Wednesday’s GOP debate was every bit the circular firing squad of self-degradation and futility we all expected it would be. It was a pudding wrestling match, because plain old mud wrestling would be too dignified for this group.
While the one-term, twice-impeached, coup plotting, insurrection inciting MAGA messiah watched from his gilded Floridian buffet room—hunched over his second bucket of KFC, one day ahead of yet another arrest, pondering just how many “proud” mug shot donor dollars he’d take in via email—the field of fecklessness that took the stage in his absence displayed, in classic form, the only things they might actually truly excel at: debasing themselves and attacking each other.
Even more pathetically, they all essentially ignored him. It was an unrivaled spectacle of profitless pudding slinging, an endless display of bottomless depravity.
ADVERTISEMENT
I’ll grant that Chris “I ate the meatloaf” Christie and Asa “Look over here!” Hutchinson landed their top-rope best slams of Trump. But they were brief and instantly forgotten.
Governors, ambassadors, senators, and entrepreneurs running for office were, once upon a time, value-gauged by their party for their intellect, their platform, or policy. In today’s GOP, that all takes a backseat to their fealty. That’s how these legitimately accomplished political contenders found themselves groveling for the affections of the MAGA base, and auditioning for an audience of one.
But none of their craven self-debasement means a thing. They spent the night throwing Ron DeSantis’ monthly supply of therapy pudding at one another to the morbid delight of a cackling audience rooting against them the entire time.
Republican presidential candidates, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy participate in the first debate of the GOP primary season on August 23, 2023 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Win McNamee/Getty ImagesTrump might have been too afraid, too lazy, or simply too busy preparing to surrender to another criminal booking to show up, but the disgraced ex-president still won the night in absentia, handily. He notched a “W” without so much as a fun-sized finger’s worth of DeSanctimonious pudding on his face.
Because after all of that, after Chris Christie and Mike Pence and even Nikki Haley teamed up to slam Vivek “ChatGPT” Ramaswamy to the mat with a flurry of flying elbows to the face, after Tim Scott tried to out-MAGA Ron DeSantis on education, and Asa Hutchinson tried to “reason” with the American people, none of it mattered.
Because, according to the post-debate spin room Republican pundits, nothing any of them said could “top” Trump.
The guy who, seven years and 91 felony charges ago, couldn’t answer a simple question about the nuclear triad, still won the debate held in a state he wasn’t even in.
The guy who has been indicted four times for actions ranging from stupid, petty campaign finance chicanery to an unprecedented coup attempt against the United States of America, won the debate. A debate he wasn’t anywhere near.
The guy who ran up the debt, dithered during a pandemic, and forever destroyed the American tradition that presidents, even corrupt ones, willfully hand over power when they lose elections, won the debate. Without even showing up.
Those candidates could have stood on that stage Wednesday night and outlined a flawless 14-point plan for ending world hunger, getting all-you-can-eat soft serve Dairy Queen and Taylor Swift tickets free for life, all while Donald Trump picked his teeth with a Barbie Doll foot, and he would still have been hailed the winner.
They’re all going home with pats on the back and covered in pudding. And the guy who spent the night practicing tomorrow’s mug shot face in the mirror all night didn’t have to do or say a thing. Not a word. He still won. As pretty much every rational observer of modern GOP politics knew he would.
The entire party is now little more than a performative circus. But if tonight’s utterly pointless exercise in futility managed to accomplish only one thing, it was to show that this is not a party of people who want to be governed.
They simply want to be ruled.
