What the first primary debate may have been most helpful in clarifying is where Fox News is placing its bets. I tuned in to the debate just a few minutes before the scheduled time and heard one of the moderators Megyn Kelly give a brief rave review for Carly Fiorina’s performance at the earlier forum. Later I tried to read what Fiorina had said that was so impressive and failed to find anything special though Fox News continued to declare her a breakout winner. Meanwhile, following the main event, Republican operator, pollster, and message guru said that his focus group analysis indicated that Donald Trump’s performance had destroyed his candidacy.
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So I did my civic duty and watched the first debate of the Republican primaries last night. There were really no surprises. Almost all the speakers responded to each question with a brief general statement vaguely related to the question before using it to segue quickly to a recitation of prepared talking points touting their records, such as they are, on issues that may or may not have had anything to do with the question. There were the expected denunciations of president Obama, Hillary Clinton, Planned Parenthood, abortions, Obamacare, and the Iran deal, and calls for strengthening the military, building walls to keep out undocumented immigrants, and waging vigorous war against terrorism and in the Middle East.
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The recent release of heavily edited videos purportedly showing officials of Planned Parenthood selling tissue from aborted fetuses tried to make out that they were engaging in a surreptitious, illegal, profit-making activity when in fact they were only doing what the law allows, and that is to recover the costs incurred in supplying tissue for medical research. Heather Digby Parton explains how the outfit that produced the videos was working closely with some Republican members of Congress to produce this coordinated attack.
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One of the enduring mysteries of American politics is why so many people are so supportive and admiring of wealthy people who in return have nothing but contempt for them and do everything they can to enrich themselves at their expense. Many people of ordinary means seem to think that F. Scott Fitzgerald was wrong and that the rich are like you and me.
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Is it only me or is anyone else embarrassed by the antics of the various Republican candidates in their willingness to do things that make them look ridiculous? Have they learned nothing from the past of John Kerry dressed in a weird-looking biohazard suit and crawling through a tube, looking for all the world like one of the sperm in the Woody Allen film Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex But Were Afraid to Ask?
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The first Republican debate is on August 6, 2015. Normally, I would never have dreamed of wasting two hours of my life watching an early Republican primary debate. Who wants to see a bunch of wealthy oligarch-serving warmongers try and outdo each other in pandering to their xenophobic, homophobic, misogynistic, science-denying base, especially since it is being shown on Fox News and I do not have cable TV? But thanks to Donald Trump, I am so intrigued about what might happen that I am going to the trouble of going to a friend’s house to see it. And it is clear that I am not the only one who has been suckered into giving what Fox News expects to be a ratings bonanza. Even their decision to limit it to ten candidates has had the effect of heightening suspense with breathless discussions of who is in and who is out.
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