So I watched the Ron DeSantis-Gavin Newsom debate, every minute of it. It was fun, actually—if you’re a political junkie—though frustrating, the constant crosstalk an impediment to clarity, especially from arch-goon immoderator Sean Hannity. Here is how Hannity began one “question”:
“Joe Biden has experienced significant cognitive decline.”
Huh? On the basis of what evidence? None that I’ve seen. This is a Fox talking point, grotesque in its cynicism. Biden looks and sounds old, but “significant cognitive decline” is an assessment that only a medical professional can make—and last I looked, Hannity isn’t one, unless you count cult-whisperers. The thuggish host was a player throughout the cage match in more subtle ways, constantly interrupting Newsom, asking him to “answer the question” when Newsom was in the process of doing just that (though not all that well, at times). But credit to Newsom, for exposing himself to a tag-team opposition on hostile ground.
Newsom presents well, but has a weak case. DeSantis presents poorly, but had the stronger arguments on the issues that will matter in 2024, except for abortion. This is a real problem for Democrats, especially if the Republican nominee is someone like Nikki Haley, who can make the case against the Dems without a container ship of Orange baggage. If the GOP nominees is Trump, then the election is about Trump.
The evening’s best exchange—and Newsom’s best moment—was about freedom: DeSantis talked about the chaos that passes for freedom in California, the crime, the homelessness. He even produced a poopy map of San Francisco, covered in brown spots where human feces have allegedly been found. (I’d love see that one fact-checked.) Newsom responded:
“Here’s a guy who’s criminalizing teachers, criminalizing doctors, criminalizing librarians and criminalizing women that seek their reproductive care…You’re making it harder to vote, you’re banning books. Spare me this notion of freedom.”
But Newsom had a tougher time talking his way out of crime—he countered that Florida had a higher murder rate—and the disorderly border. And education and gas prices ($4.85 a gallon compared to $3.17 in Florida and $3.25 nationwide). As DeSantis pointed out, Newsom is slavish in his devotion to the teachers unions—he kept California’s schools closed far longer than necessary and gave the teachers big fat raises in return for…nothing—and the climate crowd (Cali’s gas prices are high because of green taxes). The environmental issue is a tough one for Democrats to explain. It requires compound sentences; there is no green equivalent to drill, baby, drill.
For his part, DeSantis was as good as I’ve seen him—which isn’t very good. He just doesn’t have the oratorical chops to compete at the presidential level. He is relentlessly clunky, his face rubbery, his smile phony. (Newsom smiled too much, too.) But Democrats should take note: They will have big problems, even if DeSantis turns out—against all odds and logic—to be the nominee…because of inflation, immigration and crime. Ruy Texeira has a terrific article in The Liberal Patriot on the wages of crime for Democrats. They are still paying the price for “defund the police” and other sticky left-wing nostrums, like open borders and “Free” Palestine. Abortion is a powerful issue for them, but probably not nearly enough to carry the day.
Oh, and finally: Hannity did not ask a single question about January 6, or about Trump’s insistence that he won the election. Or about Trump, period. It would have been nice if Newsom had brought up Hannity’s panicked tweets about Trump’s craziness: “He cannot mention the election again ever.” He might have asked DeSantis about Hannity’s constant covert role advising the Trumpers.
So, yet again, this was another debate where Trump skated. And out in the land of the commentariat, there seems to be a growing sense that there’s no stopping Orange Jesus…
Is It Over, Joe?
I may have told this story before in this space, but it’s worth retelling: About this time in early December of 2003, Al Gore endorsed Howard Dean for President. Dean was cruising at that point; John Kerry’s campaign seemed as hapless as DeSantis’s does now. And so I was asked on CNN: Is it over, Joe? I took the opportunity to inform the telegenic but not very politically experienced host that no one had voted yet. Things could change. They often did. Especially in ornery Iowa and New Hampshire.
We are experiencing that now. Too many commentators with too little experience are saying that the Republican nomination fight is over. That Trump has it in the bag. Which may be true, but it ain’t necessarily so. This is often accompanied by valuable reminders of just how terrible Trump is, that he is saying ever-more-crazy stuff, that he is blatant in his authoritarian intents. All of which is true, and good to point out—the media, as is its wont, has overcorrected itself: From giving Orange too much airtime, it now gives too little. But The Washington Post tipped close to panic this week, publishing a massive eruption from Robert Kagan all but predicting a Trump dictatorship:
Let’s stop the wishful thinking and face the stark reality: There is a clear path to dictatorship in the United States, and it is getting shorter every day. In 13 weeks, Donald Trump will have locked up the Republican nomination. In the RealClearPolitics poll average (for the period from Nov. 9 to 20), Trump leads his nearest competitor by 47 points and leads the rest of the field combined by 27 points. The idea that he is unelectable in the general election is nonsense — he is tied or ahead of President Biden in all the latest polls — stripping other Republican challengers of their own stated reasons for existence. The fact that many Americans might prefer other candidates, much ballyhooed by such political sages as Karl Rove, will soon become irrelevant when millions of Republican voters turn out to choose the person whom no one allegedly wants.
Kagan doesn’t know all that much about politics—and he’s been consistently wrong in his chosen academic specialty, foreign policy (File under: Iraq). But he makes a powerful case that if Trump does win, a dictatorship could be all but inevitable:
The Trump dictatorship will not be a communist tyranny, where almost everyone feels the oppression and has their lives shaped by it. In conservative, anti-liberal tyrannies, ordinary people face all kinds of limitations on their freedoms, but it is a problem for them only to the degree that they value those freedoms, and many people do not. The fact that this tyranny will depend entirely on the whims of one man will mean that Americans’ rights will be conditional rather than guaranteed. But if most Americans can go about their daily business, they might not care, just as many Russians and Hungarians do not care. [Italics mine.]
This is my greatest fear. Americans have been conditioned to go about their daily business. This is a society overflowing with bread and circuses. Trump won’t abolish the Super Bowl. Las Vegas will thrive. He won’t cut Social Security or Medicare. He is more likely to appease Putin and the Saudis than go to war anywhere. Will anyone care? Probably just enough people to fill the gulag Trump is threatening to build. So it is absolutely essential to mount a massive campaign to stop him. This begins with the Republican Party.
Karl Rove, mentioned above, knows a lot about presidential politics and he still believes the race isn’t over, as he mentioned in passing in a very smart column about Biden’s creaky campaign:
Though it’s clear Team Biden’s strategy isn’t working, they seem intent on doing more of the same. Their last resort will be that of any failing campaign: Go thermonuclear on their adversary. That might work if his opponent ends up being Donald Trump, but it won’t if Republicans nominate a different candidate.
This is, obviously, wishful thinking on my part, but Nikki Haley is showing many of the signs of a cresting presidential campaign. I don’t agree with her on some things, of course, but she radiates sanity and reason. And she is, without question, the most adept politician in the field. (I respect the campaign Chris Christie has run—but it’s a kamikaze mission and he may not make it onto the stage in the next Republican debate.)
So it’s Nikki or bust, for the moment. Unless something else happens. And we have to hope that something does.
And, for the holidays, if you want to give a cheap but exhilarating gift to a friend or a family member in need of complexity, we have a special offer:
[“Joe Biden has experienced significant cognitive decline.”
Huh? On the basis of what evidence? None that I’ve seen. This is a Fox talking point, grotesque in its cynicism. Biden looks and sounds old, but “significant cognitive decline” is an assessment that only a medical professional can make—and last I looked, Hannity isn’t one, unless you count cult-whisperers. The thuggish host was a player throughout the cage match in more subtle ways, constantly interrupting Newsom, asking him to “answer the question” when Newsom was in the process of doing just that (though not all that well, at times). But credit to Newsom, for exposing himself to a tag-team opposition on hostile ground.]
Man I love this guy. What a banger of a paragraph. What wizard level of coping skill does a man need to possess to look at any 2023 Biden presser overlaid with one from 40 years ago, or the sundowner lid calls to see that Biden's brain ain't braining like it should. Who cares if someone once said it on Fox if it's true? Even most Dems know this to be the case. It's even funnier knowing that in the very next sentence he calls Hannity "Thuggish" wholly without basis. Hannity sucks - but he didn't do anything violent on that show, he hasn't robbed anyone... How is he Thuggish? it's clear Joe doesn't actually think about what he's writing he's just lobbing off the first insult that comes to him during his Two Minutes Hate. I mean, this is a guy who will put any number of personality disorders on Trump without any evidence in near every post. what a Joke.
Also I hate to break it to you. No one is voting for that bloodthirsty Neo-Con Haley except for the bloodthirsty National Review Neo Con set. They're irrelevant and she's Dead On Arrival.
Everyone is gonna love the 2nd Trump term. Even you will cheerfully vote for his certain appointment as American Czar for Life.
Re the SF poop map, per the SF Chronicle: "The map DeSantis held up was created in 2019 by Openthebooks.com, a nonprofit that has created several maps using data gathered through Freedom of Information Act requests and publicly available data. ... The dots on the map each represent a reported instance of feces found on city streets between 2011 and 2019 — more than 75,000 of them, according to the map. But it doesn't necessarily mean all of those cases were human feces, like DeSantis stated. The city's data of 311 calls doesn't differentiate between human and animal waste."