Entertainment is the supra-ideology of all discourse on television. No matter what is depicted or from what point of view, the overarching presumption is that it is there for our amusement and pleasure.
– Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death
In a world where crisis is everywhere and courage is lacking; where leadership is corrupt at the highest levels and all is despair, the people hunger for a champion, and last night they finally found him. Only…
… he’s not a MAN.
That at least was the sort of voice over I was expecting after the breathless wind-up to last night’s Republican debate at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley. I was also expecting swords and dragons which probably tells you, if nothing else, more about my TV viewing preferences than last night’s debate. But to continue the theme – though there was nothing like a Red Wedding last night there were definitely a few that distinguished themselves, and one in particular who emerged as a kind of crowd pleasing champion.
Call her Fiorina of Tarth.
For those who don’t understand the reference please catch up on Game of Thrones up to the most recent season five. At which point you will recognize the reference to one Brienne of Tarth, a pissed off woman warrior with a righteous heart for protecting children. In a world written by George R.R. Martin such appealing virtues probably means the character won’t last next season, and it will probably be her righteousness that will get her killed, which makes her an ideal metaphor for this most recent incarnation of Carly that showed up last night.
In my previous installment on the Republican race I described Carly as someone with a robotic like precision when it comes to delivering sharp and decisive statements with devastating effect. But, I asked, does she have the sort of empathetic range that a candidate in a general election must be able to display to capture American hearts and minds?
Well the answer from last night is a qualified “Yes”.
In what was one of the most effective pro-life statements in a presidential debate, Fiorina gave what was undeniably a passionate and emotional plea on behalf of the unborn when she described in gruesome detail the famous Planned Parenthood videos. It was particularly noticeable because it was in stark contrast to the other candidates who were wonkishly focusing on the policy of de-funding Planned Parenthood, whereas instead Carly went straight to emotional narrative. Thus Fiorina of Tarth demonstrated last night that there is an emotional force to the pro-life argument if you have the right voice to deliver it.
But does Carly take a punch as well as Brienne? For those who are enthusiastic about the former HP CEO you should watch the exchange between her, Trump and Christie at about the 1:20 to 1:30 mark of the debate. Trump, as always, fulfilled his role as the tornado of sharped tooth insults and bored into Carly on her HP tenure. The exchange was telling, first because Carly was effective in defending herself, second because no matter how well she defends herself such attacks will always leave a mark, and third, because she knows this. This last observation is based on the fact that well after the exchange when the debate moved on, Carly defensively mentioned the exchange again in response to a question on another matter. This will be Fiorina of Tarth’s Achilles heel, and whatever vulnerability she demonstrated last night will be more evident against a democratic candidate who will be far more enthusiastic about wielding class resentment arguments against her. Such was the vehicle Obama effectively deployed against Romney in 2012 as I discussed in a previous post based on Dan Balz’ account in his book Collision: 2012.
If Carly manages to flourish in the Republican primary it will be because she knows how to wield a sword with the best of them. If she ultimately fails it will be because her appetite for sword fighting (particularly her righteousness in doing so) will cause her to overstep giving an opening to her Republican rivals.
Of those candidates who appear to be playing the long game, who are, Lord-Varys-like, waiting for all the hot-heads to kill themselves off, Marco Rubio appears to be the most promising. Of all the candidates he was the one who used the stage in the most relaxed manner while maintaining a balance of eloquence and staying on message while not seeming to shoe-horn in pre-processed messages. He didn’t seem overeager to mix it up, but delivered better than he took when it came to making exchanges with other candidates. Jeb! on the other hand is at dire risk of become the Nedard Stark of this season, someone who appeals to a notion of politics that no longer exists and if he’s not careful will find himself on the wrong end of a decision by the Republican voters.
Fortunately for the candidates politics in the US has no body count. But unfortunately for us politics today has little to do with policy and more to do with our ubiquitous appetite for distraction, as Mr. Postman famously put it. If this is in fact so, and I believe it is, then the best candidate the Republicans can field is the one who best uses the stage as a forum for a conservative vision that must come across as simultaneously authentic, empathetic and sufficiently scrappy to beat down the democratic alternative.
In this environment Fiorina of Tarth is emerging to be the peoples favorite alternative to Donald Trump. The only question is, is her greatest strength ultimately going to be her tragic flaw?
Follow-up: Now that it is going to be a subject of interest with Carly Fiorina rising in the polls, Timothy B. Lee gives us a nice summary over at Vox on the controversies of Fiorina’s tenure at HP. The summary: it’s complicated, most of it probably wasn’t Fiorina’s fault, and she would probably make a very good president. We’ll learn more soon no doubt.