Who watched the Republican debate?

by philg

How did my favorite Nikki Haley do in the Republican debate a couple of nights ago? And, in a matter of local interest, what about the hated fascist tyrant of Florida, Ron DeSantis (who continues to oppress Latinx migrants such as Lionel Messi)?

I happened to be at my mom’s retirement apartment building on the night of the debate. The elderly Democrats there (DC suburbs, remember, so all of these folks made their money from bigger government) were intensely interested. I asked “If Joe Biden were a mental vegetable, would you still vote for him?” The answer was “yes”. I followed up with “What if Joe Biden were dead. What you vote for his corpse to serve as president rather than a Republican?” The answer was again “yes”. I never figured out why people who would never consider voting for a Republican would bother to watch. (They also expressed intense fear that Trump would return, though none can cite any example of personal suffering or even suffering of an acquaintance that they attribute to Trump’s first administration.)

There are a fair number of Jews in the building and they have followed recent political events in Israel in U.S. media. Their impression is that “everyone in Israel is out protesting.” (I didn’t have a chance to ask whether the victims of tyranny in Israel will seek asylum in Syria or if Lebanon is the preferred destination for refugees.) A couple of young visitors who had just returned from two weeks in Israel said, “We didn’t see anyone protesting,” but this wasn’t persuasive.

Based on consumption of U.S. media, another prevalent belief among the older crowd was that most of Hawaii had been torched. They’d checked in with anyone they knew who might have been on Oahu, for example.

I’m not sure what it matters what Yellow Dog Democrats at the NYT think about candidates in a primary that they’d be ashamed to vote in, but Nikki Haley was chosen as the best of the worst:

(Winning “most levelheaded person onstage” is like being a dwarf among midgets?)

Readers who watched: What did you learn?

From an aviation group, regarding the candidate who wasn’t there….

Note that the jet-fuel-pumping FBO chain Signature is substantially owned by climate charge activist Bill Gates.

16 thoughts on “Who watched the Republican debate?”

  1. I thought any of them would be preferable to The Donald or Biden but liked Nikki Haley best. I had never paid much attention to her before, always liked her policy positions, but I thought she came across as the most sensible with a winning personality. DeSantis unfortunately seems to lack presence and disappeared into the crowd. Vivek seemed glib and reckless on foreign policy and his efforts at populist appeal — you have to wonder if he was auditioning for Trump’s number 2. I thought Christie’s two put downs of Vivek were spot on, that Vivek came across as something manufactured by AI and that the last person to run as a young skinny guy was Obama and look how that played out. Pence seems a bit out of place in 2023 America. Christie does not seem in the mainstream of the Republican Party.

    • The response should have been “Well, Chris, you look like you were 3D-printed in some lab”. Then wrestle on stage.

  2. Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Tim Scott are all good candidates. I would not hesitate voting for any of them vs Biden or vs any other plausible Democrat far radical left or consensus with far radical left candidate. Nikki Hally mentioned little of her governing experience, except for school choice, which is very important for our future. Not from South Carolina, do not really know her accomplishments.
    But Trump has better chances of the nomination as of now, in my humble opinion.

  4. Trump sitting out this election is giving republicans a non zero chance of winning. Democrats would be better off not arresting Trump, letting him run, so republicans would have no chance of winning.

    Of course, this business of finding reasons to arrest him is just because of him being on the wrong party. 40 years ago, it was unheard of but nowadays it’s accepted that being on the wrong party can get you arrested, the same as promoting the wrong party on the goo tubes getting you demonetized.

  5. Tribalism is the defining characteristic of leftists — they are collectivists, after all.

    This allows them to wield outsized political influence in democracies. Individualist ideology tolerates (or, rather, actively encourages) dissent. Collectivism suppresses dissent thus allowing creation of political “majority” of totalitarians.

  6. Mayor of London: Sadiq Khan
    Taoiseach of Ireland: Leo Varadkar
    First Minister of Scotland: Humza Yousaf
    Prime Minister of UK: Rishi Sunak

    US VP: Kamala Harris

    PrettNikki Haley or Vivek Ramaswamy because

    • (accidental send)

      Nikki Haley and/or Vivek Ramaswamy will be on the ticket because apparently whoever runs things has decided that being Head of State is a “job Americans won’t do” and only Indians and Pakistanis are allowed to rule.

    • So white people occupy/loot other countries and make/treat them as slaves and they are not racists. Couple of indian origin(born in USA/UK) people gets democratically elected to office, suddenly they are overtly racist against white people. WTF …

    • (Second) Anon: When did you last hear in mainstream that white people are not racist? We are told by luminaries like DiAngelo that white people are inherently racist!

      The point is that no mainstream white politician could say “Brown families do not represent real Londoners” without getting canceled instantly. Different standards.

  7. I agree with one of the above comments that Ramaswamy is too glib. I initially liked him, but his correct mega sentences seem studied and he begins to sound like a language model.

    Also, he might go native in the swamp once elected. We have been duped by so many “young, dynamic” leaders like Sunak. He is running for VP though.

    I wonder if the whole “DeSanctimonious” thing is political theater, there is a secret agreement and DeSantis is also running for VP to have higher chances in the 2028 election.

    Philg points out an important matter: What has Trump actually done wrong? He makes statements like “lock up Hillary”, but hasn’t done anything. The Democrats on the other hand pretend to be nice and democratic but actually try to lock up Trump in a political show trial.

    Their hypocrisy is reaching dangerous levels.

  8. Nothing is more racist, anti-climate, anti-gender++ than war, and MIC Haley is approaching Hillary Clinton on the war pig scale. You’ll always reap what you sow.

    • Eric: I agree with you that climate change alarmists shouldn’t be investing time, energy, and money in wars. But Nikki Haley hasn’t raised the “existential threat to humanity” alarm like Professor Dr. Joe Biden, Ph.D. in Planetary Physics, has she? So she might be a warmonger, but not necessarily a hypocrite.

      What’s racist and anti-2SLGBTQQIA+ about war?

    • Phil: To quote Professor of Cinematography & Former Mayor Clint Eastwood in his treatise ‘Unforgiven’, “When you kill a man, you take away everything he is, and everything he ever will be.”.

      Death transcends Race & Gender (unless Dead is now a Gender), so Nikki advocating for American Crusades, with no apparent blowback, is for killing all races & genders in selected places on the globe.

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