A Surprise Winner in the Democratic Presidential Debates for 2020
Bernie and Tulsi: the only candidates willing to call out the military-industrial complex
W.J. Astore
I watched the two Democratic debates this week. Media outlets treat them as a horse race, announcing winners and losers. So perhaps you heard Kamala Harris scored big-time against Joe Biden. Or perhaps you heard Elizabeth Warren did well, or that Tulsi Gabbard generated lots of post-debate interest (Google searches and the like). I will say that Beto O'Rourke was clearly unprepared (or over-prepared) and unable to speak clearly and meaningfully, so count him as a "loser."
All that said, the clear winner wasn't on the stage; it wasn't even among the 20 debate participants. The name of that clear winner: America's military-industrial complex and its perpetual wars.
Sure, there was some criticism of the Afghan and Iraq wars, especially by candidates like Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard. But there was no criticism of enormous "defense" budgets ($750 billion and rising, with true outlays exceeding a trillion a year), and virtually no mention of Saudi Arabia and the war in Yemen. (Tulsi briefly mentioned the Saudis and was shut down; Bernie mentioned the war in Yemen and was ignored.)
The only direct mention of the military-industrial complex that I recall hearing was by Bernie Sanders. Otherwise, the tacit assumption was that soaring defense budgets are appropriate and, at least in these debates, unassailable.
Bernie and Tulsi also mentioned the threat of nuclear war, with Bernie making a passing reference to the estimated cost of nuclear forces modernization (possibly as high as $1.7 trillion). Again, he had no time to follow up on this point.
NBC's talking heads asked the questions, so blame them in part for no questions on the MI Complex and the enormous costs of building world-ending nuclear weapons. Indeed, the talking heads were much more concerned with "gotcha" questions against Bernie, which attempted to paint him as a tax-and-spend socialist who doesn't care about diversity. Yes, that really was NBC's agenda.
Always, Democrats are asked, "How will you pay for that?" You know: "extravagances" like more affordable education, better health care, a tax cut that helps workers, or investments in job training programs and infrastructure. But when it comes to wars and weapons, there are never any questions about money. The sky's the limit.
A reminder to Democrats: Donald Trump won in 2016 in part because he was willing to denounce America's wasteful wars and to challenge defense spending (even though he's done nothing as president to back up his campaign critique). We need true Peace Democrats with spine, so I remain bullish on candidates like Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard.
Hopefully, in future debates Bernie, Tulsi, and others will call for major reforms of our military and major cuts to our bloated Pentagon budget. But don't count on that issue being raised by the mainstream media's talking heads.
Bonus Winner: I can't recall a single mention of Israel and the Palestinians, not even in the context of framing a peace plan. No mention of America's role in Venezuela either. The imperial and aggressive neo-con agenda on foreign policy went almost unchallenged, but kudos to Tulsi Gabbard for calling out the "chickenhawks" (her word, and the right one) in the Trump administration.