They may as well have hung a gigantic Dear Leader portrait of Defendant Trump over the stage last night, for all that happened on it. When Vivek Ramaswamy, accurately described as sounding like a ChatGPT bot, dominates a debate, you know you’re in a place that only Jean-Paul Sartre could find words to describe.
The best comment I saw after the debate was on one of the political websites, and it consisted of one word: why? Indeed, why bother? Only two of the so-called candidates indicated they would’t support Defendant Trump if he’s convicted of a felony: Chris Christie and Asa Hutchinson. And Christi was roundly booed when he described Trump’s conduct as “beneath the office of President of the United States.”
Commentators on MSNBC after the debate accurately pointed out that every one of them embraced the two biggest loser issues for Republicans – abortion and climate change. Pence was down there at the end of the stage lying his head off when he said that 70 percent of Americans support a ban on abortions after a fetus can “feel pain.” The correct figure is about 70 percent of Americans support a woman’s right to an abortion, period. Polling on climate change is almost as bad for Republicans.
Ramaswamy, who will get hired by Fox News the minute he drops out of the race, got off a whopper when he said more people were dying from climate change policies than from climate change itself. Only a few seconds were devoted to the issue that’s driving young people to vote Democratic in droves, but not one of the so-called candidates mentioned the people who were killed in fires on Maui that every scientist not currently covered in oil has said were caused by droughts caused by climate change.
The entire spectacle didn’t have the scrap of dignity it would take to be compared with the clown car Republican debates in 2015 and 2016. Of course, back in those days, the stage usually included “the elephant not in the room,” as he was described by Fox host Bret Baier, to keep things at least moderately interesting.
Attendance at the next one of these things should be called trainwreck spotting. It’s really astounding that one of our two major political parties is unable to field even a single candidate who looks, sounds, and acts like he or she could actually do the work of the job they’re running for. It’s not Occupant of the Oval Office, after all. It’s President of the United States, and the crew on that stage last night couldn’t get elected president of a junior college student council, much less the highest office in the land. Shame on you, Republican Party. You can do better.
Or maybe it’s true that there really isn’t a Republican Party anymore. It’s just a cult, and not even one that’s interesting enough to make fun of.
About how I felt. All of the "debaters" except maybe Christie, were just spouting what pollsters had told the debaters what people wanted to hear. It was like listening to a gaggle of vacuum cleaner sales people trying to one-up each other on my doorstep: "Mine's the best! No, look over here, look at me!"
Remember Ronald Reagan? Now, there was a salesman: "Hello: I'm Ronald Reagan speaking for General Electric. At General Electric, you know, "PROGRESS IS OUR MOST IMPORTANT PRODUCT" Smooth as silk, and all the more dangerous for it.
And once in office Reagan began his presidency by destroying the AirTraffic Controller's Union.
It's not just the Republican Party that can do better, it's also Fox News. Idiotically taking a cue from CNN's ill-fated town hall, they stuffed the audience with ultra-MAGA mouth breathers knowing they would boo and holler and generally act like the boors they are. That wasn't a debate, it was a reality show designed to boost ratings. Fox contributes mightily to the problems facing democracy.