After greeting the crowd at
Texas Southern University, Julián Castro opened the
Democratic debate last week with this important insight: “There
will be life after Donald Trump. But the truth is that our problems didn’t start
just with Donald Trump, and we won’t solve them by embracing old ideas.” All
the Democratic candidates agree on Castro’s analysis of the past, that our
American problems which need to be solved have been developing for a long time.
They agree that we will go on, perhaps to a bright future, after Trump is gone.
The fundamental disagreements among the candidates center on Castro’s rejection
of “old ideas”: how much progressive change is the right amount in this
election?
Joe Biden represents the most
moderate positions, although his ideas are hardly old. In fact, he has had to
repudiate many of his old ideas during this campaign: working with
segregationists in Congress was a good thing; Obamacare as it was enacted was
good enough; harsh sentencing did less to control crime than to put a
generation of mostly African Americans behind bars. Politicians from the 1960s
have had to change many fundamental ideas, but are very bad at admitting that
positions they took long ago are not right for today.
Castro, and many of the other
candidates who appeared at the 3rd debate, as well as others who
still believe they have a chance, criticize Biden, hoping to peel off the
moderate Democratic voters who support him. On health care, which has taken
center stage as the crucial issue of 2020, Castro magnified a minor difference
with Biden, but took what has become the moderate position, arguing for the retention
of private health insurance plans: “If they choose to hold on to
strong, solid private health insurance, I believe they should be able to do.” He
claimed to be fulfilling the legacy of Barack Obama, a key clue that he stands
with the more moderate candidates.
At the other end of the
field, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders want to eliminate private health
plans entirely in favor of Medicare for All. Sanders and Warren hold up the
private insurance industry for ridicule as siphoning off billions of dollars in
profit. Their differences between them lie less in policy than in approach.
Warren has plans for structural reform in favor of the neglected little guy,
while Sanders thinks instead of a revolution against the oligarchy.
Many of the more moderate
Democratic candidates have already fallen by the wayside: John Hickenlooper,
Steve Bullock, Seth Moulton, Kirsten Gillibrand, Bill de Blasio, John Delaney.
The latest
poll from yesterday, like all last week’s polls, show Biden in the lead,
but the very progressive Sanders and Warren combined have significantly more
support. Among the rest, only Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, and Beto O’Rourke
consistently get more than 2%. The field is thankfully shrinking, and will
gradually become more manageable. The election is still nearly 14 months away.
As a prelude to the actual
debate, ABC chose a sentence from each candidate’s earlier speeches to play in
the order that the candidates were ranked. I found it notable that all these
excerpts except Biden’s (“I will be a president for every American.”) talked
about “we”. Who knows how that came about? Did someone pick these clips to
demonstrate the fundamental unity among all Democratic candidates? I don’t know
if we’ll ever find out.
That message of unity is my “takeaway”
from the campaign so far. The cohesion and shared values are hard to see,
though. The nature of a campaign is that everyone is competing with everyone,
and against everyone. The media compulsion to broadcast conflict shapes the
whole process, for candidates and for us all. That was apparent in the
moderators’ questions: instead of asking “what do you believe?” or “what would
you do?”, they demanded discussion of disagreements.
To see how the media shapes
our impressions of the campaign, it is instructive to see two attempts to
summarize the debate in a few clips, by ABC News, as fact, and by Stephen
Colbert, for laughs.
Right after the debate, ABC
produced 4 minutes of “Moments
That Mattered”. The selection was a serious exercise in media repackaging.
Every heated exchange was included: Biden and Sanders arguing about health
care; Castro castigating Biden about the small differences in their health care
plans and about his memory, and all of the other conflicts involving Castro;
Klobuchar versus Sanders about health care. Harris was shown criticizing Trump,
Booker only got to talk about his early electoral failures, Buttigieg only to
complain about the emphasis on conflict. The more extreme proposals were
highlighted: Yang’s philanthropic offer of $1000 a month to some needy
families; Beto O’Rourke saying he would take away assault rifles. Elizabeth
Warren apparently did not matter to ABC and was not shown at all, because she
spent her time explaining rather than attacking.
Stephen Colbert’s monologue later that night
tells a different story, not only because he is much funnier. For 12 minutes,
he used excerpts of what America had just seen to get laughs after laughs.
Colbert’s principles were clear: portray every candidate truthfully, and then
make fun. He made fun of Sanders’ voice, Biden’s age, Harris’s vagueness on
what to call the unmasked little Wizard of Oz, and Klobuchar’s movie reference.
Colbert began by talking
about “fireworks” and gleefully displayed a few moments of real one-on-one
conflict. But by the time Colbert wound up, most of the candidates had their
say about something important, even when he fantasized something funny in
response. Klobuchar expressed the “existential threat” to our environment. Beto
told the world he would take away assault rifles. Bernie said that Medicare for
All would cost our society much less than we’re spending now. Yang made his
remarkable philanthropic offer. Harris showed off her plan on how to deal with
Trump – laugh at him. Biden emphasized his link to Obama. Warren got a brief
moment of real American family á la Norman Rockwell, which is a staple in her
campaign. Buttigieg summarized a universal, but ever ignored wisdom about our
never-ending wars – don’t start them. Castro said everybody would be covered
under his health plan. Only Booker was left out.
Age is playing a surprising
role in this campaign. It certainly matters, but it’s hard to say how it
matters. Laughing at old men was in lots of Colbert’s jokes about Biden and
Sanders. The clip of Castro and Biden interrupting each other was about age.
But Buttigieg, the youngest candidate since the beginning, said nothing
disparaging about the older candidates.
Warren is 70, but she gets
left out of the public laughter about the elderly. Maybe because her age is not
apparent in what she does. But it’s notable that everybody finds her hard to
criticize. That may be a hidden advantage for her campaign.
Maybe a difference in purpose
led to these differences in reportage. Although Trump incessantly whines about
the mainstream networks as “fake news” trying to defeat him, ABC was much more
interested in promoting conflict as significant, who’s ahead, who’s desperate,
who is nasty about whom. All the networks and all the print media try hard not
to put themselves on one side or the other, even as they pick and choose what
to tell us.
Colbert was clear about his
purpose in his monologue. Toward the beginning, he called Trump a non-violent
criminal. At the end, he said: “What did we get? . . . hopefully, one person
who can beat Donald Trump.”
The news isn’t fake, but it
is spun, not false, but often misleading about important things. Colbert tells
obviously fake stories, but gives us a better picture of reality.
Unfortunately, this election is not a laughing matter.
Steve Hochstadt
Springbrook WI
September 17, 2019
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