This is a loud bunch of Republicans. Was the audience miked? I’ve never heard a debate crowd this uproarious, and in both directions: yelling and cheering for Vivek, and catcalling and bellowing at him. Other candidates also encountered these small storms, but Vivek’s stood out. I suspect that Fox amped all these responses somehow. Trump the Star wasn’t available, and the experience with the second-stringers needed some oomph. Then Brett Baier would tell the crowd to simmer down, the way Wayne Newton used to act like he was letting his show run longwhen it ended the same time every night. All part of the showmanship. The candidates were yelling too, so they felt the same logic. A lot of noise and anger from every hand available and you have a small-scale replica of the Trump experience.
A dozen years ago the Republican line-up for the early debates seemed spirited but bogus. Eight years ago they had hardened a bit: they seemed slashing and earnest, though still bogus. This time they seem shouty and more bogus than ever. After decades of policy failure, the Republican Party can offer a row of presidential candidates with nothing to say about what their party has done and nothing to promise based on their party’s principles. All they can do is flaunt their combativeness, which they do at each others’ expense. Among the names that I didn’t hear mentioned: Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, John McCain, Sarah Palin, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, George H.W. Bush, and Ronald Reagan. That last absence seems especially hard to believe, but Mike Pence laid into Vivek on foreign policy without invoking the man who was there when the Cold War ended our way. Pence certainly did shout. The unctuous denier of the obvious has another gear and uses it well. He has volume and control, and that last showed itself to be especially valuable. He can bang out the syllables without his voice catching, something other contenders had trouble with. Nikki Haley, for example, when she was straightening out Vivek. Most women have a physical disadvantage when it comes to loudness, and that includes her. The resulting strain can be difficult to listen to, but she soldiered on and got her piece said very noisily.
There’s a story that John Kennedy was watching Air Force One taxi up when a flunky asked him how it felt. At the time Richard Nixon, Kennedy’s defeated foe for president, was trying to become governor of California; this undertaking involved hassling with a state party eminence named Goodwin Knight. Thinking over the flunky’s question, Kennedy answered, “It sure beats fucking around with Goody Knight.” Mike Pence, former Vice President, must fuck around with Vivek Ramaswamy, flavor of the month. The old trouper went and did it and in fine form. If he hangs in there, he can get steamrolled by his old boss, the party’s flavor of the decade.
Chris Christie didn’t lay into Ron DeSantis, as many politics fans had been hoping. Christie did lay into Vivek. DeSantis darted his eyes left and right to see what everyone else was doing when a show of hands was asked for regarding support for Trump if he's the nominee. In the end DeSantis raised his hand, but for the next hands-raised question he tried to make up some lost manliness ground by yelling that he wouldn’t go along and would just talk instead. What did he have to say about the subject (climate change)? One doesn’t recall, the yelling was the point.
