This week, voters across the country rejected Republican policies and ideologies in a sweep that should have the GOP rethinking its choices. Instead, the Republican candidate “debate” Wednesday in Miami showed a party committed to doubling down on its losing platforms.
We’re all aware that the five (OK, four-and-a-half if you don’t count Ron DeSantis’ lifts) GOP presidential candidates really hate how “woke” Democrats are, but it’s clear that they need to wake up themselves.
Debates should be where candidates share clear visions for the future. This was not that. It was an exchange of failed ideas and recycled MAGA soundbites, with each hopeful trying to see who could be more out of touch with the American people.
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It wasn’t just uninspired and dishonest—it was dangerous.
As the Middle East further destabilizes—including a U.S. drone strike on Syria Wednesday—we are asked to picture the individuals on the debate stage being in charge of human rights, our national security, and reputation. While the candidates tried to disguise the fear behind their messages, the truth of the matter is that every single thing they proposed will deepen the divide and perpetuate more hate.
I thought it might be useful to translate their un-American proposals into real-world meanings and their potential consequences.
The debate started with the moderators asking each candidate why they are the best answer to the absent former President Donald Trump. They basically all said the same thing: Trump was the right person then, I’m the right person now. (What they really meant here is that they all want to replace Trump, but they are all too afraid to be honest about Trump because he’s leading in the polls.) Then each of them went on to basically say they would implement all of Trump’s 2016 policies—as their starting point.
Vivek Ramaswamy, who came off like a recurring character on The Office (and not in a good way), called the GOP a “party of losers,” and then attacked the moderators, the American people, the other candidates, and everybody but Trump.
If you asked me, “Alyssa, what was this debate really about?”—I’d have to tell you it was about who these people think our enemies are.
DeSantis thinks our enemy is China, but also college presidents, and the so-called “terrorists” at the southern border, where he vowed to (illegally) send troops. Tim Scott seems to think our greatest enemy is people who don’t share his version of Christianity. Chris Christie thinks it’s China, and would revert us back to cold war nuclear diplomacy to solve it. Vivek Ramaswamy clearly thinks our greatest enemy is sanity. Nikki Haley’s greatest enemy is Vivek Ramaswamy.
But what this all boils down to is that the worldview of these candidates is based on what they are against versus what they are for.
Most of the candidates adopted a “talk tough” policy on Iran, with Tim Scott implying he would take military action against that (potentially nuclear) country by “cutting off the head of the snake.” We’ve heard that line of thinking before: it got us into our nation’s longest war. Ron DeSantis told us that “if you harm a single hair on the head of an American,” there would be hell to pay. The translation of this is, of course, that these candidates are all-in for war.
This desperation ranged from calls to dramatically expand the Naval fleet, to send the military to the border, to ports of entry, to Mexico, to Venezuela, to do the work of diplomacy, because to this group, “Diplomacy is a weak strategy.”
Nikki Haley simultaneously said “we need to remember that we need friends,” and “I don’t care what my friends at the United Nations think.” Vivek Ramaswamy wants to go to war against the “deep state,” something he can’t actually identify. At the end of the day, though, we all know this recklessness would mean more dead Americans, and more dead civilians around the world.
Of course, none of them know how to pay for this radical military-industrial agenda.
They all want lower taxes. They claim they will slash regulations and bring us back to pre-COVID spending. None of them told us, you know, how they would do that.
And that is, of course, because they can’t. They want 600 ships, without saying if the Navy wants 600 ships, or how you and I are going to pay for it. And make no mistake, paying for it means taxes or more debt. Taxes for war, but not for the programs people need. They will always find a way to pay for war.
There was not a single person on that stage who told the whole truth to us. And that’s the real message here: They all told us they wanted to project strength, to talk tough, to carry on the Teddy Roosevelt philosophy of carrying a big stick, but throwing out his “speak softly” advice.
The American people need a president who is for diplomacy, decency, humanity, and peace. We can’t afford a single minute of the alternative—not in treasure, and not in the blood it will surely cost.
They are all weak candidates, and not because they’re all getting crushed by Trump in the polls. It’s because they lack a realistic vision that provides for a hopeful future and all they have to sell is fear and anger.
