OK, so reviewing the Republican candidates’ debate on Fox Wednesday, let’s go back to the Republican Debate Bingo Card: “Pledge to Pardon Trump” – Yes, actually brought up by the debate hosts, and answers were kind of a blur. “Crooked Joe Biden” “Radical Left” “Two-Tiered Justice System” – not really brought up, though every time people were obliged to admit Trump tried to stop the election verification, they acted like it was Democrats’ fault for doing something about it. “Drag Queens” – not that I recall. “Hillary Clinton Mention” – they MUST have mentioned Hillary, but I can’t recall where. “Child Indoctrination” – yeah, that was DeSantis. “Prosecute Dr. Fauci” – Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said he’d fire Fauci. Even though he’s already resigned. “Biden Crime Family” – not that I recall. “Crime infested blue cities” – not in so many words, but they talked about crime a lot. “WOKE!” -Not specifically. “Climate ‘Hoax'” – actually, nobody other than Vivek Ramaswamy said climate change is a hoax (and he got BOOED), and he was basically taking the “Drill, Baby, Drill!” position. “Mainstream Media” – you had Ramaswamy telling Chris Christie that he was auditioning for a job at MSNBC. He also said Nikki Haley was going to take a nice corporate job after this campaign, which raises the question of what company will hire him once he has to bow out after Iowa. “Biden’s Age” – oh yeah. “Assault on [insert] Liberties” – not an issue for anybody here. These guys don’t believe in liberty, even for themselves. Their approach to liberty is basically the Catholic Church’s position on freedom: They only do what the authorities tell them to do because that’s what they were going to do anyway. “Election Integrity” – not in so many words. “Anti-Ukraine Sentiment” – mainly from DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy, which led to pushback from Nikki Haley in one of her better moments of the night, pointing out that on this very day Putin killed his own former henchman. “Hunter Biden!” “CRT” – that was DeSantis, mainly. “DeSantis Makes A Weird Face” – they’re ALL weird faces. “Referring to Insurrectionists as Patriots” – not really. “Soros Reference” – 49 minutes in! “Back the Blue” – not so much, but I did see a few people falling all over themselves to be the first one to invade Mexico to take out their drug networks. I’m sure they wouldn’t mind us violating their national sovereignty. After all, we do it all the time.
I kind of agree with the people who think that Tim Scott and Mike Pence, simply by not embarrassing themselves, did relatively well. And then you had Doug… lemme check… Doug Burgum. Every so often Bret Baier and Martha McCallum remembered he was on stage, and even more occasionally, so did he. And then you had the two mini-Trumps, DeSantis and Ramaswamy, and while Ramaswamy was kind of “cocaine energy” and sometimes just plain wrong, he was forthright and a good speaker. And then you had DeSantis. Baier told him crime was up in Miami. DeSantis responded that “crime is at a 50-year low in Florida.” Which didn’t exactly disprove the statement. (‘Sure I’ve got brain cancer, but my blood sugar is better than ever!’) The very first speech was DeSantis going “Our country is in decline.” Later Ramaswamy said “It is NOT morning in America.” So much for the Party of Reagan, eh?
Nikki Haley was formerly ambassador to the UN and conducted herself in such a manner, speaking very professionally. Haley said, correctly, that it was Republicans under the Trump Organization (where she served of course) that exploded the deficit. She admitted that is an issue everyone has to confront. She said that while she is pro-life, women should not be persecuted and prosecuted for being pregnant. She also said “what (the people) will tell you is, it is time for a new conservative leader… Trump is the most disliked politician in the country – and WE CAN’T WIN A GENERAL ELECTION THAT WAY.”
Asa Hutchinson, who was notably the only candidate who refused to raise a hand on the question of whether they would support Trump as the nominee, didn’t speak much, but he was very forthright on the point that Trump has disqualified himself, morally if not legally. Chris Christie said much the same thing, demurring on the point of whether he committed crimes but saying that character is an issue and the Party should not be supporting someone of such low character. He was basically saying the same thing Nikki Haley did, but took a lot more flak. At which point, he said the line of the night: “That’s the great thing about this country: Booing is allowed, but it doesn’t change the truth.”
And the response was generally, “SEZ YOU, COMMIE!”
Which is of course the issue in a nutshell. This was an audience that seriously believes that emotional partisanship can change the truth. The loudest cheers of the night, as with the question of who would support Trump as the nominee, were for “the elephant not in the room.” It was a decent debate in and of itself actually, mainly in the first hour, because you got these guys to talk about policy issues. And because you didn’t have Trump constantly talking over everybody, including the Fox hosts, to blather about himself. But the point is that policy doesn’t matter. About an hour in they had to bring up Trump and his legal issues, because Republican voters don’t care about policy issues, they want gladiatorial combat, and Fox knows that better than anybody. So since none of these guys have national reputations of their own, Fox got them to catfight over Trump. From their perspective it was the best of both worlds cause they got to bring him up without him being a liability to the event.
With the Republican Party, even the “adults in the room”, that is, the hosts, the network and most of the candidates, also believe that their emotions and wishes can change the truth of their situation, which is that this is not a party of conservatives but a Jonestown cult that would drink the Kool-Aid and belly up to the bar for seconds. They are of course still dominant in certain states mainly because they make the laws in those states, but everywhere else – including a lot of places where Democrats have no purchase – they’re losing the voters. Haley IS right – you can’t win nationally with the most despised person in the country. But try telling that to the cultists who think Trump is an invincible God-Emperor who’s gonna live forever and doesn’t have to worry about what happens when he’s gone. Not that he hasn’t lived an amazingly long time given his habits. But the adults in the room still think that what they do matters, on the impression that SOME day Trump’s not gonna be in the picture.
Ha Ha Ha. They’ve been wishing that for years and it hasn’t happened yet. I mean nobody’s gonna care so much about this on Thursday evening. Cause of course that’s when Liddle Donnie Clown Boy is obliged to surrender himself at the jailhouse in Atlanta, AND get a mugshot like all his lieutenants did Wednesday. Of course on one of his social media posts he taunted the judges for making him post bond, like he’s supposed to be slipping off to “Russia Russia Russia” and crash with Putin for the rest of his life. That would NOT be a good idea for obvious reasons, foremost among them that his overwhelming lead in party polls means he IS going to be the Republican nominee, meaning there’s always a chance he could win the general election. Plus, he’d have to somehow ditch his Secret Service detail, whose job is kind of keeping an eye on him at all times. But you never know. Sometime tomorrow he could be commandeering a white Bronco and trying to get a plane to Venezuela or somewhere. I mean, that would be UNBELIEVABLY STUPID. One of those things where you go “Even Trump can’t be THAT STUPID!” Which is what makes it all the more likely. Trump is like the Homer Simpson of fascism: Every time you think, “he can’t get THAT stupid!” he always finds a way to top himself.
The other surprise factor – which frankly I consider LESS likely than Trump trying to make a break for it – would be if the Georgia authorities, backed up by feds, surrounded Trump in the jail and said, “Hey you know all these conditions we set to release you from detention? You remember where we said you weren’t allowed to defame or threaten anyone involved in the case including law enforcement or witnesses or other people in the trial? And you remember when you posted the bond you specifically agreed you “shall make no threat of any direct or indirect nature” including but “not limited to, posts on social media or reposts of posts made by another individual on social media”? And what did you do then, Donnie?”
“Here’s your cell, Donnie. That’s where you’re staying till the end of the trial.”
Of course that would cause the entire “conservative” media sphere to explode like Krakatoa, as would Trump trying to flee America, because then they’d have more egg on their faces than the co-star in a James Deen money shot. Either way, Trump is once again the only object of attention, and that’s all that matters, isn’t it?