Former President Donald Trump didn't bother to show up for the first GOP debate in Wisconsin, and it seems likely he may end up skipping all of them. But he didn't have to show up, argued Amanda Marcotte for Salon.
The reason: for all the talk by Republican pundits about wanting to move on from Trump and discuss the issues, none of the candidates onstage were capable of doing that.
"As last night's debate demonstrated ... the insignificance of a Republican debate isn't just due to Trump's skill at sucking the oxygen out of any room — even one he's not in — Trump's power is entirely due to the vacuum created by the vapidity of Republican leaders," wrote Marcotte. "Watching this non-debate was mainly a reminder that none of these politicians possess anything resembling substance. Despite all the chatter from the punditry about 'policy,' the voters these candidates are trying to reach could not care less about the nuts and bolts of governance. The GOP exists mainly as a vehicle for the endless parade of unwarranted, incoherent grievances of the Republican base."
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Some Republicans did try to discuss policy, noted Marcotte, like South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, but this only elicited boredom from the audience — other candidates got their best lines of applause when pushing grievance-coded ideas, like businessman Vivek Ramaswamy vowing to eliminate environmental protections from energy policy and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis vowing to fire Dr. Anthony Fauci (who retired last year anyway).
Even former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who made it onstage largely by being one of the only candidates willing to stand up to Trump's election lies, had his biggest standout moment with a Trump-style putdown of Ramaswamy, saying that he"sounds like ChatGPT." And he couldn't even answer whether he would vote for Trump again or not when asked.
None of these candidates can really hold a candle to Trump in the grievance and insults department, said Marcotte — but the point is, that's what they're trying to imitate, rather than put forward a serious plan for governance, because they know even if they can somehow beat Trump, that's what voters want out of them.
Ultimately, concluded Marcotte, the debate showcased that in today's GOP, "competence in governance is sneered at, the biggest bully in the room is applauded and it's lucrative to repackage the hate and resentment of the GOP base and sell it back to them with an inflated price tag" — and all the candidates who think they can do better than Trump at this game are "either delusional ... or working lesser rackets of their own."
