Bhaskar Sunkara: ‘We’re far away from a pro-worker Republican party’ A new Republican party was supposed to be in the making. Donald Trump as president catered to corporate interests and the super-rich, but as candidate he wrote a playbook to winning over workers in greater numbers. At tonight’s debate, it’s clear his would-be successors haven’t read it. While Trump has been traveling around Michigan signaling his support for working people (though tellingly at non-union factories), in California the rest of the field struck a far different note when discussing workers that will be key in battleground states like Michigan and Pennsylvania. Senator Tim Scott openly attacked the United Auto Workers’ demands and said that instead of showing up on their picket lines, President Biden should be protecting our southern border. Insurgent candidate Vivek Ramaswamy had a similar response: “If I was giving advice to those workers, I would say go picket in front of the White House in Washington DC,” advocating energy deregulation as an alternative solution to America’s woes. In between his anti-Trump posturing, Chris Christie joined in. “This public school system is no longer run by the public. It is run by the teachers’ unions in this country,” the former New Jersey governor said. “And when you have the president of the United States sleeping with a member of the teachers’ union, there is no chance that you could take the stranglehold away from the teachers’ unions.” The reference to Jill Biden has all the crassness of a Trump line, but none of the political acumen. It’s no wonder no one on the stage is likely to square up against President Biden in November. Bhaskar Sunkara is the president of the Nation, the founding editor of Jacobin, and the author of The Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in An Era of Extreme Inequalities Lloyd Green: ‘Cringe-worthy comes to mind’ Donald Trump won Wednesday night’s debate. From 2,295 miles away, he dominated the seven Republicans who appeared at the Reagan library. His legal woes escaped real attention, albeit his latest posturing over abortion less so. He narrowly leads Joe Biden and leaves the Republican pack in the dust. The race’s dynamics remain unchanged. On stage, Ron DeSantis got the airtime he craved but polls third in New Hampshire. Nikki Haley auditioned to be Trump’s running mate but earned his campaign’s ire as she was onstage. Mike Pence is officially irrelevant and a bad joke-teller. “Thank you for speaking while I’m interrupting.” Vivek Ramaswamy’s quote of the night was an instant classic. Tim Scott let us know that African Americans had a tougher time enduring the Great Society than slavery. Cringe-worthy comes to mind. At the same time, the evening definitely highlighted Biden’s vulnerabilities. For starters, bedlam reigns at the Mexican border. Upcoming legislative contests in Virginia offer a reality check. Republican victory would scream “danger” for the president and his party. A Trump-backed shutdown, however, might provide them with a lifeline. The Old Dominion is filled with government contractors and small businesses. Early in his term, Biden mistakenly took a premature victory lap. “I am confident that Barack is not happy with the coverage of this administration as more transformative than his,” he said. He also compared himself to FDR. Uh, that guy won four terms, assisted by convincing congressional majorities. Also, Hunter Biden isn’t Obama’s child. Lloyd Green is an attorney in New York and served in the US Department of Justice Osita Nwanevu: ‘Nothing but an act of God can dislodge Trump’s lead’ Do debates matter? This is itself the subject of some debate among those who follow presidential elections closely. Commonsensically, big breakout moments for candidates that are replayed in the days after the big event can boost the profiles of candidates who manage to pull them off. And there did seem to be some movement in favor of at least Nikki Haley after the first debate of this cycle. But the race before the candidates in the Republican field hasn’t fundamentally changed: Donald Trump, the last president of the United States and a now-heroic figure in the Republican party, retains and will continue to retain a commanding lead over his rivals that seemingly nothing short of an act of God, and maybe not even that, can dislodge. Trump gained the most of any candidate in the field after the first debate. The huffing and puffing from the other contenders felt a bit different this time around, though. Tim Scott took center stage for much of the night – delivering not only his stock lines about how his own experiences disprove the existence of structural racism in American society, but hits against the records of his rivals, including Nikki Haley, who engaged him in an extended exchange about whether the state department paid for her curtains. Riveting stuff, but the substance really mattered less than the demonstration, to anyone watching, that he’s still in the fight. Trump’s absence, by comparison, was a theme many candidates hit upon, though frankly there were moments during the night when some of the candidates on the stage themselves seemed like nonentities. It took a strikingly long time for Fox’s moderators to send questions Ron DeSantis’s way – he acquitted himself well when they arrived, but not well enough that he’s likely to see the bump in his standing he needed coming out of tonight. The night’s real surprise, really, was Fox’s editorial line – there were questions early on about income inequality and the party’s standing with Latino voters, for instance. It felt throughout like a debate aimed at pulling the primary towards the center from two different directions – the business conservatism that Trump upended with his victory in 2016 and the populist conservatism that hopes to succeed him. There are substantive ideological tensions aplenty to be wrestled with on the right at the moment and the powers that be in the heart of the conservative press are evidently interested in teasing them out. They did their best and so did the candidates. But it’s still Trump’s party and still Trump’s race to lose. Osita Nwanevu is a Guardian US columnist Jill Filipovic: ‘These egomaniacs don’t care about women’ If there’s one takeaway from the second Republican debate on Wednesday night, it’s that this party of blustering egomaniacs simply does not care about women. There was only a single woman on stage – perhaps not a surprise from a party that struggles to put women in office and to capture women’s votes. Startlingly few questions were about the issues that animate the lives of so many American families, and women’s lives especially: childcare, healthcare, abortion. While Republican lawmakers criminalize abortion in conservative states, and while even voters in conservative states vote for abortion rights when given the chance, the Republican hopefuls were wishy-washy on the issue – not wanting to be accountable for their party’s own extremism, but also refusing to align themselves with America’s pro-choice majority. Chris Christie turned a question about abortion rights into talking about defunding Planned Parenthood and wanting to fund drug treatment. Ron DeSantis simply refused to accept that pro-choice voters cost Republicans some midterm wins. There was only a single question about childcare, and it went largely unanswered. Chris Christie, though, did find time to refer to the first lady, Jill Biden, as someone whom the president is “sleeping with”. The candidates had more to say about invading Mexico than invading women’s uteruses – although most of them seemed to favor both. Even Donald Trump, he of “grab ’em by the” – you know – seems to understand the bind Republicans have put themselves in with their legislative misogyny. Trump isn’t an abortion moderate – he’s the reason Roe v Wade was overturned, and he has voiced support for jailing women who have abortions – but the truth is that he doesn’t really care; he’s willing to do whatever he thinks will put him in power and keep him there. He is a keen observer of his own party, and his flip-flopping on abortion seems to signal that he sees the Republican’s anti-abortion extremism as a liability. But he wasn’t on stage tonight. Those who were seem committed to doubling down on their attacks on women’s rights – or ignoring women altogether. Jill Filipovic is the author of the The H-Spot: The Feminist Pursuit of Happiness LaTosha Brown: ‘They are not willing to face real issues’ The debate was another display of Republican presidential candidates coddling Trump’s legacy. Even in his absence, these candidates have chosen denialism and partisan rhetoric as a strategy for positioning themselves as the next best thing to Trump. It is clear they are not willing to face real issues, protect democracy, or hold themselves, and others like them, accountable for their actions. Each candidate on that stage lacked the fortitude to separate themselves from Trump – and, in a race for leadership, that is very telling. The debate was so chaotic and disjointed, due to the candidates bantering back and forth and talking over each other, that debate moderators had to remind them: “If you’re all speaking at the same time, no one can understand you.” It was like watching children fight for attention at the local schoolyard. There appears to be an ongoing unwillingness to offer real solutions for real life for everyday people. One example is the candidates’ refusal and unwillingness to seriously address the labor issues that have led to the current UAW auto workers’ strike. Instead of suggesting any remedy that would provide millions of American households with job and economic security, several candidates suggested punishing workers or union-busting while ironically claiming to support the need to bring jobs back to America from places like China. The candidates also refused to adequately address the impending government shutdown. They chose to lay the blame at Biden’s feet without acknowledging Congressional Republicans’ refusal to work out a solution and apparent hellbent determination to force an unnecessary shutdown. It’s all smoke and mirrors. The Republican party’s identity crisis was primetime viewing. The debate was not only a reflection of how broken and childish the Republicans are, but of their willingness to cannibalize each other for power and take the country down with them. LaTosha Brown is the co-founder of Black Voters Matter