Didn't Watch The Final GOP Primary Debate? We Have The Highlights!
Didn't Watch The Final GOP Primary Debate? We Have The Highlights!
Not that we watched, either.
If you followed our advice, you probably didn’t watch last night’s fourth and blessedly final Republican Presidential Primary Debate, an exercise whose basic futility made it both irrelevant and extremely loud and stupid. We didn’t watch it either. Instead, we did some reading (Martha Wells has a new Murderbot novel!) and watched something with more intellectual heft than seeing Chris Christie, Vivek Ramaswamy, Ron DeSantis, and Nikki Haley yell at each other. That would be this dumb Fourth of July thing in Alaska where they rig empty junker cars to drive off a 300-foot cliff for the hell of it. In fact, you may as well watch it too, instead of thinking any more about the “debate,” which was a pointless spectacle of destruction, but not entertaining. We’ve cued the video up past all the talky parts, you’re welcome.
One might almost think of that video as a metaphor for American democracy, even, right down to the GoPro cameras mounted in some of the cars so you can see the destruction from the inside.
Oh, fine, if you really need to watch the whole debate, here’s the link, but don’t say we didn’t warn you.
Still, Rebecca and Evan made me write about the debate because I was the last one to log in to the Wonkette Sekrit ChatCave today, so let’s get to some takeaways. The best insight we saw this morning was an observation by CBS’s Major Garrett, who noted that in general, what people remember about political debates isn’t what they saw, if they watch the debates at all, but rather what they hear said about the debates. And by that measure, the debate may be good news for Nikki Haley, who was the target of a lot of accusations and insults right from the start, which must mean she’s doing so well that she’s going to be the top alternative to Donald Trump — but still behind him by between 30 and 70 percentage points probably.
So yeah, there were a lot of attempts to attack Haley for not being Trumpy enough, like Ron DeSantis insisting he would be far crueller to transgender people, and claiming that Haley “caves anytime the Left comes after her.” She then insisted she would so prohibit gender affirming care for trans kids, so there.
Ramaswamy accused Haley of being “bought and paid for by the Republican Establishment” because if there’s one thing Republicans can’t stand, it’s the Republican party. Haley responded with the completely winning middle school comeback, "In terms of these donors that are supporting me, they're just jealous. They wish that they were supporting them." By some miracle, Ramaswamy didn’t actually pull out a piece of rubber and a bottle of glue to debunk Haley, although later he did employ a very damning visual aid:
In another high point of the debate, when the moderator asked Haley if she’d like to reply, she simply said, "No. It's not worth my time.” Then everyone cheered and a Marine punched an atheist professor in the snoot, causing a big strong general to cry and call Haley “sir.”
Ramaswamy made his own weird bid to capture the QAnon vote, insisting he was the only candidate brave enough to say January 6 was an “inside job,” that the racist “great replacement” conspiracy theory is literally Democratic policy, and some other stupid shit.
Three of the four dipshits took the opportunity, when asked about Donald Trump’s renewed call to ban Muslims entering the US, to explore how racist they could be. Haley said she wouldn’t support a “straight-up Muslim ban,” but that she definitely would restrict immigration from Iran, Lebanon, and Yemen, which she said are “threats to us.”
DeSantis explained that antisemitism in Europe is really bad, and that Muslim immigrants are at fault “because they imported mass numbers of people who reject their culture,” which probably won points with bigots. But it ignores both the history of European antisemitism — it’s quite long! — and the fondness of current European rightwingers for antisemitic talk, like Victor Orban’s constant invocations of George Soros as the enemy of all that’s good. Oh, hey, that’s DeSantis, too. He’d better hunt down all the Muslims in his campaign.
Ramaswamy ignored the anti-Muslim bigotry and went for good old fashioned general immigration panic, calling for expulsion of everyone who’s in the US without papers. And Chris Christie tried to turn the conversation to why Donald Trump is unfit for office, with no success at all. “This is an angry, bitter man,” Christie said of his sometimes best pal who hates him and the feeling is mutual except when it isn’t. “Failing to speak out against him, making excuses for him, pretending he is a victim, empowers him.” And then the audience booed Christie, that RINO.
Christie also went after Ramaswamy, saying, “Let me tell you something, this is the fourth debate that you would be voted in the first 20 minutes as the most obnoxious blowhard in America. So shut up for a little while,” and the audience cheered that. But the strong general didn’t get a chance to cry and call Christie “sir” that time, because Christie took it upon himself to defend Haley, saying she was the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being he’d ever known, so Ramaswamy called Christie fat:
“Chris, your version of foreign policy experience was closing a bridge from New Jersey to New York. So, do everybody a favor, just walk yourself off that stage, enjoy a nice meal, and get the hell out of this place!”
In conclusion, we look forward to watching more videos of cars going off cliffs.
[Daily Beast / NPR / AP / NYT]
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Moderator note: We’ve noticed that some of you filthy fuckaducks think it’s the height of wit to refer to Nikki Haley by her given first name, Nimrata, as if being Indian-American is something she should be mocked for. Please knock it the fuck off. It’s every bit as racist and othering as rightwingers writing “Barack HUSSEIN Obama” and you should feel bad.
Perhaps it would be less offensive to call Haley "Nimroda".
As if my faith in humanity wasn't already down the toilet, through the P-trap, and out into the septic tank where it is slowly dissolving... Now I know of about what? 20K? 30K? moronic fucking idiots who like to watch cars fly off of a cliff, and in a beautiful pristine setting no less. Humanity? Where the fuck is that? Luckily I work in a school where I watch dedicated people exhibit endless compassion and patience for some of our most vulnerable citizens. Jesus H goddam Kryst.