What Matters

IF My favourite friend, the Martian observing from 20000 feet, would have relied on the debate last night to tell him what is important to the Democratic Party, he would have been sadly misinformed. After his review of all of the things that the pundits say and write all of the time, he might have concluded that there were three things that were most important to the Dems, especially in the context of this debate: jobs, African Americans and the Corona Virus. 

Jobs, because it is the single most important thing to nearly all of us who are not children or retired and even they depend on or care about someone who has or needs a job or a better job. African Americans, because not only will the crucial SC primary have a 40% black electorate but many millions more minority citizens will vote in the Super Tuesday states. The Corona Virus, because it is the single most deadly of its kind in 15 years and the CDC just announced the same day that its spread in the US was "inevitable".

Let's take each issue in turn. On jobs, the Dems seemed unable or unwilling or too busy attacking eachother to present a plan. If there is a plan, it would appear to be to raise taxes, borrow more money and regulate, regulate, regulate. Perhaps the biggest silent compliment they all pay the President on this issue is that they realize that he's doing such an historically good job that it will profit them nothing to bring it up and they will look silly. But what would it have hurt for them to say:"I know who's responsible for this boom. It's the American People. Now here's my plan to make it easier for them to do the great job they're doing and to bring those still left out in on it!"?

On African Americans, with the possible exception of Gun Violence, there was zip zero nada discussion about how to make Black Lives Better. Certainly, viciously attacking crime-fighting programs like Bloomberg's "Stop and Frisk",  doomed any effort to seriously discuss the roots of said violence - bad schools, bad economies, bad families, etc., etc.... If the Democratic "Debate" about how to help Blacks was a banquet, they'd be serving bread and water. But, our Martian would know that if he was observing their non-discussions about this in the past. A good sign for Trump, who Senator Tim Scott (R-SC) predicts will see his black vote increase 50% because the POTUS actually has delivered results for them.

On the Corona Virus, well, while this was in the hands of the moderators to some extent, it is still a fact that the single biggest medical health threat to the US in many years only merited one question after 80 minutes had passed. That none of the candidates even went out of their way to bring it up (maybe an adlib PSA about the dangers of attending public meetings like this one?) despite having ample chances to do so in the first hour and a half has to be interpreted as yet another vote of confidence in Trump's "This will all be over by April" plan to deal with it. Or maybe, just maybe, this is their backhanded way of acknowledging that not everything is Trump's fault after all.

All in all, again the biggest winner of the "debate" was Trump who looks set to meet the worst candidate for POTUS in US history courtesy of the Democratic Party. If the Martian likely would have figured out from watching this debate what is NOT important to the Democratic Party (CLUE: it sure isn't you), then so will the voters. By contrast, it is simple to figure out what's important to Trump - even if his Twitter Account is magically disabled, his record will speak for itself.