1842

Oh, irony.

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1843

I missed the first hour of the debate but sat through a good chunk of the second half. My thoughts:

Rubio: The only person up on that stage that has a tiny hope of beating the demographic challenge that a GOP candidate faces is Rubio. Although I don’t like pretty much any of his views, I found myself WANTING to like them because I really like him. The guy is probably a non-entity in this election, but he might be a viable contender in 2020.

Trump: Yup.

Bush: Looked better this go-round, but he still looked pretty goofy and just a little out of his depth. He stammers a lot more than I would expect from a professional politician.

Cruz: Spent most of the part I watched with his nose firmly lodged up Trump’s ass. I wonder if he’s gone from “running so I can get good speaking fees” to “running so that Trump will pick me as a VP… so I can get great speaking fees”?

Kasich: I think he was on stage somewhere. Not entirely sure.

Fiorina: She looked very poised and commanding. Like Rubio, I kind of wanted to like what she was saying. Unlike Rubio, every thing she said made me dislike her more and more. Her slam at Trump was masterful.

Carson: To me, he looked slightly more confident but a great deal more lost this time. He talked a fair amount, but it was mostly uninformed nonsense. Two things that stuck with me: when asked about illegal immigration, he said that workers coming over to do agricultural work should get special dispensation because “Americans don’t want to do those jobs”. While the latter is true, Americans generally don’t want to do those jobs because the pay is below minimum wage; Carson is basically saying he supports a permanent sub-class of low-wage migrant workers. The second statement was also a weird one: talking about going to war in Afghanistan in the days after 9/11, Carson said that we should have held off and threatened Middle Eastern countries with (the US) becoming energy-independent… because he felt that threat (the potential loss income) would have led to OBL being turned over. Yeah.

Walker: When I was watching, he pretty much interrupted the moderator in order to say something - anything! - on the subject. It was the only time I saw him speak.

Huckabee: Really, really feels strongly about the whole Davis thing.

Paul: Tried to pick fights, but no one wanted to spar. I was glad he was there to show that there is a non-Hawk side to the GOP nowadays.

Christie: Got in a good zinger while Firorina and Trump were waving their respective CEO dicks around. But that’s about it.

The Moderators: Were there any?

1844

What in the hell was he thinking. If I were trying to craft an ironic anti-Bush image using Jeb’s words there that is the image I would have used!

Oh Jeb.

1845

The moderation of the debate really did seem exceptionally poor compared to Fox’s. Instead of really asking the candidates about their own views directly, seemingly every question was phrases to try and provoke a fight.

1846

Why not both, indeed.

1847

1848

The Daily Beast takes a look at how the GOP is reaping what it has sown:

Today the Republican Party has two choices before it: It can either reform itself, or fracture and surrender to the Troll Party.

Let me explain what I mean. The Troll Party’s central characteristic is an ever tightening spiral of self-reinforcing and self-referential purity tests that makes communicating with anyone beyond the febrile and furious a nearly impossible task. The people pushing for this transformation aren’t a majority yet, but when a virus infects the body politic, its minuscule size belies its massive impact.

That’s what is happening inside the GOP, and why the disease vector, in the form of Donald Trump, puts the entire conservative movement at risk of being hijacked and destroyed by a bellowing billionaire with poor impulse control and a profoundly superficial understanding of the world. The Troll Party puts nationalist, anti-establishment bluster before the tenets of our constitutional republic.

So who comprises the Troll Party? Some of them are a distaff faction of the Tea Party, angry that the leadership in Washington doesn’t pursue their agenda with the bloody-mindedness and tempo they demand. Many are angry that the GOP lost to Barack Obama twice and, in their minds, allowed through action or inaction a set of economic, social, and cultural changes that make them feel powerless. …

…Others are reality television viewers who don’t get the artifice and irony, even after almost two decades of the form. Some are walking, talking comments sections of the fever swamp sites. Some are your aunt or mom, sending the long, rambling chain emails about Obama’s birth certificate with multiple forwards, fonts, colors, and glittery eagle gifs. Some pose as strict Constitutionalists, loyal unto death to the founders, except when Trump is talking.

Some of the dregs of the creepier neighborhoods of Reddit, Voat, and 4chan have joined for the lulz. The Troll Party looks at the kooks, the overt white supremacists (oh, pardon me, “race realists”), neo-Nazis, flaming anti-Semites, birthers, truthers, Jade Helmers, chemtrailers, and assorted other conspiracy whackjobs in their midst and shrugs it off with a grin.

The same people who viewed Obama’s long associations with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers or the endorsement of his candidacy by assorted Panthers, commies, cranks, and graying 1960s revolutionaries as disqualifiers for holding the presidency are now largely silent as David Duke and company board the Trump Train…

…The contagion hasn’t infected the entire GOP, not by a long shot. But it’s spreading. The traditional elements of limited-government fiscal conservatives, social conservatives, and defense hawks are still there. But the Troll Party screams louder, and its members have reached a point where they are more than content to watch the world burn around them if they don’t get their way, right this minute…

…It’s pointless to try to explain to Troll Party members that they’re blind to the tensions and realities of how the world, humanity, and Washington actually function. It’s impossible to explain to them that politics is transactional. That’s not a defense of Washington as it is but a description of its dysfunction. They ascribe Washington’s nature not to their own contradictory desires (“Keep the Government’s Hands Off My Medicare!”) but to conspiracy and contempt…

…The shift is evident online and on conservative radio. Hosts increasingly aren’t drawing an ideological contrast with the Democrats or liberals, even though they’re in the most target-rich environment of the last decade. They’ve taken to whipping the Troll Party into a daily frenzy, driving home the message over and over that somewhere there is an establishment of people in their own ideological and political movement or party who hate them and seek to destroy them.

There is FAR too much truth in this article.

1849

This neatly describes the college social justice community.

1850

I think someone on the Daily Beast doesn’t know what “distaff” means.

1851

Which doesn’t have a fistful of candidates running for President… and taking the top spots in the polls to boot!

1852

Yes Jake Trapper was awful. Dana was invisible and completely forgettable. The big disappointment was Hugh Hewitt. He is too conservative for my taste, but as Con Law professor and party activist he has really interesting guest and typically ask guests tough probing question like he did of Trump.

For instance when Trump was bragging about how this debate was some type of record for length. I was laughing because on the Hugh Hewitt show I learned that Lincoln Douglas debates typically last 5 to 6 hours. Imagine talking that long before a crowd with no microphone.

The Fox debate questions were in the form “You said A, but in the past you did or said Not A, how do you explain the inconsistencies”
The CNN debate questions were almost exclusively in the form “Candidate X said A about Candidate Y please respond” Which generally led to X saying no I really didn’t say A, I said B. This lead Y to often ignore the question entirely.

There are parts of the free form style I like and it makes sense when we are down to 3 or 4, but until then we need more structure.

1853

I agree with virtually everything he said. It is really sad because there are 1/2 dozen guys and perhaps Carly on the stage that I think might make pretty decent Presidents. Instead we have the contemptible Trump, and the nice but laughably unqualified Carson leading the polls.

The point he makes about talk radio is also really true. I don’t drive much anymore so I don’t listen to the radio. But in the old days you had the flame throwers like Rush, but you also had intelligent conservatives like Hugh Hewitt, Bob Bennett, and Michael Medved (all are part of the Salem Media group the debate co sponsors.) Now days Premier Network has almost exclusive trolls on it like Glen Beck, Mark Levin, Sean Hannity and off course Rush himself.

It is truly sad day in Republican politics when Rush is starting to sound like a voice of reason and moderation.

1854

Something I hadn’t realized, but apparently New Yorker is asking: “So is Donald Trump actually going to put ground infrastructure in Iowa and New Hampshire, hire workers, and do the actual stuff you have to do to win in those places?”

So Trump doesn’t really actually have campaign structures in place? Seriously?

I don’t care what he’s polling, he’s not going to win jack without precinct captains in Iowa and workers to get people to caucuses and GOTV in NH.

1855

How does he not have people telling him to get going with that stuff? Surely there must be people that want to jump in with the frontrunner and organize it?

1856

Most notably, that there is a faction in the Republicans that views the “trolls” as useful, contemptible idiots, who they use to pass their plutocratic agenda. I’m willing to risk rule by lolz to break the plutocrats myself. (though I do hold the fear they’ll just switch to Clintonism instead- and that Hillary views the people in the same way)

1857

He’ll get the Mexicans to canvas for him before he kicks them out.

1858

He’ll make Mexico pay their wages, too!

1859

With all of the speculation about a Biden run, he’s essentially in the same position, isn’t he? No infrastructure at all?

1860

Yeah, my understanding is that Hillary has gobbled up most of the half-decent establishment pollsters, campaign managers, and various other local electioneering bigwigs loyal to the D party in most of the nation, although Sanders has probably managed to snag a decent chunk in the early states and a handful elsewhere that his campaign thinks it’s worth putting down roots.

1861

Trumps campaign has mainly run on the basis that he can simply say things, and get huge coverage by every TV channel. He freaking gets his god damn tweets covered by the news.