The CNN Republican debate is now history. There are two immediate impressions that emerge from this lengthy slugfest
The GOP contenders have seized on fear as a winning campaign strategy. To listen to them, Americans are scared to death. So much gloom and doom from that stage that it felt stifling most of the time. And the suggestions kept coming — freeze on immigration, increase spying, treat American citizens as enemy combatants, kill terrorists’ families, build a “great” wall at the border. And of course all of this gets nicely tied with why we should increase deportations … and why “immigration reform” is a phrase made up of two very very dirty words.
Forgive this one instant of levity on my part, but because we are back in “Star Wars” mode, this seems so apt
But this is no time for jokes.
And through the incoherence and (often) the outright stupidity (Trump said we should shut down “parts” of the internet)… This is the theme that is emerging. Republicans are angry. The anger on that stage (and, incidentally, on the stage of the undercard debate) was as quick and earnest and visceral as anything I have seen in a very long time (GOP 2008 convention comes to mind). The anger is palpable… “Their” country is being betrayed. “Their” values are being maligned… “Don’t tell me what it means to be a Christian,” Huckabee almost screamed. The neocon hydra screams the same message through all of its heads.
Again, it boils down to the hatred of President Obama. It is not merely that they want to win in 2016, they want to do so on a platform that re-fights all the fights of the 2007 and 2008 campaign. “I miss George W. Bush,” Lindsey Graham declared in an increasingly giddy, almost hysterical tone, “I wish he was President right now!” So back we go into fighting over ending the war in Iraq prematurely (Jeb!), back to “why would we close Guantanamo Bay”, back to unconscionable and irresponsible military cuts under Obama. And the absolutely disgusting cynical suggestion of former Governor Pataki — no, he would not re-instate the draft, he would instead “restore” a “full form” of the GI Bill. How generous of you, governor… If poor kids want to go to college, let’s not talk about student loans, or how to make education accessible here and now… Want to go to college? Well, the GOP offers you to sign up for military service first… This was so awful in the context of GOP’s entire anti-education stance that, for me at least, it stood out.
But aside from the anger, what is absolutely astounding is the lack of any coherence, any shred of thoughtfulness, indeed, any discernible strategy about ISIS. It boils down to more bombing, putting forces on the ground, and the new magical idea that seems to have taken over the GOP collective foreign policy brain — the “no fly zone”. To listen to Christie (him of the executive experience), he would just be so tough on Russia, he would shoot any Russian plane that violated the “no fly zone”? Quick, someone educate him about nuclear weapons, and their possession by Russia. But, individual nuances aside, the GOP wants to have a more active, muscular position in the Middle East. As in, do more bombing, put troops on the ground, spend more money, and, incidentally, reject the Iran deal. Truly, we have come to a place where the GOP candidates probably believe quite earnestly that most global problems can be solved by throwing around our military might. It is all the more astounding to hear this from people like Cruz and Rubio who, being in the Senate, must be aware of what the recent wars have cost in both lives and money and how very little we have to show for all that (and, I just found myself agreeing with Donald Trump who surprised at least Carly Fiorina when he declared that we “have nothing” to show for all the money spent in Iraq/Afghanistan and the money would have been better spent in the US itself. What was that? Fiorina sounded outraged, “This is JUST what President Obama says!”)
So here is the new GOP… Gloom and doom, and more wars and more wasteful spending, and institutionalized bigotry against Muslims. Somewhere Ronald Reagan, him of the “shining city on a hill,” must be spinning in his grave faster than a quasar. I am more determined than ever that NO Republican can be allowed to win in 2016. As America has moved away from the GOP culturally and demographically, the GOP’s response appears to be the response of the desperate and the doomed… Not a self-examination, not a catharsis of any kind, not difficult decisions, not admission of wrong-headedness and wrongdoing not a reaching out and a reconciliation. But a shutting down, a resort to violence and bigotry, both abroad, but also here at home. A denial of reality and a — dangerous — conflation of the idea of leadership with military force. Truly we are at a crossroads.