Mirsky: Can The Democratic Party Survive Its Own Debates?

This is Exeter Attorney David Mirsky, reporting from the front lines of the 2020 Presidential Campaign. We in New Hampshire have a duty to remain well-informed and active in presidential politics, because the New Hampshire Primary is the first presidential primary in the nation every presidential election year. That means we have influence on the national outcome.

Before I continue, I’d like to point out that the best way to learn about the New Hampshire Primary, which will occur in February of 2020, is to give the candidate or candidates of your choice one dollar at their particular 2020 campaign website, after which you will be inundated with emails inviting you to attend events, knock on doors, spread the good word about the candidate, engage in telephone chats with campaign personnel, etc. All of these things will tell you more about a particular candidate that what you can learn here.

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If you will recall, in 2016, the Republican Party, dominated by Donald Trump, engaged in a series of contentious debates, in which Trump subjected other candidates, such as Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, to vicious verbal abuse. It was political street fighting. Republican Primary voters digested that, somehow, and came up with the conclusion that Donald Trump should be their nominee.

Trump also singled out for abuse, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, the son and brother of previous U.S. Presidents. Mr. Trump in fact appears to have devised his whole anti-Mexico anti-Mexican People candidate theme on the fact that Jeb Bush was married to a Mexican woman. Trump’s bombastic racism directed toward the Mexican People was effective because (1) Jeb Bush did not fight back; and (2) nobody in the U.S. Television News Establishment did anything to counter Trump’s racist assault.

I would like to be able to maintain decorum and not characterize Mr. Trump’s statements about the Mexican People as “racist” but do that I must, as there is no other way to describe a public political statement that is saying that a whole class of people are rapists and murderers.

To the Trump supporters who don’t want to hear that they are supporting a racist I say this: you do not need to perpetuate this man in power, you know what he is, I know what he is, enough said.

Which brings us to the televised Democratic Party debates that occurred this week among 20 of the Democratic Candidates for President. These debates were peculiar in that the Democratic Party itself appears to have devised a format designed to hurt its own candidates. A single television network, NBC/MSNBC, was given total control over the questioning, and the questioners were given the power to favor particular candidates with more questions, and easier questions, while other candidates were either pummeled with negative questioning and remarks, or like Andrew Yang, a very popular candidate out on the campaign trial in New Hampshire, were completely ignored.

I am looking forward to seeing and hearing Andrew Yang the next time he comes to Exeter. Mr. Yang, a successful businessman, has some interesting ideas about how to enhance the incomes of large numbers of Americans, without damaging the economy. That is something he did not have a chance to explain at the debate in which he appeared this week. Rather, that debate was dominated by candidate Kamala Harris of San Francisco, California, a former prosecutor, and a current U.S. Senator from California, who used the multi-candidate debate format to attempt to sabotage the entire distinguished political career of Joe Biden, former U.S. Vice President and U.S. Senator from Delaware, by first announcing that she was not accusing Mr. Biden of being a racist and then by proceeding to accuse Mr. Biden of being a racist. The purpose of that attack was to weaken Joe Biden’s support in the African American community, which he has earned by working for and promoting civil rights for all Americans for his entire career. Just like the U.S. Television News Media that permitted Donald Trump to tar the whole nation of Mexico with slanderous and vile characterizations, the attack on Joe Biden was not addressed at all by the Television News Personalities, who were actually gleeful that a sudden and extreme verbal attack had occurred during the debate.

Whether the Harris tactic will in the end make a difference in the 2020 Presidential race is for the voters to decide. The voters.

I should point out that other noteworthy aspects of these debates were: (1) the appearance of former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper as a serious and reasonable candidate; (2) the establishment of Corey Booker, U.S. Senator from New Jersey as a formidable, effective speaker with a unifying presence; and (3) that Joe Biden did not take the vicious attack on his character lying down but instead appeared the next day at an event in Chicago to set the story straight (video available online at PBS.com under the title “WATCH: Biden defends his civil rights record”).

As far as whether the Trump style of vicious and outrageous personal attacks will now become regular behavior at political debates, that’s up to you as voters and citizens of our Democracy.