The Republican Debates occurred on Tuesday night, Dec. 15, and including George Pataki, Mike Huckabee, Lindsay Graham, and Rick Santorum. These candidates have been polling the lowest out of all of the Republican Presidential hopefuls, therefore qualifying them for the pre-debate on CNN.
It began on a very good note: Lindsay Graham spoke about the tension about ISIS and racism directed towards Muslims, announcing that "declaring a war on a religion will only help ISIL." This is an important differentiation to make, because much of the racism that Muslims experience is because people assume that being Muslim equates being an ISIS affiliate. He outlines his plan to defeat ISIL, saying that Americans need more boots on the ground. However, he does make a statement that the government should keep tabs on Americans, and if you aren't talking to terrorists, then you shouldn't worry. This, simply, is a dismissive way of supporting his claim, making one believe that anyone would be crazy to not agree with him.
Graham also made a statement in response to a question about his opinions on Trump, saying that there was a "Know-Nothing party [who] wanted to ban Catholics, Trump is a Know-Nothing candidate" due to the fact that he wants to ban Muslims. This is an interesting commentary from a Republican candidate, because there have been very few instances where people have openly disagreed with Trump (aside from Rubio's tweet disagreeing with Trump). Comparing Trump's campaign strategy of leading with fear in regards to our Muslim-Americans to the Know-Nothing party of the 1850's is an ingenious way of tying in our current events to what has already occurred in history. It is easy to ignore history out of a fear of repeating it, but when it is compared to a tactic in the present, then it allows one to reflect on how often history truly does repeat itself, and perhaps encourage our voters to avoid a repetition of history.
Huckabee, however, had a different approach. He claimed that Muslims should be begging the FBI, and everyone, to come to their Mosques to see how "truly peaceful" they are. This in itself is extraordinarily unkind; having a respect for a certain religion and attending a religious ceremony in hopes of education and enlightenment is one thing, but going to a place of religious practice to listen in and make sure there isn't anything iffy being talked about is the arguably most disrespectful motivation one can have.
Huckabee seemed to have an anger and hate in him for the entire debate, to the point where it was terrifyingly inappropriate. At one point, he says "we have to kill some terrorists, kill everyone we can, death sentence; you won't be coming to our country, you'll be going to your funerals." It should be a no-brainer that this sort of sentiment is not how a peaceful country should be speaking. Yes, fighting terrorism is the key, but killing everyone and threatening innocent refugees is not the way to go about combating terrorism.
The undercard debate seemed to have one obvious winner, and that was Graham. He made the point to thank Muslim-American men who are a part of our military, and spoke of a hopeful way to combat terrorism, rather than simply saying "kill everyone."
