Steve is back, on the implications of Paris on the GOP presidential race.
It is curious, in
hindsight, to realize how many presidential elections can be viewed in utterly
simplistic terms: Voters tend to re-act more than act. We tend to elect the candidate who
embodies the diametric opposite of the most egregious weakness of the prior
administration: Ike was old and boring, so we went for young and exciting Jack
Kennedy. Lyndon Johnson had horribly bungled Viet Nam, so we went for the
experienced cold warrior Richard Nixon. Nixon turned out to be a crook, so we
went for squeaky-clean Jimmy Carter. Carter turned out to be a wimp, so we went
for macho cowboy Ronald Reagan. George Bush was a clumsy old patrician
goofball, so we went for the guy who played the sax on Arsenio Hall. Clinton
turned out to be a womanizer, so we went for the family guy with whom we could
have a beer. George Bush turned out to be stupid and ignorant, so we went with
the erudite Harvard Law prof. And now the big complaint is that Obama’s too
damn cerebral and won’t kick butt.
So, too, today, voters
instantly react to the immediate issue: ISIS barbarians slaughter lovely young
Parisians, and suddenly the only issues Americans care about are who will kill the ISIS bastards
first, and who will keep them away from US soil. Thus: Trump and Cruz
ascendant; all others, in decline.
The
Friday the 13th terrorism in Paris was ISIS’s 9/11 moment; it was
the instant that the world was forced to abandon the notion that ISIS was a
regional threat in a remote and distasteful part of the world that is best
battled by robot and drone. The vision of black-hooded killers spraying bullets
into defenseless civilians in French cafes is very easy for Americans to
transpose into images of like carnage at Venice Beach, Wrigley Field, Grand
Central Station, and or the Washington Monument. Just as it was clear that the world was
forever changed as sunrise came on September 12, 2001, so too we now are
experiencing that historical rarity of living within an inflection point:
certain that the world will change, less certain of exactly how.
For
the still fluid Presidential race, the impact of Paris will be profound.
For the past several
months, it’s been assumed that Donald Trump and Ben Carson were on parallel
trajectories, creating the impression that they were similar in their appeal
and in the profile of their supporters. Both, as “outsiders,” are attractive to
the large portion of Republicans who loathe Washington, the Federal government,
and even the perceived-as-oft-compromising
Congressional leaders in their own party.
Paris has quickly
demonstrated that this assumption is flawed.
Carson’s appeal
has been based on a biography that champions personal achievement and
responsibility; his appeal lies in a combination of a rejection of the role of Federal government and a powerful
public embrace of Christian religion
to the active exclusion of other forms of worship. This plays well to the
Christian fundamentalists.
Trump, on the other
hand, is centering his entire candidacy on the notion that in a city where
nothing gets done, you need a tough, kick-ass bully who has proven he can get
his way by reaping billions in the business world. He has chosen immigration as the issue that symbolizes both how tough he will be and how he intends to
defend American business from the lawlessness beyond our borders. Trump plays
to the Republicans who we’ll call American fundamentalists: People who feel that the United
States has been exploited by shrewd, manipulative foreigners and who feel that
Washington, D.C., is populated by wimps who have allowed it to happen.
Ben Carson was the
subject of an unnerving New York
Times article, which included the quote that “Nobody has been able
to sit down with (Carson) and have him get one iota of intelligent information
about the Middle East.” However, the quote is not from Rachel Maddow on an
MSNBC search-and-destroy mission; it was the candid assessment of
Carson’s own advisor. Carson was asked on a Sunday morning show to identify
the first countries he’d turn to in order to form a coalition against ISIS. He
froze and could not name any. On a Richter scale of frightening
ignorance, Rick Perry’s memory lapse doesn’t begin to compare. In the past few
days, Carson has had to reel in several factually-vacant quotes (see China in
Syria and New Jersey Muslims cheering as the Twin Towers fell).
Now, with Paris, we
suddenly have the one situation in which Republicans actually see a
valid purpose in the Federal government: to wage war with Muslims in
the Middle East. Carson’s shocking lack of command of international affairs is
freaking people out, and his numbers are dropping like all that supposed grain
in the pyramids.
In bold contrast, Donald Trump’s assertion
that he will solve all problems in the Middle East by “bombing the shit out of
ISIS” is just the sort of testosterone supplement that xenophobes mainline. No doubt the 25% of
Republicans who think we can deport eleven million illegal aliens are living in
a fantasy world in which religious caliphates waging land wars in Eurasia can
be defeated by drone pilots based in Fort Lauderdale. The fault line is no
longer about deporting those eleven
million people, it is now about shutting our borders to refugees of a
horrendous war whose origin can and must be traced to our shores. The
Republican governors asserting an imagined ability to reject Syrian refugees is
sort of like claiming to be really good at air guitar: what are they actually doing? Is Chris Christie planning on
installing passport controls on the Weehauken side of the tunnel?
But logic aside – far aside
– immigration is Trump’s issue; he has
stamped it with his brand as boldly as his buildings, golf courses, and
casinos. So, the minute Paris redefined our immigration phobia from
"Mexicans are taking our jobs" to "Syrians are blowing up our
cities," immigration grew even larger, and became a vital, central issue –
and Donald Trump’s popularity has surged once again. Trump’s “macho
y nacho” strategy -- a combo of high testosterone military
assertiveness and xenophobic
immigration posturing -- are clearly separating the Donald from the low-T
domestic focus of Dr. Ben Carson.
And what about the rest
of the Republican field?
One would think that
all of the “experienced government officials” would stand to gain from a sudden
pivot in focus to the nuances and complexities of global diplomacy and the
arcane, layered, official and unofficial competing constituencies in the Middle
East. Or, then again, perhaps not. That rapidly receding 4% who had not
yet been convinced that Jeb Bush is actually an incompetent candidate had to
listen to baby brother offer up that we solve the Syria immigration problem by
only accepting Christian Syrians. There’s a wonderful clip of him being asked
just exactly how we establish which Syrians are Christian and which are Muslim,
and you can witness that painfully awkward moment of a Bush at war with the
English language. “Well, you can prove it,” squirming Jeb mumbles, once again –
as with his entire candidacy – offering no proof, no logic, and no conviction.
Which brings us back
once again to the Cruz and Rubio show. I submit that the recent ascendance of
Ted Cruz over Rubio is an echo of the exact same phenomenon that reshaped Trump
and Carson. Cruz – like Trump – is the high testosterone fire-breather who
stokes the passions of the fearful. Rubio, a la Carson, is generally more
even-tempered and moderate. Rubio is always skittish about immigration, having
once advanced legislation that alienated red-staters from Baja to South Beach.
Cruz, on the other hand, is out in front of the Syrian-bating. In short, the
exact two elements that are propelling Trump over Carson – macho posturing and
fear-mongering about immigration – are driving Cruz past Rubio.
Finally, please allow
me just one last observation: When 130 citizens are brutally slaughtered with
AK 47s in Paris, our politicians cannot hold themselves back from the lights,
action, and camera; screaming about the changes that must immediately take
place in order to protect our citizens from the savagery of demented souls. One
only wishes that they displayed such passion, moral rectitude and visibility
when children in Connecticut and theatre goers in Colorado were ripped to
shreds by the exact same weaponry, which is fully accessible to the demented
souls on our own shores. Indeed, it’s an easy inference that Donald Trump
thinks that those first graders would still be alive if only they’d been
packing heat, and Ben Carson is puzzled why the Parisians sipping their Chateau Neuf du Pape at a sidewalk café
didn’t have the guts to run headlong and attack their killers.
Bill Maher was on The
Late Show with Stephen Colbert last week, and he confessed that he had
completely changed his mind
about the duration of the American presidential selection process. Where he had
once decried the waste and farce of an 18-month declare/ debate/ primary/ nominate/ elect cycle, he now
expressed his deep appreciation for its very length. His reason? Americans are – in his words --
“slow and dim and dumb and need extra time” to finally figure out which
candidates are worthy of office.
Let’s hope the
Republicans use that time wisely. Iowa is six weeks away.
I long ago "friended" the Brady Campaign on
Facebook. Each time I log onto Facebook,
there's a barrage, an absolute barrage, of information about another
gun-related death in our country.
Sometimes it's the mass murders to which we've become inured ...
Columbine, Virginia Tech, Aurora, Sandy Hook, Oregon’s Umpqua Community
College, and now Colorado Springs. But
more often it’s deaths of which we never read: an accident when a child pulled
a pistol from his grandmother's purse and shot her dead, an errant bullet on a
summer day while someone sat on his front stoop to get out of the heat, a
suicide. I unfailingly find these posts
depressing. But I don't "unfriend"
the Brady Campaign because I believe these posts are an important daily reminder
of what we need to know; we need to have our noses pressed into it. This is not
some abstract concept that's happening someplace else. This is us, in our theaters, on our college
campuses, in our neighborhoods, in our Planned Parenthood health centers. 
