Dear America,
I watched both of the previous Republican debates...at least for as long as I could stand it...and now I have watched most of the only Democratic debate (I was watching on my Roku and some kind of malfunction in the CNN feed caused the last half hour or so to be inaccessible). In fairness, I must admit that I am a Democrat in the same way in which Bernie Sanders is--I vote Democratic because the party's ticket leans closer to my preferences than does the Republican--but still, it seemed to me that the quality and character of the Democratic effort far surpassed that of the Republican debates because the quality and character of the candidates was so far superior to what the Republicans are offering. There was no one like Donald Trump on the stage for one thing, and that is always a plus. In addition, the candidates who wanted to be taken seriously spent very little time on their resumes and addressed the questions asked rather than the ones they wanted to address. And there seemed to be more substance to both the questions and the answers when the Democrats debated than there had been on the occasions of the Republican debates, and the Democratic increment over the Republicans was not just a shade of difference. It was Huge, to quote Donald Trump. Then there was the lack of cat fighting among the Democrat candidates, which was profoundly notable in my opinion, especially when contrasted with the thumping attempts of the self-lauding Republicans both times they got together. It may be that civility isn't important in politics, at least if you ask Republicans. They seem to like gutter-wallowing fights rather than substantive debate, but I find myself wondering whether any Republicans watched the Democrats last night, and if they did, were they thinking, how come the Democrats got all the thinkers.
If any Republicans watched, they would surely have noticed that there was very little hypothetical talk about supply-side economic effects, easily summed up in the idea that if we help the rich, it will be good for the rest of us. Instead, the Democrats univocally decried the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few would-be oligarchs, documentation of which is accessible on the internet if you look at reliable resources, a phenomenon that is undisputed by the Republicans as far as I am aware. Commentators have been acknowledging that we are back to the place we were at when the rapacity of the big banks and their clientele drove our economy over the brink and into the abyss, and it's even worse now than it was before the last depression in 1929. There is even more wealth inuring to the top 1% now than was accruing in their bank accounts in 2007 when the whole catastrophe befell us, and the Democrats on the stage last night not only pointed that out, they proposed ways in which to deal with it: modification of the tax code, more equitable access to higher education including relief for those who are in debt now and for those who will be in debt for tuition and fees in the future if nothing changes, free tuition at public institutions of higher learning paid for with higher taxes on the rich, health care reform, family leave for childbirth and illness, Social Security reform to make the program more helpful for those near the bottom of the wealth scale and a general emphasis on real opportunity for all rather than the simulation of it that the Republicans think they are advocating in the form of support for entrepreneurs and big business. Even on the issue of foreign policy there was far less jockeying for position than there was candid assessments of the situations in Syria and Ukraine as well as the international outlaw practices of Vladimir Putin and the Russians. The unwillingness of the Democrats to embrace the jingoism and blustery chauvinism of Republicans like Trump, who thinks he can prevail on Putin with nothing more than the force of his personality, was univocal and, while the assertiveness that each candidate might employ in the formulation of American foreign policy under the aegis of his or her administration might have varied, but there was no braggadocio about American might and the role it should play nor was the notion of bloodying Putin's nose ever suggested. Instead there were varying approaches from a no-fly zone advocated by Hillary Clinton to Bernie Sanders' insistence that the Arab states in the region unify and confront ISIL and Assad, the brutal dictator that everyone is trying to overthrow in Syria. There was divergence of opinion on the nuclear deal with Iran, but no one called anyone else stupid on account of it. And in the end, even the least competent of the candidates--Lincoln Chaffee and Jim Webb in my opinion--did not resort to diatribes and demagoguery, like Carly Fiorina's diatribe about one of the Planned Parenthood videos that had film of an abortion appended to it even though the video was supposed to be about funding of abortion rather than its true intent: to oppose abortion in general.
I guess that what it comes down to is that during the Democratic debate, there was nothing but critical thinking in evidence: no personal vituperation, no invidious comparisons with other Democrats, no sloganeering and no pandering to the baser instincts of the constituency meant to be affected by the debate. It was like a cocktail party versus the children's birthday party with the clown and the bouncy house in your back yard. It was like a symposium rather than a celebrity roast. It was grown ups talking rather than kids exchanging barbs in the school yard at recess. I just hope that at least a few Republicans were watching, and that they are willing to look beyond dogma to really think about things...with their own heads rather than someone else's.
Your friend,
Mike
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