Republican debate primer: What to expect from tonight's Fox Business TV showdown
Ten months until election day, and 2016 has already shown its teeth – a year of transition where the demographic, economic and technological forces of change manifest in ways both cultural and personal.
Matt Spector tells us what to expect tonight
It is no accident the most newsworthy story from this year's International Consumer Electronics Show was the convention-floor raid of a hoverboard manufacturer. In 2016, we are servants to the whiz bang of the drone, the promise of the autonomous car and the nauseating escapism of the VR headset. Amid the frenetic pace of change, and in light of the election cycle, the American public appears to seek cheap thrills rather than address dawning realities. Against the tangible global threats to our jobs, safety and health, frivolity prevails.
That folly is assured to be on display during Thursday’s Republican debate. The intensity of the new and saccharine has inflamed the nation’s continued interest in Trump – with every leap forward, the nation takes a step backward. Watchdogs have concurred that his continued presence on the electoral map, and dominance in early states and in national polling, represents what many have called the death knell of the white male majority in the United Sates. That anger and frustration has resonated for months, and will be a major factor in North Charleston on Thursday.
In the same vein, president Obama’s State of the Union address Tuesday mostly served as a rebuke to Trumpian garrulousness, Cruz isolationism and Rubio hawkery – light on specific plans and not the sweeping call to action most expected. Following a 2015 that reminded Americans of progress – in trade, economic recovery and climate change – conversation around steps backward in terror, voting rights and civil discourse dominated.
In what should be a victory lap year, the president notably used the first moments of 2016 to set his sights on sensible gun measures, setting the table for progressive successes and legacy-affirming executive actions and candor in spite of a Congress that refuses to legislate. Though his speech might not have incited the same fire, Obama did, however, make a strong case for the election to serve as a referendum on his agenda and accomplishments, a charge Hillary or Bernie will need to take seriously as they woo primary voters in the coming months.
In Bernie’s surge, Hillary’s threat on the left in Iowa and New Hampshire looms larger, and viewers should expect significant volleying among Democrats far into primary season, and a more immediate focus on Bernie’s ascendant candidacy during Thursday’s Fox Business-televised debate. In his jag through Burlington, Vermont, Trump demonstrated that trademark dogged intensity, bearing teeth in senator Sanders’ stronghold. In Trump’s willingness to appeal to the same frustrations that Bernie has captured in the left, Trump shows the type of across-the-aisle passion he can likely build in the general.
Thursday will be loud, dramatic and likely focused on the lynchpin issues of jobs and guns. Senator Cruz will need to join the fray during the Fox Business broadcast in a big way, particularly to combat perceptions of his fitness for office and parry withering attacks from the third-tier candidates. Discussions of Rubio’s footwear aside, Marco will need to continue to defend his record and fight against Christie’s bluster amid a run for establishment darling. Even Jeb sits pretty among the also-rans; he hovers around 10 per cent in a recent PPP poll. Jeb has been seeking a surge, and he is likely to bear all in a final attempt to play on a national scale.
As with the president's poorly reviewed Sunday-dinner response to the San Bernardino terror, Trump’s unfounded statements around immigrants, Muslims and refugees have usurped the national conversation. He is likely to take the same approach again during Thursday’s debate – that eerily spot-on timing of off-the-cuff remarks has sustained his mythos, part-curiosity and cultural object.
Despite candidates’ best efforts to elevate the conversation, and overcome bluster, the American public gets what it deserves, with more helpings of the same entertainment, diversions, and throwaway technology to come.
Matt Spector is the principal of BowBridge.co, an advisory to UN Refugee Agency, Unicef and social change organizations and brands. He tweets @mspec