Which Uninspiring Dolt Might Save Democracy? By Jeff Maurer

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Which Uninspiring Dolt Might Save Democracy?

Reflections on the second GOP debate

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Watching the first Republican debate was about as painful as lighting my pubes on fire. The candidates’ need to pander to even the most rabid primary voter lowered the debate to roughly the intellectual level of a drunk guy fighting a parking meter. But it occurred to me that my writeup may have provided a public service. Because, after all: Nobody wanted to watch that shit. Nobody should have watched that shit. So, I’m thinking that I might make a habit of watching this shit, so that you, the mark reader, may spend your time on healthier endeavors such as huffing glue or poking dangerous animals with sticks.

I do think that this primary is vitally important. I continue to believe that the only way we’ll ever truly be rid of Trump short of death — either his death or the death of everyone on Earth except him — is if he loses the Republican primary. But the question remains as to whether any of the candidates who took the stage on Wednesday night can beat him. One candidate who debated in August has already fallen off the pace: Former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson failed to meet the RNC’s polling requirement to participate in the debate. Hutchinson vowed to fight on, though I’d argue that if you’re failing to capture the manic energy of the Doug Burgum campaign, it might not be your year.

My goals are twofold: 1) To crack some cheap jokes at the expense of this seven-sided freak show, and 2) To analyze how each candidate is trying to position themselves. I am not trying to determine who “won”; I accepted long ago that I don’t understand the mindset of the typical Republican primary voter. I do think that my instincts about messaging and strategy are basically sound; I think I can tell what angle each candidate is trying to play. But I have no opinion as to whether their strategies will work, because GOP primary voters are simply dialed into a different frequency than I am.

So, let’s do this whether we want to or not…

DOUG BURGUM

What he appeared to be doing: Making everyone wonder just how sad-ass Asa Hutchinson’s campaign must be for him to get edged off the stage by Doug Fucking Burgum.

Doug Burgum didn’t just mistakenly assume that any issue can be related to something that happened in North Dakota, a state populated mostly by snowmen and cows. He also demonstrated near-Trumpian levels of incoherent rambling. Even on a night when Incomprehensible Word Salad seemed to be the only item on the menu, Burgum stood out as muddled. He got a question about farming (FARMING! You won’t get a fatter softball than that, Doug!), and his 94-second answer touched on the following topics:

China > energy independence > cyber war > appeasement > Iranian hostages > nuclear proliferation > Middle East policy > Ukraine > Taiwan > the economy > energy policy again > climate change > petro-dictators

Also, at one point, Burgum “demanded” to be allowed to respond to a question about energy policy, and Fox appeared to cut his mic.

What that might tell us about his candidacy: Doug Burgum may somehow, some way, against unfathomably long odds, manage to underperform expectations.

MIKE PENCE

What he appeared to be doing: Trying to shake off scurrilous charges of him being sane and reasonable that dogged him in the first debate.

Mike Pence got applause for vowing to repeal the Green New Deal — do you see what I mean about this whole exercise being a bunch of braindead, unwatchable shit? The Green New Deal, of course, died so soon after its conception that even an abortion opponent as staunch as Mike Pence would have to admit that it was never really alive. Pence also called for the death penalty for mass shooters. This got applause despite the fact that: 1) Many mass shooters die at the scene of the shooting, and 2) Exactly zero percent of mass shooters are making calm and rational calculations about the wisdom of their next move. Responding to mass shootings by giving the death penalty to shooters would be as effective as responding to invasive species by giving free rounds of mini-golf to feral hogs.

Pence also flashed that famous Mike Pence sense of humor, quipping “I served twelve years in Congress — it seemed longer!” and “Biden shouldn’t be in the picket line, he should be in the unemployment line!” These sub-Laffy Taffy-level japes were the only lines of the night that the audience deemed too dumb to elicit a response.

What that might tell us about his candidacy: Pence seems to believe that he needs to win over some of the far-right Trump die-hards who previously wanted to…you know…hang him. He is quite the model of Christian forgiveness!

CHRIS CHRISTIE

What he appeared to be doing: Trying to get Donald Trump to fight him in the parking lot.

Christie mentioned Trump in most of his answers, including his first three. At one point, Christie looked at the camera, waved a finger, and admonished Trump directly. It was very Macho Man Randy Savage.

Though most of Christie’s criticism was directed at Trump, he had easily the most off-putting line of the night when he said that Joe Biden is “sleeping with a member of a teacher’s union.” The reality, of course, is that Joe Biden is married to Jill Biden, who is a teacher. They are married — they’re not banging in a motel room by the airport (unless they’re doing that as some sort of spice-up-the-46-year-marriage role play, in which case good for them). I know that grossly mischaracterizing Biden’s actions is meat-and-drink for these candidates, but making the First Lady sound like a cheap side-piece took things to a new low.

Horrifically, Christie’s line was then called back by Mike Pence, who said: “I’ve been sleeping with a teacher for 38 years.” So, great: We were all treated to a mental image of Mike and Karen Pence bumpin’ biscuits. A new low, indeed. Thankfully, the discussion stopped there: The candidates did not go down the line and inform us who is getting their rocks off and how that person is employed. Though that conversation might have been preferable to the inane discussion they had about who has the most pointless, ineffective plan to lower gas prices.

What that might tell us about his candidacy: The raison d’etre of Christie’s candidacy seems to be to destroy Trump in a debate the way he destroyed Marco Rubio in 2016. But Trump won’t debate. So, Christie is reduced to goading Trump through the TV and taking the occasional pot-shot at Jill Biden.

TIM SCOTT

What he appeared to be doing: Targeting the exact center of the Republican electorate and growing a goatee, not necessarily in that order.

Scott was so patriotic that he made Uncle Sam himself seem like a flag-burning pinko beatnik. Virtually every answer culminated in the rhetorical equivalent of a John Philip Sousa march — I thought Scott might end the night riding a red, white, and blue unicycle and firing Toby Keith shirts into the crowd with a t-shirt cannon. Republicans love that stuff, of course, and I’m sure they also loved the red meat Republican policies that Scott served up, like tax cuts, a balanced budget, and securing the border.

But let’s talk about what’s really important: Scott appeared to be about 50 percent of the way towards growing a goatee. How are we feeling about this, America?

I think this raises serious questions about Scott’s decision-making. If you’re going to grow a beard, then do it in the 35 days in between debates. If you can’t grow a beard in 35 days, then I’m sorry: You can’t be president (applicable to male candidates only). Also, you should only opt for a goatee if you’re a major league relief pitcher, the singer in a rap metal band, or the host of Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives.

What that might tell us about his candidacy: Scott is 57, unmarried, and has mentioned a girlfriend whom reporters have never met. This has led to hand-wringing by some Republican donors, because you probably won’t win the Republican nomination if you’re gay or if people think you’re gay. And now, with this seemingly nascent facial hair choice, Scott will once again be dogged by rumors of a possible beard.

VIVEK RAMASWAMY

What he appeared to be doing: Trying to be less of an obnoxious Harvard twerp than he was in the first debate.

Ramaswamy certainly set himself an achievable goal, because he could hardly be more of an obnoxious Harvard twerp than he was in the first debate. Trump has so scrambled everyone’s political radar that there’s a case to be made that being an insufferable asshole is an optimal political strategy. Ramaswamy seemed to go all-in on that theory in the first debate, but his numbers slumped afterwards. And that’s probably why he clearly made a concerted effort to be less obnoxious this time around (though, to be clear, he was still very obnoxious).

Mid-debate, Ramaswamy looked straight at the camera and made a plea for empathy. He said:

“I know I have to earn your trust. What do you see? You see a young man who’s in a bit of a hurry. Maybe a little ambitious. Bit of a know-it-all, it seems at times.”

I badly wish he had kept going in that direction for 20 or 30 more seconds. He could have continued:

“…a little ambitious. Bit of a know-it-all, it seems at times. Weird hair. Shit-eating, personal injury lawyer smile. Overly caffeinated, socially oblivious personality. The tact of a medieval warlord. The politics of a 15 year-old who learns about the world through chatter he hears while playing Fortnite. I’m completely aware that I remind you of the least fuckable guy at your college, and that, if elected, anti-American alliances will probably spring into existence based on nothing more than a shared hatred of my personality. That is all true. But remember: I will really, really, really annoy Democrats, because I really, really, really annoy everybody.”

What that might tell us about his candidacy: Either Ramaswamy or someone in his campaign believes that it behooves a candidate to appear to have a soul. I don’t know if that assumption is correct — again, Trump re-wrote the rules — but Ramaswamy succeeded in dialing down his insufferableness to a 9.5.

NIKKI HALEY

What she appeared to be doing: Trying to position herself as the sane alternative to Trump while still being crazy enough for the Republican Party.

There were times when I felt that Haley and I inhabit the same planet; I did not feel that way about every candidate. I would not say that I think Haley understands the country’s problems or has good ideas, but I would say that she shows some vague familiarity with the approximate nature of our problems, and that her policy proposals are occasionally somewhat near the general vicinity of being adjacent to a distant cousin of an actual solution.

But other times, Haley will go and say something like this:

“We will end all normal trade relations until China stops sending fentanyl.”

No we won’t. Ending normal trade relations with China (formerly called “most favored nation” status) would be a huge move that would be met with retaliation. There isn’t a switch on the Oval Office wall labeled “trade relations”, and you can click it on and off depending on how you feel about China that day. There are good moral and strategic reasons why we might want to change our economic posture towards China, but doing so will be a slow process and should be done as part of our overall China strategy. Also, “China” doesn’t export fentanyl, Chinese traffickers do (and so do Mexican and Indian traffickers), and given the Chinese government’s myriad crimes, “complicity in the drug trade” probably doesn’t make the top ten. Proposals like these are cheap, goofy applause lines designed to elicit a response from primary voters who don’t know that Haley is talking out of her ass.

Still: She might have been the most sane candidate on stage.

What that might tell us about her candidacy: She read Nate Cohn’s New York Times piece that makes it clear that to beat Trump, you have to win basically all moderate Republican voters and a few Trumpy ones.

RON DESANTIS

What he appeared to be doing: Running to everyone’s right.

Remember how in the 2020 Democratic primary, every candidate railed against billionaires and corporations, but Bernie did it louder and with more spittle than most, and that’s how you knew he was the candidate who was farthest left? DeSantis is doing the Republican version of that. All the candidates complain about DEI and illegal immigration, but DeSantis really jumps in with both feet. He also talks about foreign threats with simplistic tough-guy rhetoric that sounds like what you’d get if you asked Chat GPT to rewrite Liam Neeson’s speech from Taken.

DeSantis also demonstrated an affect that his campaign might want to address: When listening to a question, he adopts an intensely focused, jaw-out bearing that’s equal parts Sling Blade and Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer. This look:

What that might tell us about his candidacy: I don’t think the jaw-out look tells us anything except that whichever SNL cast member plays DeSantis won’t have to work too hard to make that impression land. But DeSantis’ rightward tack probably tells us that he will continue to try to out-Trump Trump and also the Trump Bot 3000 (Ramaswamy).