There’s a peculiar rhythm to debates in America, particularly those seeking to occupy congressional seats. It’s as if every candidate is handed a script, and as long as they stick to their assigned lines—“mental health,” “universal background checks,” or the all-too-familiar “bipartisan consensus”—they’ll glide smoothly through the evening, nodding to their partisans and patting themselves on the back for a job well done. Such was the scene at New England College, where the contenders for New Hampshire’s 2nd Congressional District clashed, a day when the nation was, once again, reeling from the latest mass shooting.
Republicans Bill Hamlen, Vikram Mansharamani, and Lily Tang Williams squared off, followed by Democrats Maggie Goodlander and Colin Van Ostern. The backdrop? A Georgia high school had been turned into a crime scene. Four people dead, courtesy of a 14-year-old. Yet, amidst this tragedy, what did the candidates offer? A predictably stale set of “solutions,” each vying to either placate their base or skirt the uncomfortable reality that neither side truly knows how to stop the bloodshed.
Mansharamani, as thoughtful as he might seem, prattled on about “root causes” like mental health—as if we hadn’t heard this tune before. Sure, mental health is an issue, but it has become the Republican reflex answer whenever guns are discussed, as though diagnosing societal illness absolves lawmakers of doing anything about the weapons themselves.
Hamlen, a commodities trader, followed suit but added the Republican favorite: “school security.” Ah yes, let’s turn our learning institutions into fortresses, where children will not just be taught but surveilled, shielded by armed guards, and trained to act in ways unimaginable just a generation ago. A quaint idea, perhaps, for those nostalgic for frontier justice.
Tang Williams, however, provided the real fireworks. She regaled the audience with tales of Texas convenience stores selling guns to high schoolers. She did everything but reminisce about the “good old days” when firearms could be purchased along with a soda and a pack of gum. Her plan? To train young people on guns. It’s as if the sheer ubiquity of firearms in American life has not already desensitized a generation to violence.
On the other side of the aisle, Democrats offered no shortage of self-righteousness. Van Ostern, with his air of moral superiority, summoned the horror of a hospital shooting near his child. He called for “basic gun violence prevention laws” as if the phrase “common sense” would make those laws any easier to pass in today’s polarized Congress. Goodlander, meanwhile, aimed her fire not just at guns but the gun industry itself—conveniently forgetting that money flows freely to both sides of the aisle, just with different labels.
But what was most revealing wasn’t the discussion on guns. It was the intra-party squabbles that unfolded. Van Ostern, ever the seasoned politician, hammered away at Goodlander for her work with the late Sen. John McCain. How dare she, he implied, taint herself with the legacy of bipartisanship! In today’s Democratic Party, even a distant association with Republicans like McCain—a man once heralded as a “maverick”—is cause for suspicion. We must remain pure, after all. No crossing the aisle, no reaching out. Just purity tests and endless virtue signaling.
And the Republicans? They, too, had their dose of drama. Tang Williams, when asked about whether the 2020 election was stolen, danced around the issue. In refusing to say “yes” or “no,” she embodied the modern GOP’s crisis of identity: too afraid to alienate the Trump base, but still trying to appear reasonable enough for the general electorate. Her meandering answer spoke volumes. The question may not be simple for her, but for anyone paying attention, it should be.
In the end, what did we learn? Not much that we didn’t already know. Democrats want more gun control, Republicans want more “mental health” initiatives, and the election question remains a litmus test for GOP candidates. But the underlying truth is this: none of these candidates have the real solutions they claim. They all offer half-measures wrapped in carefully crafted talking points, hoping to survive the primary and face the real challenge in November.
New Hampshire deserves better than this.
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