Jan 21, 2016

We, the People, Were the Losers at the Republican Debate

by Gil Troy

Watching the choleric Republican presidential candidates brawl only two days after seeing President Barack Obama’s State of the Union Happy Talk was as jarring as eating spicy chili after an ice cream sundae. Jeb Bush, showing that he speaks Bushspeak like his father and brother, said: “the idea that somehow we’re better off today than the day that Barack Obama was inaugurated president of the United States is totally an alternative universe.” Alas, none of these politicians, selling their respective “alternate universes,” triumphed, leaving we the people as the losers.

Obama’s State of the Union address demonstrated the advantages of incumbency. The president was presidential, commanding attention, seemingly basking in the love. Television beamed it all home: the grandeur of the House chamber, the crowd’s huzzahs, the repeated standing ovations. The fact that many legislators mostly sat stonily was not apparent. Viewers heard the Democrats’ shouts and saw them standing and sitting, standing and sitting, loyally doing their mass partisan squat thrusts.