Vox Sentences - A field guide to the first GOP debate

Wednesday, August 23, 2023

How’s your Wednesday going? I’m Izzie Ramirez, and here’s what you need to know today:

Spotlight: Meet tonight’s Republican debate candidates. 

In other news: India lands on the moon, Scooter Braun faces client blowback, and how “Rich Men North of Richmond” broke records.

Have any questions you’d like to see answered in Sentences? Or feedback about the newsletter overall? We’d love to hear what you think. Write us at newsletter@vox.com or just reply to this email. 

All the candidates onstage for the first Republican debate, explained

Paige Vickers/Vox; Associated Press; Getty Images

Tonight’s the night. Eight Republican candidates — but not frontrunner Donald Trump — will meet for a two-hour debate tonight. It’s the first presidential debate for the 2024 election.

The lowdown: Fox News will air the debate and livestream it on Fox Nation at 9 pm ET. If you aren’t familiar with the candidates, politics reporter Christian Paz has a helpful way to think about them:

• The donor-favorite Trump rivals. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Sen. Tim Scott (SC) have the biggest cash reserves (aside from Trump), but, like everyone else, are struggling to come anywhere near the former president in national polls.
  
  
• The former Trump allies turned critics. Trump VP Mike Pence, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson have all spent time in Trump’s orbit or helped him campaign. Now they’ve turned against him.
  
  
• The rich-guy vanity campaigners. You’ve probably heard of businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, but there’s also billionaire Gov. Doug Burgum from North Dakota. Notably, Burgum injured himself earlier today, so whether he appears tonight remains to be seen.
  
  
• And the promising Republican who missed her moment. Nikki Haley, the once-ascendant former UN ambassador and governor of South Carolina, seemed like the future of her party, but now is trapped at the low end of the polls.

The stakes: No one’s campaign is going well except for Trump’s. This debate could be a make-or-break moment for anyone on that stage. 

Tonight, “voters will get a chance to see who can hold their own, whether Ron DeSantis should still be the chief Trump alternative, and if they should abandon Trump at all,” Christian told me. 

The takeaway: Trump has a lead in primary support that by most historical accounts is insurmountable. Trump's support is similar to the lead that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had over Sen. Bernie Sanders for most of the 2016 primary, Christian explained to me. 

“What is different is just how much desperation ... there seems to be among a certain Trump-critical subset of the GOP elite — rich and influential people who want to find an alternative to Trump even though that’s not where most of the GOP base is,” Christian said, “We’re gonna get a very similar general election to 2020, and it shows just how static our politics can be, even with so much chaos.”

Want more who’s who? Read Christian’s full piece here »

What’s this “Rich Men North of Richmond” song everyone keeps talking about?

Mike Caudill/Billboard via Getty Images

Here’s what you need to know: 

• Despite conspiracy-theory-laden lyrics, Oliver Anthony just became the first artist in Billboard history to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 without any prior chart history. [Billboard]
  
  
• Conservative fans also recently organized to send right-wing works Sound of Freedom and “Try That in a Small Town” to the top of the charts. [New York Times]
  
  
• These works all arguably charted at least in part because they — purposely or not — tapped the vein of conservative resentment that has fueled numerous other consumerist movements this year, argues culture reporter Aja Romano. 

🎧 Listen:  Biden’s latest student loan forgiveness plan, explained.

• Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa: Could they change the way the global economy works? The economic group of America’s friends and rivals are pushing for international governance institutions where they have more of a say, but internal dynamics in the countries may inhibit the potential for unity, writes foreign policy reporter Jonathan Guyer.
  
  

• Meditation is more than either stress relief or enlightenment. Exploring the wider range of meditation is no longer reserved for the monasteries. Future Perfect fellow Oshan Jarow explains how the new science of meditation is just getting started.
  
  
• Remember when Netflix used to send out DVDs? Now that the company is completely pivoting to digital, they’re giving away their DVD library. Tech editor Adam Clark Estes has the details on what this means for the state of streaming.

• India becomes the fourth country ever to land a spacecraft on the moon. Previously, only the US, China, and the Soviet Union have landed safely on the surface. [CNN]
  
  

• A brutal “heat dome” continues to smother the Midwest. From Chicago to New Orleans, more than 126 million people are under extreme heat alerts. [Axios]
  
  
• From Idina Menzel and Justin Bieber to Ariana Grande and J Balvin, manager Scooter Braun is losing clients left and right. The entertainment-industry heavyweight is most known for his dispute with Taylor Swift, which led her to re-record her old songs so she could own her masters. [NPR]
  
  
• This part of your brain might be a key to better mental and physical health. Scientific interest in vagus nerve stimulation has exploded, with studies investigating it as a potential treatment for everything from obesity and depression to arthritis and Covid-related fatigue. [Guardian]

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