BUT REALLY, THEY’RE ALL WIENERS.

I took in as much as I could stand of last night’s Republican debate and wrote about it. From the post-mortems I take it I didn’t miss much, and my first impression was correct: That Trump imprinted the party so indelibly with a fake wrestling ethos that the candidates had either to act sensible and recede, or bellow and bully and reveal themselves unfit to govern. 

The New York Times’ doofuses proclaim Haley the winner, which in my estimation means that her seriousness and (groan) moderation appealed to them while her singularity as the Woman of Color (Sort Of) kept her from sinking into the Hutchinson/Burgum morass. “If there’s any life left in the old G.O.P., Haley gave it hope,” quoth the malignant David French, meaning Not a Chance in Hell – though since these birds are all auditioning for Tubby’s Veep, he may yet decide to lady-up the ticket with Haley and she, having no actual principles, would certainly accept.

The whole Times thing is hilarious. Ross Douthat, rushing to the aid of his fellow petulant bigot Ron DeSantis, says he “stuck to a message designed for a front-running and unifying campaign — but he isn’t the front-runner, and he desperately needs more deftness and finesse.” Of course Douthat can’t even pretend DeSantis is the front-runner, but in what sense is his message designed for a “unifying campaign”? He hates trans people and Anthony Fauci and loves propaganda and brutality – it’s not so much outreach as reach-around; all the MAGA shitheads believe in these things, but not in him.

A bonus to whoever decided to bring on the libertarian clown Katherine Mangu-Ward, who is as one would expect the one Ramaswamy fluffer besides the negligible Daniel McCarthy. Even Mangu-Ward, however, couldn’t avoid acknowledging that some of Ramaswamy’s ideas are “bananas" (nor using the word "manically," one of the more polite descriptors appropriate to his bugged-out affect); but she did coo, “I enjoyed his Reaganite desire to abolish a variety of federal agencies, including the Department of Education…” Still, no rose without the thorn: “…while I found his zeal to close and militarize the southern border deeply troubling.” As usual, I wonder whether libertarians ever wonder why the politicians who excite them always turn out to be moral monsters, and as usual I answer myself: Who cares?