The GOP presidential debate indeed resembled a Marx Brothers movie, but seemed even more like A Night to Remember, the 1958 British film on the RMS Titanic disaster. Cable's cancelation and providential intervention prevented my viewing it, thus here I rely on press reports foisted on the poor schmucks forced to cover it.
The debate's most telling summary came from one of its participants, Ron DeSantis, who told Sean Hannity afterward: "If I was at home watching that, I would have changed the channel." The NY Times trio assigned to barf up an article on "that" seemed to agree, calling it a "meandering and at times indecipherable debate" β "120 minutes of cross-talk, unanswered questions, prepackaged comebacks and nary a word mentioning the heavy favoriteβs legal jeopardy."
One would think that when the absent-from-stage, leading Republican candidate is facing 91 criminal counts wrapped in two state and two federal indictments, at least one of his competitors might want to mention this. It sounds kinda germane, even important. Yet not only did no "debate" participants bring up the subject, neither did the moderators, Fox Business Network host Stuart Varney and Fox News host Dana Perino. (I'll cut Perino some slack. She may not have known about Trump's indictments, having once confessed she didn't know what the Cuban Missile Crisis was.)
Silence, however, was perhaps the better part of valor. When the show's contestants did speak, one wished they hadn't. Or so I read. Chris Christie had three years to think of a bone-piercing epithet for Trump, and the best he could come up with was "Donald Duck." Vivek Ramaswamy was last month's Wunderkind for "[drawing] outsize attention by shredding his opponents with personal attacks," while last night he transfigured into a Miss Manners Supermaam "who was chastising his competitors for attacking one another."
Credit, though, to Nikki Haley, who in one exchange with Vacuous Vivek revealed to the nation: "Every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber." For my money, that topped the "Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy" dig from Lloyd Bentsen to Dan Quayle. Speaking of that exceedingly rare phenomenon, Republican honesty, the Times also reported that a Mike Pence super PAC (yes, there is one) sent a pre-debate memo to donors that read: "This race needs to be shaken up, and soon." Remarked the Times: "The race seemed barely stirred." Nevertheless, it plunged tumultuously into historical oblivion.
Yet historically memorable, for sure, was Donald Trump's evening performance β even if most of the viewing electorate, or the press, for that matter, didn't quite grasp its sinister implications. Speaking in support of unions at a nonunion factory, he unveiled a gauzy Weltanschauung for his second term β something of a clarification of his National Socialist, or Italian Fascist, intentions.
In a word β Corporatism, a governing ideology loosely embraced by Adolf Hitler and, more explicitly, Benito Mussolini. Conceptually, under corporatism a nation's economy is directed by industry, labor and government whose representatives settle conflicts through negotiation. But of course within the larger structure of an autocracy β not all corporatist societies have been autocratic β the reigning authoritarian has the last, enforceable word.
As The Washington Post described what in effect was Trump's eulogy for a market economy, he "portray[ed] the next election as a choice between certain doom for the auto industry or utopian-sounding industrial growth built on trade restrictions, fossil fuels and even expropriation of foreign assets." It's to be expected that a demagogue who "projects" his opposition as a collection of communists and fascists should sound very much like both.
History's fascistic experiments with corporatism were, shall we say, less than ideal, as is any government experiment based on coercion masquerading as a kind of special-interest pluralism. Germany's "utopia" lasted 12 brutal years; Italy's suffered through more than 20. Their economies certainly cannot be compared to that of contemporary America's, but the conceptual approach would be the same. Last night, Trump characterized it as "a vision for a revival of economic nationalism."
Addressing a friendly audience nationalistically chanting USA! USA!, Trump swaddled the new, coming economy in his familiar fabrics of racism, xenophobia, expertise-bashing and historical revisionism. "The Wall Street predators [Jewish bankers], the Chinese cheaters [the Yellow Peril] and the corrupt politicians [informed, experienced lawmakers] have hurt you [the noble common man]. I will make you better.
"For years, foreign nations have looted and plundered your hopes [Versaille Treaty], your dreams and your heritage [the honorable Confederacy ], and now theyβre going to pay for what they have stolen [retribution for Versailles] and what they have done to you, my friends. Weβre going to take their money. Weβre going to take their factories [Stalinist fascism]. Weβre going to rebuild the industrial bedrock of this country" β as envisioned, via Blut und Boden, blood and soil.
"It will be fueled by American energy. It will be sourced by American suppliers. It will be sculpted from American iron, aluminum and steel, and it will be built by highly skilled American hands and high wage American labor [in happy cooperation with industrial leaders and government trade policymakers]." And naturally with all the swiftness of the FΓΌhrer principle and every revolutionary fascist movement, "Weβll do it first day in office." (By 2018, nearly 1,800 factories had vanished since Trump's first day in office. Thousands of manufacturing jobs were then erased during his final year because of his gross mismanagement of the covid crisis. Not falsche Nachrichten.)
Subtlety and nuance are scarcely Trump's forte, but his speechwriter excels at both. Imbued in his rhetoric last night were numerous signals of a coming New Order, mere twists on a couple old ones. As his noncompetitors were about to gouge and dig at each other while ignoring the gravely ominous signals he has already sent, he went about the business of outlining an authoritarian approach to the nation's economy in the guise of cordial, subordinate partnerships.
Be happy in your work! ... or else.