The First Democratic Debate: Not a Snore-Fest nor a Food Fight
The first of the two Democratic debates—tonight will have Biden, Bernie, Buttigieg!—is, it turns out, neither a snore-fest nor a food fight. If there are no brilliant breakout moments, there are plenty of fascinating takeaways, with candidates attempting to out-left each other on topics from gun control to immigration to health care.
There are 10 candidates on the stage of the Adrienne Arsht Center in Miami—and how many can you name? Sure, you know Elizabeth Warren and Beto O’Rourke (who almost beat Ted Cruz in Texas), and maybe you remember Amy Klobuchar from the Kavanaugh hearings, and Cory Booker since he is reportedly dating Rosario Dawson, and Bill de Blasio because you live in New York City. But what about Tulsi Gabbard, Tim Ryan, Jay Inslee, John Delaney, Julián Castro?
Warren, literally center stage, throws down the progressive gauntlet right away, stating at the onset: “When you’ve got a government, when you’ve got an economy that does great for those with money and isn’t doing great for everyone else, that is corruption, pure and simple. We need to call it out. We need to attack it head-on. And we need to make structural change in our government, in our economy, and in our country.”
You can credit Bernie Sanders for dragging this gangway to the left, with people staking out positions that would please Friedrich Engels. O’Rourke says he wants to return power to the people—though he stops short of endorsing a top marginal individual tax rate of 70%; Booker alleges that “dignity is being stripped from labor”; Ryan is moved to declare, “The bottom 60% haven’t seen a raise since 1980. Meanwhile the top 1% control 90% of the wealth.” De Blasio—who doesn’t always wait his turn but jumps in and steps on other people’s answers (maybe he senses this is his last chance to get national attention?)—says he is all for the 70% top tax rate and that the “Democratic Party has to be strong and bold and progressive!” He continued: “There’s plenty of money in this country, it’s just in the wrong hands.”
Some of the presumptive candidates say they would be happy to sack private health insurance entirely in favor of Medicare for All; others fall back on the old saw, “If you like your health insurance, you can keep it.” (Question—have you ever met anyone who said he or she likes their health insurance?) Warren states that insurance companies sucked $23 billion in profits out of the health care system; Inslee says, “It should not be an option in the United States of America for any insurance company to deny a woman coverage for their exercise of their right of choice.” O’Rourke alleges that “in Texas the single largest provider of mental health care services is the county jail system today.” Castro announces, “I don’t believe only in reproductive freedom. I believe in reproductive justice,” adding that this includes the trans community. Warren reminds us that we passed Roe v. Wade 47 years ago.
Next up is immigration. (Is President Trump still watching? At 9:35 he tweets, “Boring!”, and his only other tweet is to call out NBC for a technical glitch.) Castro, referencing the horrific drowning deaths of asylum-seeker Óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez and his 23-month-old daughter, says that of course it is heartbreaking, but “it should also piss us all off…and spur us to action,” and goes on to say that we should not “criminalize desperation.” De Blasio blurts out, “For all the American citizens out there who feel you’re falling behind or feel the American dream is not working for you, the immigrants didn’t do that to you. The big corporations did that to you. The 1% did that to you. We need to be the party of working people and that includes a party of immigrants.”
Inslee, who has made climate change his number one issue, says he was the first governor to stand up against Trump’s Muslim ban. Klobuchar points out, “There are three women up here that have fought pretty hard for a woman’s right to choose.” She also says that you shouldn’t conduct foreign policy at 5 a.m. in a bathrobe. Gabbard, an Iraq War veteran, explains that she is now a fierce supporter of LGBTQ rights; she also wants us to get out of Afghanistan pronto. Booker calls for all gun owners to be licensed and talks about the murder rates in the trans community. No one on stage seems to have the faintest idea how he or she would deal with Mitch McConnell if he is still the Senate majority leader in 2021. Beto, Cory, and Julián all break into Spanish at one point or another.
Ask to state what geopolitical threat the panel finds most daunting, there is a chorus of “China,” “climate change,” “Iran,” “nuclear weapons,” and one vote for “Russia,” given that country’s penchant for election meddling. Inslee earns big applause when he says “Donald Trump.”
Just when you are getting to know these people—Hey, Tulsi isn’t half bad! This climate guy Inslee is interesting!—it is time for closing statements. De Blasio stands on his record—universal pre-K; $15 minimum wage; Klobuchar says she has won in the reddest of districts and can get things done; Warren insists she “will fight for you as hard as I fight for my own family.” But perhaps Booker puts it best. After a final flourish in Spanish, he reverts to English and says that not only is the 2020 election a referendum on getting rid of “him”—the bathrobe-wearing elephant in the room—“it is also a referendum on us, who we are, and who we must be to each other.”
Originally Appeared on Vogue
