In preparing to debate President Donald Trump, prospective candidates are having to retool their war chests.
Mr. Trump, in fact, has rewritten the rules.
With gleeful abandon, he has eliminated any pretenses of decorum, or even of causes or grand projects.
Our president has the largest bully pulpit in the world and the opportunity to unite us to solve pressing problems.
But what, exactly, is the White House championing?
The Republican Party that once fought for small government and access to global markets has become a party devoted to protecting a single individual.
Mr. Trump takes a perverse delight in dividing America, in seeing just how many of our buttons he can push, before members of his base cry out enough! Sadly, hes being given a wide, wide berth.
His most recent example was a three-day tweet storm against Rep. Elijah Cummings, an African American from Maryland, and what Mr. Trump termed Cummings rodent infested district where no human being would want to live.
His goal with such rhetoric is to inflame racial tensions and as such peg Baltimores problems on anything but the fact that his administrations policies have made life harder for the poor. Its a diversion. When you havent done much to benefit the working class, bait them into hating someone else. He is not and never will be a champion for the working poor.
So yes, if you are across the stage from this kind of rhetoric, the temptation is to ditch the index cards for boxing gloves. And disinfectant. In todays politics, it seems the truth will take a distant second to vitriol.
Mr. Trumps 2016 campaign was loaded with such sentiment. For those tired of feeling ignored by aloof politicians it was entertaining to see pompous windbags such as Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas taken down a notch. It was refreshing to see the heir apparent, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, dethroned. And when the attacks got personal, and they did, too many of us laughed and went along with the joke. But its not funny anymore, and we cant keep insulting our way to a better country.
YET WHEN Sen. Elizabeth Warren wants to talk about the benefits of government-sponsored higher education on the debate stage, her first hurdle against Mr. Trump, sadly, will be to have a sharp comeback for when he calls her Pocahontas, in reference to her ill-advised claims of Native American ancestry.
Or if Sen. Bernie Sanders dare talk universal health care, he best be ready to be called a raging lunatic. Sanders will want to argue that policy, not personality, is what voters care about. Unfortunately, Mr. Trump has proved otherwise.
In 2016, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee dropped out of the race saying, its almost as if the more experience, the more preparation one has had for this job, its almost like its a detriment.
It will be up to Democrats to insist the focus of the 2020 election be put on health care, not socialism; on the imminent dangers of global warming, not that its a hoax; on immigration reform, not gangs and rapists; on the economy, not that tax cuts are the answer to everything.
We can direct the conversation. We can make our politics be about ideas again, and not about insults. But only if we weigh in.
Susan Lynn
