Raise Your Damn Hand!
Except for one or two, the first GOP debate revealed a disturbing slate of out of touch establishment candidates.
Imagine a Republican debate where seven of the eight participants can’t decide whether to support the absent front-runner in the race whom the Democrats are attempting to put in jail before the 2024 election.
The failure, at least initially, to ‘raise their hand’ in condemnation of the overt weaponization of federal law enforcement was a pivotal moment totally lost on everyone except the candidate who got the most out of Milwaukee, Vivek Ramaswamy.
The newcomer’s premise is obvious: the country is being lied to at every turn. State-run media headlines touting the ‘plot to overturn vote’ come right out of a DOJ press release.1 But a difference of legal opinions is not a plot and if these Kafkaesque charges against Trump are allowed to go forward without consequences for the people bringing them—then all is lost.
Period.
Ron DeSantis (despite some painful hesitancy) held his own—primarily due to his ability to cite a stellar record and his get-tough talk on the border. But outside the Florida Governor and Ramaswamy, the rest of the oblivious also-rans looked like they were auditioning for a Back to the Future sequel.
From pollyannish ‘morning in America’ sloganeering to a terrifying zeal for fighting the last war, Mike Pence, Chris Christie and Nikki Haley sounded like they were running against Jimmy Carter. Apparently they didn’t get the memo: the Cold War is over, corporations are not people and American culture matters right along with its sovereignty.