The Democrats laid another egg last night. So did CNN and the New York Times. In fact, anyone who watched that charade should feel like they lost. If nothing else, that’s more than three-and-a-half hours of life you will never get back. This was not a debate; it was milquetoast political theater. It was the exact sort of thing that placates the type of people who don’t win you Ohio, or Pennsylvania, or Michigan. A show. A play. A poorly organized rant against all the freedoms and prosperity that 300 years of internal struggle has chiseled into the sloppy frame that is America. The way the Democrats speak about the country, it’s easy to recognize just how much they loathe and detest its very existence.
On a night that sorely needed some backstabbing, any thoughts of Caesar were submarined by the better natures of their liberal politeness and the cold, whitewashed CNN moderators who seemed intent to keep the discord pleasant and viably ‘woke’.
Debate Night
The purpose of a debate is for candidates to put opposing arguments forward. For the fourth time this year, everyone except for Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard sounded like one big, sad, scripted Target commercial.
In a long, meandering snoozefest, the elite class of left-wing grifters and hucksters laid out their barren and identical platforms, each gasping for air until there was hardly any left in the room. For long stretches of the night, the very idea of a debate that cut across the real concerns of an existentially engrossed American people seemed lost and out of sight.
Instead of focusing on the very real economic and constitutional threat that China poses to our way of life, the Democrats spent the early portion of the debate, red in the face, agreeing about the importance of a Ukrainian comedian-turned-president, Vladimir Putin, the Kurds, and Bashar al-Assad. The Democrats refused to explain, in concrete terms, how they will build on top of a historically strong economy and how much they precisely intend to take out of our paychecks. For the Democrats, the most important aspect of the debate and this race is to beat the ultimate boss in Trump and delegitimize a man they cannot tolerate.
The clear winners of this debate were anyone but the candidates on the stage. At this point, Michelle Obama, Michael Bloomberg, Oprah Winfrey, Beyonce, and pretty much anyone with a pulse and an American passport has a better chance of beating President Trump than this gaggle of agreeable suburbanites and hipster-moms turned globalists.
Debate Fright
How many times will Democrats roll out this dead propaganda to an increasingly apathetic electorate? Why do they believe any of their unproven and insane policy points are a winning strategy? Have they built such an insulated bubble around their ideology that it’s impossible to see how far removed they are now from the average American voter?
Democrats are proposing the greatest centralization of the American government in the history of the country and they’re doing it with mom jokes and fake hugs. They are plainly telling the American people that they will significantly raise taxes on unproven government schemes, take the guns of law-abiding citizens, provide taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand, open the borders and pay for the health care of thousands of new migrants, continue the shelling of the Middle East, and impose strict laws on manufacturing, trade, and even diet to regulate the climate crisis.
Hell, compared to these candidates, even Hillary Clinton looks surprisingly sharp.
Gabbard is easily the most likable person in the field. In many ways, her anti-war belief and moderate social stances represent a Democratic Party of old. But just because she gave a couple of nice answers does not mean she is in any way relevant in the field. Her best chance at standing out last night was to stand outside the debate and protest the absurd spectacle as she had promised to do. Instead, she sheepishly took the stage to little applause and made no mark outside her small and dedicated base who voted for her on the Drudge Report’s ‘who won the debate’ poll.
Sanders was the only interesting part of the debate. He was energetic and should be commended for the physical strength he showed so soon after suffering a heart attack. No matter his age or physical condition, Sanders is always an interesting watch. He, unlike so many of the corporate stooges on stage and throughout Congress, speaks with the sincerity of a true believer and his voting record backs that up.
Good for Bernie. His legacy will be written in the political careers of freshmen members Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar, but he’s not going to be president in 2020.
Quiet Fight
You could hear a pin drop between each tightly-scripted reply. There wasn’t a single genuine moment to be had. If the Democratic Party wants to win in 2020, the time to stop apologizing for this crew of lame-duck candidates is now.
This is boring
Somebody throw a pie#DemocraticDebate
— Tim Pool (@Timcast) October 16, 2019
A friend of mine snipped that it was “the quietest crowd [he] ever heard.” He was right; there was absolutely no energy in the building. For all the yammering about being tough and standing up to bullies like Trump, the Dems each took their performative turn to bask in the warm glow of censorious, commodified television. Nothing much happened and they all said what we expected. No one dared make a move as the camera panned elegantly to fit each one of them at the appropriate angle.
The Democratic Party needs to throw them out. All of them. Scrap the whole, bungled process and start over. There is still a year for Democrats to mount an honest, personable campaign that stands in fierce opposition to Trump.
If Democrats want to win in 2020, they must push aside pleasantries and carve out a real fighter from the field before it’s too late. Trump will be waiting.
