The GOP debate was a gift to Biden

President Biden must be amazed at his good fortune.

In the first Republican debate, on Wednesday night in Milwaukee, the Biden-orchestrated fiasco in Afghanistan of two years ago came up only fleetingly. His appeasement of the Chinese Communist Party and its dictator for life, Xi Jinping, barely rated a whisper. Not a word was spoken about the left’s sustained assault on the Supreme Court and the mortal threat it poses to the rule of law.

Instead of calling viewers’ attention to Biden’s disastrous first term and why, for the good of the nation, he must be denied a second one, the Republican candidates mostly agreed with each other on everything – but did so in a combative way that will serve only to further divide an already divided GOP primary electorate.

Talk about missed opportunities. This was the greatest swing-and-miss I’ve ever seen in a debate of candidates aspiring to the White House. Former president Donald Trump won’t stay on the sidelines for long, and when he comes back to the debate stage, expect him to dominate these events as he always does. Always.

The seriousness of this moment for America, and the world, did not come through at all on Wednesday night. Rising interest rates have destroyed countless young couples’ dreams of buying a house. The collapse in public health agencies’ credibility was not discussed, much less the urgent need to rebuild a scientific credibility that must inform, but not bind, a president.

The nation faces a crisis, a real one, and it has nothing to do with the former president or the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. In foreign policy, the crisis very much involves the malign intentions of Xi and his Leninist minions, a.k.a. his allies in Russia and Iran. At home, the march of technology infiltrates every aspect of American life as it feeds the rise of the attention/addiction economy.

Did anyone hear a clear word spoken in the debate about education and school choice? A half-dozen states have embraced parental control of the tax dollars they pay for education, thus freeing parents to find the school or tutor who can help their children recover from the catastrophic learning loss inflicted by the debacle of pandemic policy. Oh, the message came loud and clear from the debate that the country cannot ever again allow an economic shutdown, but what about the children whose futures were put in jeopardy? What about parents who intend to vote for a candidate based on who will do the most to help their family?

Not one of eight candidates stood out on that score because they all – ignoring the lessons from decades of primary debates – apparently decided that the only way to gain attention was to bash each other and not a Democratic Party responsible for so many of the nation’s ills. The left wing is ascendant in a party led by a president who is increasingly, and obviously, infirm – yet evidence of these Republicans’ concern, much less alarm, about this was hard to detect.

The Republican Party has always been the serious party, the party that would talk about national security despite a legion of chattering heads saying voters don’t care. It was the party of opportunity. It was the party that unabashedly stood for the ideal of a colorblind society and free speech. Where were the champions of those values in Wednesday’s debate?

The candidates appear to be succumbing to the pressure to be other than serious. It stems, of course, from social media, the exigencies of small-donor fundraising, a media ecosystem that rewards clicks, and even the poisonous influence of anonymous, unhinged commentators on political discourse.

The pressure of unseriousness threatens the very ability of politicians to grapple with such fundamental issues as this one: Who decides the law in the United States? The three branches of the federal government, confined to their constitutional roles – or a vast army of unelected, permanent government employees at the federal level and teachers unions, who control countless local politicians, at the state level?

Democrats must be dizzy with enthusiasm for Republican debates in the coming months, given the free ride the Biden administration received over the course of two hours on Wednesday night. Do better, Republicans. Do much better.

Hugh Hewitt is a nationally syndicated radio host on the Salem Radio Network. He is also a professor at Chapman University School of Law, where he has taught constitutional law since 1996.