Race To The Bottom

I was blissfully unaware that there was going to be a second Republican Presidential Debate. But by golly, even though there was a spot on the stage left, some of the Republican Presidential candidates chose not to attend. The stage was crowded, to be sure, and the space required to accommodate the ego of a former game show host is considerable, I'm sure the folks at the Ronald Reagan Library in Simi Valley could have found room. They have room for a pub and a decommissioned Air Force One in there.   

But the twice-impeached-multiple-indictment front runner chose to stay away. Instead, he used the occasion to drop in on a rally at Drake Enterprises, a non-unionized auto parts supplier in Clinton Township, about a half-hour outside Detroit. He spent his time railing against one of his biggest fears: Electricity. He claimed that electric cars are "much worse for the environment" and wondered about electric motors on boats, “Do you get electrocuted if the boat sinks?”

And then there was the matter of the ongoing United Auto Workers strike: “You’re all on the picket lines and everything, but it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference what you get, because in two years you’re all going to be out of business." This statement was made a day after the duly elected President of the United States joined UAW members in Detroit walking the aforementioned picket lines. 

But, as I have mentioned, this rhetoric wasn't the only swirl of innocuous rhetoric that night. The assembled GOP Avengers spent Wednesday evening barking out their talking points in an attempt to be heard over the roar of the power vacuum in their party. Notable bits included former Vice President and noted criminal justice scholar Mike Pence called for the expedited death penalty for accused mass murderers. Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie kept up his razzing of the absent former game show host by referring to him as "Donald Duck." Get it? And former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley unloading what often seemed like the entire field’s pent-up frustration with entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, “Honestly, every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber for what you say.”

Oh, former Governor Nikki, we feel your pain. And while the former game show host seems to have gone into prevent defense, I do wonder what an election that takes place between any of the Simi Valley attendees and someone who believes in climate change will go down. 

I don't have to think about this long, mind you.