Grand Guignol Sold As Democratic Debate

The gilded, gaudy Phantom of the Opera stage was what immediately set the tone for the comic horror that was to be the second round of the Democratic debates. Then came the ominous sound of thumping military boots echoing throughout the auditorium as a prelude to the National Anthem. And then CNN cut to commercial.

Since I live-streamed the spectacle on a special CNN app which I was forced to download for the privilege of participating from afar in our money-soaked electoral democracy, I am sad to report that I missed the ads. But I did read that they included such regular CNN sponsors as the drug companies and the private health insurance lobbies who set the tone for the moderators' anti-Single Payer questions.

The combination of frenzied theatrical melodrama, jackbooted militarism, and rank corporatism gave the proceedings the distinct whiff of fascism. The only difference between the CNN debates and a Trump rally was that the CNN spectacle did not contain any obvious or overt racism or xenophobia.

You really had to listen very closely to detect it. Joe Biden, for example, bragged that he warmly welcomes any immigrant with a Ph.D who wants to enter our country to enjoy our freedoms. (translation: to help keep our corporate profits great) That statement kind of excludes the Central American compesinos seeking refuge from the US-engendered regime changes and climate catastrophes, and allowed him to elide the fact that he was President Obama's own special emissary to the region,  his mission being to stop the migrants before they even entered Mexico. Trump could not immediately enforce a similar agreement, thanks to his own lack of diplomatic skills.

Besides a jolly-sounding Cory Booker (D-NJ-Private Equity) the only people vociferously challenging Biden on Obama's record deportations and anti-immigrant policies, in fact, were a group of immigrant protesters in the audience.

It's amazing, really, that the protesters got inside the building, because Bernie Sanders supporters had just been physically barred from even entering a CNN-controlled section of the parking lot outside Detroit's Fox Theater.

As Status Coup's Jordan Chariton reported from the scene:

Multiple supporters for Bernie Sanders who were part of the “visibility zone” area—an area designated by CNN for supporters of candidates to stand with their signs and cheer on camera—told Status Coup that efforts were made by both CNN and local police to visually diminish their presence as compared to the supporters of other candidates like Warren. 

 "Four different police officers said we could not go that way, as it was reserved for the other candidates’ supporters,” Sanders supporter Victoria Bowman told Status Coup. “One even used a bullhorn to dissuade us, but we ignored them and carried on. A Bernie campaign person got us past the last battalion of officers intent on blocking us. That campaign person went back out into the streets to bring more Bernie people in, then she was not allowed back into the “cheering section." 

  There were very few Bernie supporters allowed into the lot that was full of Warren, Williamson, and Biden supporters. Their cheers nearly drowned out the voices of Bernie’s supporters. Bowman’s account was confirmed by other supporters who faced similar roadblocks from the police blocking them from entering the cheering section that other candidates’ supporters appeared free to come and go from as they pleased.

So we can add police repression to the theatricality, jingoism and corporate profit motive to make the privatized Democratic Debate franchise fit the classic definition of fascism.

One of the few full-throated rebukes to bipartisan complicity in the long-standing American institutional racist tradition also came from protesters in the audience, who shouted "Fire Pantaleo!" at candidate Bill de Blasio, mayor of New York. Daniel Pantaleo is the police officer who choked Eric Garner to death and who still, under de Blasio's liberal watch, remains on the several job years later despite an official ruling that Garner died of a police-inflicted homicide.

 Much to everyone's surprise, Kamala Harris did not reprise her Act One starring role as Biden foil in the second episode of Debate Thriller Theater. Her previous attack on him over his anti-busing record was apparently just a one-off. Biden's team had done its own homework on Harris's own authoritarian record as California's chief prosecutor, noting that she had failed to bring lawsuits against two heavily segregated school districts in her state.

But the most damage to Harris and her de facto Jim Crow agenda was inflicted by Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii,who lambasted Kamala for abusing the rights of defendants in her jurisdiction. She perfectly clarified Joe Biden's somewhat garbled counter-attack on Harris's record. Here's how the whole exchange played out:

All Kamala Harris could do was say how proud she was of her hard work in "fixing the criminal justice system." When Tulsi Gabbard demanded that she apologize to all the poor people she has hurt, Harris simply offered her trademark nervous giggle.

Sadly, due to her own low poll numbers and individual donations (update: she has now met the donation threshhold) this was very likely Tulsi's last stand on the presidential debate stage. But she has certainly earned a permanent place on the national political stage as one of the country's last remaining anti-war politicians.

With a faltering Biden barely standing erect and Harris's reputation so damaged, it seems that the last best hope of the corporate wing is Mayor Pete Buttigieg. I can't wait for Bernie and Liz to confront him on, among other things, his attendance at a plutocratic "Stop Bernie!" strategizing fund-raiser earlier this year.

If the Democratic centrists were "agonizing" about Bernie's momentum last spring, they must really be in the thrashing and gnashing final throes of neoliberal misery by now, in the wake of his strong debate performance. As far as Elizabeth Warren is concerned, we'll just have to wait and see whether the corporatists will be as successful in co-opting her as they seemed to think they were only the other day. When you've lost Paul Krugman....

The next pseudo-debate is scheduled for September, and miracle of miracles, it appears that it will be a blessed one-night stand, with fully half of the candidates not expected to meet the rigid party criteria for appearing.

The news personalities playing the emcees will again do their own hideous best to pit the actors against each other and ensure that a gloriously gruesome time is had by all, especially by the corporate sponsors who pay their seven-figure salaries and rake in the profits at the expense of the millions of trapped paying subscriber-voters glued to their screens at home. Because admit it. You just can't look away.