The strange Republican primary season had its fourth debate – its final official one – on December 6th, hosted by NewsNation (formerly WGN). Political commentators seem to be thoroughly sick of this by now. Politico lamented the level of attention given to the Haley-DeSantis rivalry, comparing it to the long-defunct NFL “Playoff Bowl” between the teams who failed to qualify for the Super Bowl, while FiveThirtyEight held a “draft” speculating about Trump’s most likely vice presidential nominees. But the joke’s on them, dear audience. I have been sick of debates since the 2010 New York Gubernatorial debate that brought us Jimmy “The Rent is Too Damn High” McMillan, and I will force my way through this because I am a hatewatcher now.
Meanwhile, a race for the Democratic primary’s second place has also been going on. After conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. decided to run as an independent instead, the most notable members of the field of long-shots hoping to unseat Biden are now Oprah’s spiritual advisor Marianne Williamson, who was a 2020 primary running joke; Rep. Dean Phillips, whose platform seems to be “Biden but younger”; and The Young Turks host Cenk Uygur, who is not constitutionally eligible to be president. Although the DNC has not held any official debates, these long-shots had their own debate the same night as the Republicans, on Uygur’s own YouTube channel. I am absolutely not bothering to watch that. Even I have limits.
Only four candidates qualified this time: Chris Christie, Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, and Vivek Ramaswamy. Doug Burgum dropped out after failing to qualify, while Asa Hutchinson is apparently sticking to his previous promise to stay in the race at least through the Iowa Caucus. Trump, of course, has continued to blow off the debates. So how was their last shot?
Best Performance:
I’m tempted to say nobody, but DeSantis, maybe? I think that the only plausible way to beat Trump given that most Republican voters support him is to paint Trump as a failure by his own standards and to paint yourself as the better version of him. That was exactly the tactic that DeSantis took last time, and it was what he did again this time, pushing on promises where Trump did not deliver.
Worst Performance:
Everybody, sort of. Look, each candidate did have their occasional moments of giving interesting, well-spoken answers and attacking each other on policy, but overall this was a decline in quality compared to the previous debate. Haley and DeSantis often regressed to rambling off-topic answers. Ramaswamy gave the angriest attacks and most paranoid accusations yet. Christie turned into a meta-commentator, criticizing how badly the debates have been going while only answering a handful of actual questions. And it took well over an hour before everyone generally stopped yelling at each other.
Biggest “You Both Suck” Moment:
DeSantis attacked Haley’s plan to require ID verification for social media by raising the crucial and correct concern that this would allow the government to know who is personally responsible for any kind of objectionable content and retaliate against them (even if such content is legal). Haley responded that DeSantis himself has already tried to do away with anonymity and pseudonymy in the press.
Answer Most in Need of an Asterisk:
DeSantis, Haley, and Ramaswamy all seem determined to prove who is the most transphobic, and in pursuit of that title, they all lied about the current state of regulation and medical ethics around medically transitioning.
Question Most In Need of an Asterisk:
In a question about inflation/cost of living, moderator Eliana Johnson solely blamed “a glut of government spending”. In fact, it’s a lot more complicated than that, with government spending as only one of many interconnected factors that also include the long-term effects of COVID-related supply chain issues, opportunistic attempts to increase profits, and an apparent mass panic by businesses who preemptively raised prices because they expected their suppliers to.
Question I Most Hope Gets Asked in Future Debates (for Any Party and Any Office):
“Is this a serious policy proposal, and if it isn’t, why do you keep repeating it?”
– moderator Elizabeth Vargas, to Vivek Ramaswamy, on the idea of deterring a Chinese invasion of Taiwan by arming every Taiwanese civilian
Largest Omission in an Answer:
Chris Christie, when talking about his record as a US attorney, sure seemed to claim that, because of Attorney General John Ashcroft, there has not been a single terrorist attack in the US since 9/11. This is staggeringly incorrect.
Weirdest Niche Policy Promise:
DeSantis pledged not to introduce an official digital currency, which is frankly not even a topic I knew anyone was seriously considering or that I thought anyone would care about.
Most Implausible Use of Data:
“For every 30 minutes that someone watches TikTok every day, they become 17% more antisemitic.”
– Nikki Haley
(CNN reports that she seems to be referring to a survey, not a study that can determine actual cause-and-effect, and said its methodology is questionable, including conflicting claims about the sample size and hard-to-interpret questions.)
Most Implausible Use of the Constitution:
In his closing statement, Ramaswamy went on a tirade about the “climate agenda”, during which he claimed that eminent domain is unconstitutional. Eminent domain, the forced sale of property to the government for public use, is, in fact, specifically in the constitution.
Most Surprising Slogan:
Ramaswamy said “we don’t have a healthcare system, we have a sickness care system”, a slogan that Marianne Williamson prominently uses, and which has been used since at least the 1980s to promote both real evidence-based preventative medicine and absolute quackery.
Statement That Most Indicates a Weird Overton Window Move:
During a long series of rebuttals that branched off of the opening questions about electability, Ramaswamy and DeSantis both attacked the ESG movement in investing. DeSantis explicitly complained that “they want, basically, to change society without having to go through the constitutional process”. What both of them are arguing here is that investors should not be allowed to choose which companies to invest in based on what those companies do. This seems fundamentally at odds with what people usually claim “conservative” and “capitalist” mean in the American political context, but also at odds with both how typical non-conservatives support the government intervening and the current strain of economic populism on the right. Huh.
Statement That Should Most Make Us Lock the Overton Window Shut (or move it back? I don’t know, I think this metaphor is getting away from me):
In response to a question about Trump’s renewed pledge to restrict immigration, DeSantis recited the major claims of The Strange Death of Europe, a book that mixes actual criticism of European countries’ policies with exaggerations and paranoia to drum up a blanket fear of all Muslims and refugees. He even used the phrase “Europe is committing suicide”. Oh boy, I don’t like where this is going.
Candidate Who Most Says What I’m Thinking:
Chris Christie. He cannot tolerate these people, and I love it. He called out DeSantis on his rambling non-answers, he called out Ramaswamy on his lies and glib idiocy, and he… actually jumped in to defend Haley’s character early on, although he did later include her in blanket condemnations of the other candidates. Sadly, as moderator Megyn Kelly pointed out in her opening question/challenge to him, he has incredibly poor favorability among Republican voters.
Most Bafflingly Unexpected Cheers:
The last question to all candidates was what president they would specifically draw inspiration from. DeSantis’s answer, which got some of the most enthusiastic applause of the evening, was… Calvin Coolidge?!
Most Horrifyingly Unexpected Cheers:
The audience started out slow but rapidly expanded in applause when Ramaswamy claimed that the January 6th, 2021 attack on the Capitol was an inside job.
Most Interesting Mix of Cheers and Jeers:
Ramaswamy repeatedly accused Haley of corruption, specifically doing the bidding of Boeing, which she approved government subsidies for as a South Carolina state representative and served on the board of after leaving the Trump administration. The audience was livid at this when it was a direct attack. But he brought up the same topic again later on, in the form of a proposed policy that former government officials can’t be lobbyists or executives for ten years after leaving office, and got applause even though he specifically named her again while explaining this. Perhaps there is a limit to how combative a candidate can be after all.
Most Depressingly Predictable Jeers:
The audience overwhelmingly booed Christie for saying that Trump is out to get personal revenge. And herein lies the problem with this whole primary: plenty of voters are fine with these candidates running to replace Trump, but not with them actually running against Trump to do that.
