Has everybody has noticed that the media is treating last night’s three hour unscripted but predictable appearance as a major source of content and performance for determining which one of 15 candidates will be the Republican Party’s choice?
Or that the candidates only substance is their continual hope that we will vote for and believe in things unseen. This creed, of hope without substance, is the real merger of religion and politics.
The zeal and glee of media about being over its own moon, of having captured a global audience and a live stream within Super Bowl range (921K to 1,300K) produces endless streaming comments on best media moments, best overall, best by candidate, best reply, and best performance over all. The spill over effects of the debate had all news ratings up! Who cared about the candidates? Their stands and policies, their mission and purpose.
Certainly, not by the questioning, those concerned about global warming, greenhouse gases, renewal energy, Arctic drilling, raging wildfires, and fierce wind storms of tornadoes and hurricanes. The gleeful media in its sober responsibility put not one question about the environment, the public-private relationship of its resources, or a coordinated US energy plan for the future.
Despite Germany building passive houses (30,000) with recirculated outside air whose energy costs for heating and cooling are less than $7 a month, the technology and new specifications are opposed by America’s homebuilding lobbies. A vigorous debate is also developing over costs, standards, materials construction and efficiency of passive houses in US climate regions, before the building has begun (only 90 US homes to date, passive homes cost 7 – 30 percent more).
So how big is the US corporate push for renewal and green energy, in its business practices? We don’t know because nobody asked about this non-jingoistic threat in last night’s debate. Even the long line in the prairie soils of the Midwest made by Republicans who have demanded President Obama approve construction of the Keystone XL pipe from the tar sands of Canada to Texas didn’t get a second of mention.
Of course, with the 10th anniversary of Katrina’s hit on the Gulf Coast over by only a few days, its memory fresh in our minds, the vast incompetence of the federal government’s efforts and former President Bush attending events in Louisiana and Mississippi, it was a frame made to fit a statement about our nation’s goals for energy and resource use, esp. responsibility and protections during national diasters. With fires raging over 8 million Western acres this year alone, as firsthand witnesses to the damages and impact on property and human lives, short and long term, did Ohio Governor Kasich or New Jersey Governor Christie mention this critical need and crucial force of national planning?
If the environment and energy was a dud, a quickening pulse emerged to further lift the US as the world’s armourer and police. The military attracted attention for the candidates. They promised to buy weapons even the Pentagon says it doesn’t need. They promised to “build up a decimated military,” still bigger than every national military, bigger than the top seven combined (which includes China and Russia). The Pentagon consumes 40 percent of the federal budget. Did one Republican candidate say how an increase in Pentagon spending would be paid for?
On less than five minutes total television time, much of it responding to questions about Trump’s abusive insults and delivering a set soliloquy accusing Planned Parenthood of harvesting live fetuses to sale “brains” to medical buyers, proffering a movie clip she had seen with voices proposing “harvesting” a “brain” for sale—without mentioning the doubt cast on the highly edited clip–Fiorina was declared “winner,” validating her rise not in state and national polls but her moving up from the second tier debate to what Huckabee called “the A Team.” Dr. Carson welcomed her. (Note, there are a number of disturbing clips on Youtube and elsewhere, but I have not been able to find the one specifically cited by Fiorina; other reporters and writers have reported not finding it either.)
Surely, with employment rates back to 2008 levels, the national debate about wages reached the Republican televised stage. With one question? None. No mention.
Were lies told for political advantage? According to FactCheck, yes. Marc Rubio, it is not so “over 40 percent of small and mid-size banks … have been wiped out” since the Dodd-Frank law was passed.” FactCheck also points out Rubio said he had “never advocated exceptions for rape or incest to abortion bans,” but he “cosponsored a bill in 2013 that contained just such exceptions.”
The oldest lie was reycled by Huckabee, the Baptist preacher-former Arkansas governor-media host who forgets Christ’s admonition to “render to Caesar” when asked about conflicts between government authority and religious views; in this case he violated the Lord’s Ten Commandments by calling a $700 million savings for Medicare over a decade a “robbery.” His “saving-is-theft” meme went unchallenged, on the stage or out front.
Media no longer hides the fact that it thinks its coverage and talking points are more essential to picking the party’s winners and losers than your votes.
Seen any polls on voters lately, any pundit ask—why turn out in 2016 for the most significant office of leadership in the world, the office of the President of the United States, may draw a turnout of voters in 50 states that may be a modern low? Despite running on their records, is that the record all of the candidates are running toward? Who wins then?
What we do know is CNN charged its advertisers forty times the normal Wednesday night rates.
