Cynical, Nasty, and Nuts
What I saw in the fourth Republican debate.
IāM A MODERATE. In 2018, I voted for Larry Hogan, Marylandās Republican governor. Four years later, when Republicans nominated an election denier to replace him, I voted for the Democratic nominee, Wes Moore. Give me a sensible conservative party, and Iāll consider it. But thatās not what Iām seeing in Congress or in this yearās Republican presidential debates.
Iād like to believe, for instance, that Republicans want a cautious but reasonable immigration policy. I agree with them that our border isnāt secure, that too many people are entering our country illegally, and that our asylum process is being abused. But Wednesdayās presidential debate showed that for too many Republicans, controlling illegal immigration is just the beginning. They want to curtail immigration in generalāeven during an obvious labor shortageāand part of their underlying motivation is bigotry or appeals to bigotry.
Eight years ago, Donald Trump infamously proposed an explicit ban on Muslims entering the United States. Two months ago, he said illegal immigrants were āpoisoning the blood of our country.ā In Wednesdayās debate, Ron DeSantis expressed similar views. āEurope is committing suicide with the mass migration. And itās illegal and legal,ā he warned. āThere needs to be limits on immigration. And we should not be importing people from cultures that are hostile.ā
With a straight face, in the name of opposing prejudice, DeSantis categorically ruled out any resident of Gaza. āWeāre not taking anyone from Gaza, because of the antisemitism and because they reject American culture,ā he said.
Not to be outdone, Vivek Ramaswamy endorsedāin his own wordsāāthe Great Replacement theory.ā He said it was a ābasic statement of the Democratic partyās platform.ā
In case Ramaswamyās racial message wasnāt clear enough, he underscored it in a post-debate interview on CNN: āLook at the video I posted yesterday of [President Joe] Biden and [Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro] Mayorkas ten years ago expressly discussingāand these are Bidenās words, not mineāabout nonwhite populations exceeding white populations in the U.S. through immigration, and that being not a bad thing.ā
You can watch the clipped Biden video and read Ramaswamyās post about it here. Essentially, Biden said that America was becoming mostly nonwhite and that this was fine. Ramaswamy portrays that statement as a threat.
IāD LIKE TO BELIEVE that Republicans are approaching the latest hot-button cultural issue, transgenderism, from a position of wisdom or principle. But what I saw in this debate was unprincipled political exploitation of the issue.
On most topics, Republicans advocate firm deference to parental rights. But only one candidate on the stage, Chris Christie, said such deference should extend to parents who support their childās request for puberty blockers or other transgender medical interventions. Every other candidate denounced this position. Megyn Kelly, one of the debateās moderators, asked Christie whether his position made him āway too out of step on this issue to be the Republican nominee.ā
After the debate, in an interview with Kelly, Nikki Haley said she favored a ban on any transgender procedure for a minor, including puberty blockers, because āI do not think any medical procedure should be done to a child before the age of 18. . . . Even if your parents give you permission, I donāt think itās okay, because kidsāwe know kids going through puberty can be confused.ā
Confusion in pubescent children is a totally valid concern. But Haley, DeSantis, Ramaswamy, and other Republicans arenāt just questioning the judgment of kids who think theyāre transgender. Theyāre overriding the judgment of the parents of those kids. Thatās the opposite of the Republican approach to other issues of parental authority, such as sex education and vaccine refusal.
What seems to be happening here is that Republicans have found a new sexual panic, and theyāre exploiting it from any angle they can find. Haley, in particular, has been using this issue to bond with the right. In the debate, she made the same pitch she has made elsewhere: āBiological boys shouldnāt be playing in girlsā sports, and I will do everything I can to stop that, because itās the womenās issue of our time.ā In her interview with Kelly, Haley claimed that people who allow ābiological boysā in girlsā sports are ātrying to eraseā women.
Erase women? The womenās issue of our time? Come on. The percentage of kids playing girlsā sports who are transgender is infinitesimal.
Haley and DeSantis also squabbled over a bill DeSantis signed into law last year, which prohibited āclassroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identityā in the early elementary years. In the debate, Haley boasted, āI actually said his āDonāt Say Gayā bill didnāt go far enough, because it only talked about gender until the third grade. And I said it shouldnāt be done at all.ā
IāD LIKE TO BELIEVE that Republicans have a healthy skepticism of government. But what I saw in this debate were wild anti-government conspiracy theories.
The obvious nuttery came from Ramaswamy. He asserted that (1) āthe 2020 election was indeed stolen by Big Techā; (2) āthe 2016 electionāthe one that Trump won for sureāwas also one that was stolen from him by the national security establishment that actually put up the Trump-Russia collusion hoaxā; and (3) āJanuary 6th now does look like it was an inside job.ā
Ramaswamy isnāt alone in his derangement. Two days before the debate, at a rally in Iowa, DeSantis complained that Trump, āon his last day in office,ā had failed to āhelp the people that got caught up in the Capitol stuff, that he told to go there.ā Thatās a clear signal that the January 6th perpetrators, in DeSantisās view, should have been pardoned.
DeSantis fumed that instead of helping these defendants, Trump had given a commendation to Anthony Fauci, who was then the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The Florida governor vowed to āclean houseā at the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Centers for Disease Control. He denied that he had said these agencies should be āburnt to the ground.ā His actual statements about them, he joked, were harsher.
DeSantis is off the deep end on COVID and vaccines. He has said that if heās elected, heāll prosecute Fauci. And in the debate, he accused the FDA of āapproving an mNRA [sic] shot for six-months-old babiesā not to serve public health but ābecause Big Pharma will make money.ā
THE REPUBLICAN PARTYāS INSANITY leaves a big hole in this country. When progressives jerk their knees on one issue or anotherāderiding religious parents, overdoing COVID restrictions, calling every border-control policy racistāIād like to hear alternative ideas from a sane conservative party. Instead, what we have is an extremist, authoritarian party in whichāas Kelly essentially acknowledgedāthe one presidential candidate who tells the truth and adheres to principle has no chance of being nominated.
