On the Fox 2024 Republican Presidential Debate sans the frontrunner.
I almost finished off a yellow legal pad taking notes on this curiosity.
I took a picture of them fanned out for a visual but it hasn’t uploaded to my flickr page yet
I differ in my take on the debate from a number of morning after commentators. Most said Trump wasn’t hurt by the debate or his absence or words to that effect. Its true that most of the eight dwarves failed to land serious blows on him especially with what now constituted Republican voters but they did land blows. Had Trump been there I don’t know how he would have shrugged them off. My wife suggested that the reason his interview with Tucker Carlson on X was because his attorneys wouldn’t let him speak off the cuff for increasingly dire legal reasons. So far I haven’t heard a peep about that canned appearance which doesn’t bode well for Trump who is disappearing behind bars today in the wretched Atlanta Prison to register with the law while forking over 200 grand in bail.
I’ll offer a couple of my thoughts which had a mostly sleepless night to gel with a little sprinkle of reading some commentaries from the pro-democracy press.
Vivek the brash Indian-American wannabe Trump was a turn on for Republicans who like Trump’s moxie but despite surviving raps from the other seven presidential panelists I can’t see him catching on with a majority of voters. I think whoever survives as the field narrows will cut him down and surely if it him and Trump 45 will cut him to pieces. I heard one adoring Republican pray that it would be a Trump RamaSwamy ticket. Vivek tangled with Pence and mostly had his way with him but he should beware. Pence is what’s left of being Trump’s mostly dog loyal VP. Its not a picture or a future I would envy.
And Nicky Haley mostly came out on top and unscathed while dishing some slings at Trump’s failures. She will have to answer for this and soon but it put her nearer the lead of the least. And she came close to dismantling Vivek in a Paki v Paki moment. And its worth remembering that another less offensive candidate Senator Scott was her creation. Senator Scott didn’t stand out in this debate but he came across as the most likable in a field that wasn’t all that likable.
If I were Trump I’d be nervous at the number of times the audience stopped booing at critiques of the ex prez and worry about the number of times the largest share of the audience seemed to applaud when a wannabee found a little eloquence is saying it was time for the party to move on from Trump. Political Fatigue is a real thing.
One last thing I’d like to note about the prostitute Foxers…They began with a fullsome and unbalanced tirade against Biden by four ordinary Wisconsonites who complained about things like inflation as their top concern. Really fair and balanced. They are so covered in Trump pocket lint it was either humorous of repellant which ever best describes your stomach while watching. But the eight were all up for describing the horrors of Biden’s leadership which I still find wonderfully refreshing with an America heading in a better direction as a shit load of Republican muddied problems raise up against the world…..currying favor with dictators and anti-democrats, wars Republicans helped get out of hand, overpopulation and border crossings, economic refugee drivers aided by an incompetent understanding of how they will force starving people to cross borders including ours and the insistence of Republicans that every fetus in the world no matter how destined for death must be brought into this world.
Driving that last point home was Sean Hannity who was about to host the after debate spin party. As he introduced it he explained that America was in such terrible shape with Biden that all eight of the Republican debaters would be a tremendous improvement on President Biden. That’s the spin from a “news” channel afraid of the Trump audience it cultivated and groomed like news pedophiles.
I like the essence if not the non editing of those last two paragraphs. If I wasn’t embarked once again on some diligent writing elsewhere I’d come back and spiff them up a bit. But now on to other things.
