August 2, 2019
For two nights this week, we enjoyed a welcome respite from Trump’s relentless and corrosive hatred. During two nights of the second Democratic Presidential debates, CNN’s “random” drawing put all of the candidates of color on the second night and isolated the progressive frontrunners (Sanders and Warren) from the moderate one (Biden). CNN’s set up promised spectacle, rather than substance, with the neon lit podiums on stage at the Fox Theater and the candidates entering to Hans Zimmer-like fanfare (h/t Jon Lovett). The format was expressly designed to elicit internecine conflict, with Jake Tapper in bookish glasses asking the candidates to respond to criticism from another candidate sharing the stage.
The lower tier candidates: John Delaney (who?), Syrian apologist and homophobe, Tulsi Gabbard, and Mayor Bill DeBlasio, took shots at the frontrunners in a desperate effort to create a viral moment that would elevate their standings in the polls. Morning-after quarterbacks fretted that the sniping was a wasted opportunity to clearly and simply articulate the Democrats’ positive vision for the country, (Source: “CNN Debates Took On Fever Pitch of Reality TV,” by James Poniewozik, The New York Times, 8/2/19).
Although both debates featured detailed and granular discussion of healthcare policy, getting into the weeds of the differences between the Sanders/Warren Medicare For All proposal and Kamala Harris’s hybrid plan, the debates were just as notable for what was missing. There was virtually no mention of reproductive rights, despite the spate of draconian laws criminalizing abortion that have been passed in recent months, or of other issues important to women (Source: “The first round of Democratic debates courted female voters. The second is ignoring them,” by Anna North, Vox.com, 8/1/19). On the first night, which featured no candidates of color, race was barely mentioned, despite Trump’s escalation of explicitly racist attacks in recent weeks, (Source: “Two Nights, Two Very Different Ways of Talking About Race,” by Adrienne Green, The Atlantic, 8/1/19). And, other than Michael Bennett’s impassioned plea to disrupt the school to prison pipeline, the urgent need to provide a quality K-12 education for all was not mentioned, even though without it, debt free college will exacerbate the racial wealth gap.
In short, the Americans being targeted and persecuted by this administration were treated as an afterthought in these debates. Despite the fact that we have a vicious sociopath in the Oval Office who revels in persecuting the marginalized, these debates took place in a parallel universe where the biggest issue at stake is the tax impact of the elimination of employer based healthcare on middle class Americans.
For two nights we indulged in the fantasy that this is a normal election, that we live in a stable country where we can dispassionately choose among an array of intelligent, fundamentally decent people, sanguine that whoever wins will put this country, and the majority of its citizens, first.
That was a lovely dream, but Thursday night the alarm went off. It’s time to wake up.