Manufacturing the Democratic Debates

We have all of us, those of us that bothered with the corporate media circus, just been witness to a new evolution of American political debates. Over the course of two nights we saw, & heard from 20 candidates. Many were pitiable, others are more viable contenders in the donor’s primary, & a couple perhaps, threaten to overcome the power structure behind the NBC curtains altogether.

If you didn’t watch the debates, you did yourself no disservice if your goal is to know which candidate will best serve your interests, or your ideals. The score of candidates leapt over one another to see who could be the most deceptive. You would have no way of knowing from the words of the candidates what they would really do, if they were to get into office (Except maybe for Yang, he’s definitely giving someone $1000 A month if he gets into office, it just isn’t going to be the people who need it the most). Already since the debate ended, Kamala Harris has walked back her promise of a single payer, Medicare for All bill, that effectively eliminates private medical insurance, as we suffer under today. If one didn’t know any better they might suspect that politicians don’t always tell the truth, & that they know that many voters will only watch debates, & forego a deeper surveillance of the candidates.

This sport of the debate is, for those of us who already know too much, simply a roller coaster ride of watching political fortunes rise & fall. We know which players we like, & which we don’t. The debate holds excitement only for the possibility of something going wrong for the home team, & something unpredictable, & fortuitous falling from heaven for the revolutionaries. For the players it is a game of machinations, manipulations, playing the crowd at home who doesn’t have the time, inclination, emotional reserve, or intellectual happenstance to have a deeper knowing of them, beyond their style & circumstance. As many have noted, & I will agree, if this were purely a superficial contest, & the debate existed in a void, & all words were the truth, then Kamala Harris clearly won over all other 19 candidates. But we know it isn’t quite that simple.

Wednesday was certainly the less exciting of the two debates, you could almost feel the hollow absence of the Vermont Senator over the audio. No one was quite so cringingly bombastic as Biden, with his antiquated social instincts, or Kamala with her flawless audition for Hamilton. The most exciting moment came when Tim Ryan proposed his unique 9/11 truth: that it was actually the Taliban that attacked us, & that’s why, after 16 years, we are still occupying Afghanistan. Tulsi Gabbard claimed what is likely the first kill of the primary, by energetically eviscerating the neoconservative buffoon, over his insane blunder. Beto O'Rourke, Julian Castro, & Cory Booker all competed to see who could vocalize the most aggressive Spanish accent, while somehow all failing to do much else, beyond some questionable use of personal anecdotes. Castro did manage some half-convincing emotional appeals, (that don’t match his record) about detainees at the border that merit something I suppose. If one didn’t know better they might be forgiven for thinking he has an actual heart of flesh & blood instead of a one cast in pig iron.

Bill De Blasio perhaps took the pretense too far, sounded vaguely like a swarthier Bernie Sanders, despite a pay to play scandal, record homelessness & low approval ratings in NYC just to name a few issues. The socialist mayor of Burlington he is not. John Delaney flailed about aimlessly as if the 90’s never ended, unrepentantly campaigning as a Republican. Amy Klobuchar tried to hawk her new brand of weak tea, waving family anecdotes around, & admonishing the prevailing, insufferable, state of affairs in America, & laying it mostly all on Trump, in hopes no one would notice how little she was offering as an alternative. Jay Inslee tried to make the case that he was the one, true, & only candidate that could handle climate change, but he didn’t do it very convincingly. Unfortunately for her, Elizabeth Warren’s entire night seemed to meld together, into one long “I care” voiced imitation of Bernie Sanders. Fortunately for her the moderators gave her the most uninterrupted speaking time, & the media declared her the winner afterwards(She apparently supports full, single payer, Medicare for All again, this week anyway). Tulsi Gabbard fell short of her potential, but scored well on the critical foreign policy issues. Despite ignoring one question completely, & instead delivering her stump speech, her performance was serviceable.

Night two, Thursday, had more adrenaline from the very beginning. While Bernie got the first statement, & hit the progressive litmus topics hard, not to be outflanked on healthcare, foreign policy, student debt & free college, & general revolution, he did find himself beset by unfriendly moderators & at least 8 other candidates aiming to diminish him. Kirsten Gillibrand did a better job than Klobuchar of playing progressive, but blended a bit too much into the wallpaper to push her candidacy foreword. Joe Biden, human flak jacket, provided a slowly moving target for a well rehearsed, generously accommodated Kamala Harris. Kamala, as if reading off a teleprompter, crushed racist Joe Biden into pulp with his problematic history on segregation, all while promoting her new T-shirt image for her merch store. Pete Buttigieg plagiarized some of my 2001 forum posts on how unchristian Christians can be, & gave Eric Swalwell some epic stink eye, for spoiling his “come to Jesus” moment, purporting to care about poor black lives killed by his police force.

Hickenlooper got voted off the island again for being Thursday night’s unrepentant Republican, if perhaps a second to Joe Biden. Marianne Williamson, despite half the speaking time of many of the other candidates picked up the most post debate internet interest. She managed to pull off not sounding like a politician, which is rarely a bad thing, sounded human, also good, & duly strident, what with being in a room full of psychopaths, & all. Andrew Yang was cut off at the knees, when another candidate started picking apart that much of his universal basic income(UBI) would be paid for with a regressive value-added-tax, or VAT tax. Beyond his UBI offering Yang had little else good to offer the audience. While his intensive supporters, that have presumably never met a conman before in their life, will likely stick with him for quite awhile, his ambitions this cycle are likely over, to be coming to a screeching, & irritating halt. Swalwell pinned his hopes on tearing Bernie down, on disingenuous gun’s issue attacks, & appeared to generally be trying to make as many enemies as possible, all around. If they’re going to reboot Back to the Future, I think they could do worse for a new Biff Tannen. As far as Michael Bennet goes, if I’m being honest, I’m still not quite sure who he is, or how he got on stage.

At the end of this opening salvo the chairs on the establishment Titanic have been shuffled a bit. As before with Harris, then O’Rourke, then Buttigieg, then Biden the numbers of the over 44 demographic will move somewhat fluidly, while the younger generations largely stick to the candidates they’ve already settled on. After selling themselves into indentured servitude, younger people have one thing going for them, & that’s a firm understanding of the series of tubes you’re reading this article on, & bringing extensive research to bear on who gets their T-shirt, & drunk donation money. That means that for many of them this debate didn't change much. For the people watching CNN, Fox & MSNBC, & following the election like a reality show, easily prodded by manipulation techniques developed over the decades, it will likely be fairly consequential. These older people may suddenly realize that maybe Biden being close to Obama for 8 years didn’t make him not a racist, & maybe in a time when their younger, overt, bigotry is no longer fashionable, & they want to distinguish themselves from Trumpism, that Biden is someone they’ll have to kick to the curb.

It’s clear that the moderators of these debates had their favorites, & the litany of programs commenting on it afterward had theirs. I too, of course have my favorites. But I have a cheap laptop & have to ask permission from the wife to spend on nonessentials, not the purse of billionaires & their corporations to bring to bear. Kamala wins the debates if you had no prior knowledge of how she acted as a district attorney, & prosecutor in California, or if you don’t know who her donors are, & who she associates with, or how often she makes major policy support changes as it suits her needs.

If you find yourself caught flat footed, with little frame of reference for these candidates, on which to judge the truth of their statements, maybe skip the debates, & spend some time instead poking around the internet for some straight dope. Leave the song & dance of these manipulated, marionette, masquerades, to those of us too obsessed to know any better.

-Nial Rortsfike Elkim

@nialelkim