I have a confession to make: I love the Republican debates, and not for respectable reasons.
I have been glued to the Republican debates; each and every one fills me with the anticipation of 10 Super Bowls. As reflected by the participation in our live-tweeting parties and each episodes subsequent ratings, undoubtedly many share my enthrallment with the GOP’s drama as it unfolded on stage.
The Democratic debates? Not so much. It doesn’t help that the Democratic Party has purposefully set their debates for days when few will watch them, but what has really encumbered any fervent interest in them has more to do with the human dynamics on stage. While the Republican Party fights for its ideological soul, The Sanders/Clinton debates rarely take on the same existential charm.
Perhaps more troubling is the fact that Democratic debates have been rather substantive. Writing for CNN, Julian Zelizer argued:
The contrast between the Democratic debate in Las Vegas and the first two times the Republican candidates met was striking. Those debates frequently looked like a political version of reality television. Donald Trump thrived in large part because of the overall quality of the discussions. “Unless the Democrats can talk one of the Kardashians into running,” joked CNN commentator Paul Begala, “don’t expect the Democrats’ ratings to approach the Republicans.”
While each Democrat in Las Vegas demonstrated a number of vulnerabilities as well as strengths — and there were a few moments when they delivered some zingy one-liners — what was most notable about the evening was the image that they conveyed about their party: this is a party that is focused on governance.
The Kansas City Star echoed similar sentiments:
That there’s even a discussion about health care initiatives among the Democrats is far better than the GOP scrum over the issue, which one can boil down to the tired and simplistic “repeal and replace.”
…
Americans would benefit greatly if candidates would discuss their real differences on serious issues facing the country.
The juvenile posturing among the gaggle of Republican candidates may be great for TV ratings. But it’s not a good way to help people select someone who might be the next president of the United States.
The Democratic Debates have been focused and concentrated, and thus, generally boring and uninteresting. I say that with a great deal of hesitance. I studied politics and worked in the field; I am supposed to be above the siren calls of clownish buffoons and charlatans prone to sensational derogatory tactics. Yet, I tune in to Republican debates in anticipation of more reality-show antics. There is a real philosophical divide playing out on stage, but I doubt the experience would be as pleasurable without its theatrical attributes. Our desire for bread and circuses now extends beyond the realm of sports ball and tabloids, but to our politics and the bearing of the state. Even sadder, I recognize that I am not above this mandate for politics to be entertaining. Evidently, the pulse of America beats in tandem with my own.
Augustus rightfully recognized that the masses could be kept orderly and content when their basic needs for sustenance and entertainment were met. The social contract between the Roman state and its plebeians was one advantageous to both; the levers of government endured in the hands of the educated elite while the common man enjoyed their spectacles. One of the most successful empires in history was built on this foundation.
What Augustus did not foresee was the state itself becoming the spectacle, with its politics necessitating a mirroring of the circuses the masses had become accustomed to. The Republican front-runner has been compared to other notable Italians, but his resilience is built on the plebeian’s need for entertainment rather than any sociopolitical vision. He is the manifestation of the circus, given life by a society yearning for theater in all things and at all times.
Imaginably, our empire may fall with a court jester being elevated to the heights of power, rather than barbarian hordes hammering at its gates.
(Image: Roman Mosaic from the Great Palace of Constantinople)
Roland Dodds is an educator, researcher and father just north of San Francisco who writes about politics, culture and education. He spent his formative years in radical left wing politics, but now prefers the company of contrarians of all political stripes (assuming they aren't teetotalers). He is a regular contributor at Harry's Place and Ordinary Times.
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Interestingly the big issue (more for the GOP) is that there is a huge disconnect between large segments of the bases and the elites. The elites live in a sphere where globalization is good and entitlement reform is popular because they all have so much money and don’t need Medicare and social security. Now the people say no.
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It also demonstrates why the elites are much more supportive of mass migration. They reap the benefits of the macro advantages produced by immigration but do not live with the downside of it (lower trust communities, a drain on public schools). They simple are disconnected from those problems and don’t get what it has angered many in poorer communities.
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I have to say, I thought it veered past “reality show entertainment” and directly into watching a train wreck. I found it painful to watch.
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He has to destroy the party in order to save it!! Or something. And he’s doing his best to destroy it, seems to me. (Speaking heresies like that on national TV??!!? How DARE he…)
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If he gets the nomination, the only person who might be able to beat him is Bernie.
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Whoa.
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And it addition, when Jeb defended his brother ? he was roundly cheered for it while the crowed booed Trumps comments. If I had any respect left for the common Republican it died this morning when I heard the reports on the radio. Let them burn.
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I know I said that he’d be gone by Valentine’s Day…
Maybe he’ll be gone by Easter.
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If the polling on who won is any indication, two different polls had Rubio as the winner, Trump 2nd, and Jeb/ Cruzer distant third/fourths.
Rubio was really good last night (the part I watched): sharp, clear, incisive, he even got in a few spontaneous non-scripted jabs that landed.
But like you said up thread, Trump definitely scored some points with the anti-Iraq comments, and since he’s not parlaying for establishment support it’d be hard to tell how much those comments helped/hurt his chances.
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He didn’t oppose it until 2004.
They point out how Trump only wrote his opposition down in 2004.
NOT 2003.
This is one of those attacks that won’t change the hearts/minds of the people on the fence *AND* has the weird effect of telling people that it would have been good to have opposed the Iraq War, like Trump belatedly did, before Trump belatedly did.
It’s monumentally stupid.
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They are *HIGHLIGHTING* that he opposed Iraq in 2004.
And in arguing that he didn’t oppose it until 2004, they’re making his point that opposing the war during Dubya’s first term was smarter than all of the idiots on the stage plus Hillary.
Trump is playing these guys like a fiddle. It’s downright uncanny.
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(Also, I now have the #1 question I would ask Jeb if I got the chance: “You said ‘My dad is the greatest man alive in my mind.’ If elected, would you emulate your dad in ending all US funding to Israel until they cease settlement-building? If not, why not?”
That’s not to say I think that admiring someone requires you to emulate him in all respects. But it would make Jeb give an answer that didn’t involve throwing terms like “anti-Semite” or “un-American” or “pro-terrorist” at anyone who wanted to hold Israel to account for its illegal and immoral actions – because any such insults would be implicity directed as his father. And it would make the Republican grapple just a little bit with how far they’ve moved on that issue since the 1980s.)
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Maybe next time.
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(In long: the Democrats know bread and circuses better than the Republicans know bread and circuses, and they make better entertainment too. If their current debates are boring, that’s honestly intentional. Netroots Nation screens candidates for office, and I’m sure that their debates and Q&As are really dreadfully boring too. Democrats are much better at nitty gritty groundgame things. Bets on the new Acorn?)
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