy Shotâ.
