Why Bother Your Evening?

There is a Presidential debate tonight on CNN and none of us are obligated to watch. 

Considering what happened during the previous election cycle - involving the same two candidates - when donald trump attempted to violate every norm and civility in the most crass manner, I'm not about to expect him to improve his behavior. Even with the supposed safeguards in place for this televised spectacle - the moderator can cut off microphones this time - we're going to get trump gaslighting - there are no fact-checkers at this debate - and bullying his way through another night of pandering towards his own base.

It's not helping any that trump's Republican allies and spokespeople have been running around the last week or so accusing President Biden of being drugged up on "smart" or "debate enhancement drugs" and demanding drug tests on Biden as a means to embarrass him (and provide cover for trump if he underwhelms/collapses during the event).

After all, if there were such a "performance enhancing drug" to improve your mental acuity, trump's own people would be injecting it into trump the last six months or so to hide the growing public signs that he's suffering dementia and cognitive failure.

This is all performative circus, designed to stir up fervor for the mainstream media outlets to cover the horserace nature of campaigns and fill their own narratives. The partisan landscape dividing the Republican and Democratic voting bases are already decided (since 2020!): the Undecided voters at this point tend to be tuned out anyway, and won't pay attention until the last month or so (hence the constant attempts at October Surprises to undermine each other).

At best, we're going to see Biden pitch to the media that he's built back a strong economy generating more jobs at better wages, and punching at trump for being a convicted felon. trump's narrative is going to be that things were better under him, that the border security is in shambles, and making none-too-subtle threats for his Proud Boy supporters to "prep for another uprising".

The only thing worth watching for is if trump physically collapses from his own inability to stand upright as his neurology short circuits.

Me? I'm trying to get into this Martha Wells' Murderbot book series. Wish me luck.

What If They Gave a GOP Primary Debate and Nobody Cared?

Update 1/15/24: Thanks again to Batocchio for including my blog in the Crooks & Liars' Mike's Blog Round-Up. If you can do me a favor, visit me here as I'm trying to narrow down blog articles to submit to the Annual Royal Palm Literary Awards for 2024, please let me know either in the comments or by dropping me a tweet (yes I know it's dying but I still check it for shits and giggles).

Just for the record, last night the Republicans hosted a presidential primary debate of all the possible candidates trying to usurp donald trump from the front-runner spot heading into 2024.

If it looked like an empty stage, that's because it kinda was.

With trump refusing to show up for these things - having already locked up the MAGA voting base and unwilling to get caught by moderators to explain his pending criminal trials - it's been a parade of second-and-third tier pretenders hoping to be the last one(s) standing if/when trump gets convicted and unable to run anymore or blocked from the ballots.

Or at least it was a parade. The standard attrition process of the primaries saw many of the wannabes who couldn't keep up their fundraising to pay off six-figure consultant fees falling to the wayside.

Remember all the clowns back in August 2023? The likes of Doug Burgum (who?) and Ada Hutchinson (why?) and Tim Scott (this one was actually a personal shock, I thought he had a sugar daddy keeping him afloat) and Mike Pence (ahahahahahahahaha) all trying to appeal to the trumpian base and failing.

The ones that had remained weren't exactly the charismatic types to keep the audiences entertained. Vivak Ramaswamy did his best to mimic trump's raging persona but as a pitiful tone-deaf elitist trying to insult everyone else he was too ridiculous to accept. Chris Christie at least had the bullying persona down to an art, but as his game plan was to attack trump as a danger to the party itself there was no way Christie was going to win over the base (what's heart-breaking is how his message didn't gave favor from whatever moderate anti-Trump voters remain in the GOP). It didn't help Christie's message that he himself surrendered to trump back in 2016 and was last seen staring at the cameras during his "endorsement" of a raving trump with an expression that screamed "my God, I sold my soul to the biggest moron in the nation."

Neither Ramaswamy nor Christie were on the stage, as both couldn't qualify for this round. As such, Christie announced just before this debate he was dropping out. In the process, Christie denounced the remaining survivors as incapable of stopping trump and basically left it all open for trump to win even without being present.

That left the challengers to Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis.

...

...

Yeah, the GOP's screwed. I didn't even have to watch that debate to know how quickly it devolved into direct insults and inability to focus on issues.

Having said that, it becomes interesting to see how the non-trump elements of the voting base come to terms with either backing a nightmarish homunculus like DeSantis who can't even fake basic human emotions or body language, or a pandering Lost Cause supporter like Haley who at least retains some semblance of functioning brain cells. The terrifying thing is that nobody really cares at this point.

But it is looking nobody will force a contentious Republican primary. The nature of the Winner-Take-All system that will accumulate delegates at a fast rate will likely honor trump as the winner before Super Tuesday even rolls up by early March. It then becomes a question if the Republican Convention has to scramble and find a replacement candidate should trump get barred from the ballot due to the 14th Amendment.

The insanity will just keep going through to November. Gods help us.

The 2024 Republican Dash to Suck Up to MAGA Voters In Case trump Ends Up In Cell Block Six

There's a Republican presidential primary debate tonight and I don't wanna watch. NO, YOU CAN'T MAKE ME WATCH I DON'T WANNA. /pout 

I do, however, feel an obligation to rate and review the idiotic Republican pretenders to trump's dark throne that are placing themselves on the floor tonight for public humiliation. Only because I did this for the Democratic candidates back in 2019 who were running for 2020, and I ought to maintain a balance of sorts.

Much like I said back then, I am tired already of the constant horse-race mentality of mainstream media that has us overwhelmed with all this partisan posturing in public. We need laws in place to force the political parties - and the goddamned hacks who jump out two years early to start fundraising to fill their pockets with millions in campaign cash - to keep these election campaigns to the calendar year the election takes place (January 2nd, not a damn thing happens before then upon pain of permanent blockage from elected or nominated office). It's the only way to keep this goddamned pandering to a goddamned minimum.

Tonight's debate arguably isn't even going to have the biggest draw for the Far Right Republican voting base: trump decided to avoid attending, partly because he doesn't even need to show up to win (his polling lead is that huge) and partly because he's due in Fulton County Georgia tomorrow for his mug shot and arraignment on his FOURTH pending criminal indictments. This slogfest is going to be made up of the second-tier half-dead wannabes who think they have a shot at the nomination should trump actually be in a jail cell by the time the 2024 RNC Convention takes place. As Mark Leibovich at the Atlantic (paywalled) notes, this will be a tedious affair made up of 'listless vessels':

So why should the rest of us bother? Would anyone watch a Mike Tyson fight if Iron Mike wasn’t actually fighting? Or The Sopranos, if Tony skipped the show for a therapy session (with Tucker Carlson)?...

Tonight’s pageant of also-rans must go on too. The Republican National Committee has decreed this kickoff debate to be a landmark event, sanctifying August 23 as a key date in the 2024 cycle. (“Cycle” feels like an especially apt cliché here—events spinning hypnotically in circles.) Never mind that Trump upended the traditional presidential campaign cycle years ago, and that it is now dictated by whatever whim he decides to follow at a given moment. No matter how much thunder Trump steals from this proceeding—by skipping it, counterprogramming it with Tucker, and potentially following it up with a morning-after mug shot—everyone else is still required to treat this spectacle as some big and pivotal showdown.

As such, the media will swarm into town—because this is what we do and what we love (and because datelines impress). The host network, Fox News, will hype the clash—the “Melee in Milwaukee,” or some such. One-liners are being buffed, comebacks polished, and umbrage rehearsed. And no matter how effective certain gambits are deemed to be in practice, the absence of the GOP’s inescapable front-runner will only underscore how impotent the rest of the field has made themselves...

Even so, tonight’s contest will inevitably suffer from two basic structural flaws. The main point, theoretically, of a political debate is to try to persuade voters to support your campaign instead of the other candidates’. But that presupposes a constituency of voters who can be persuaded by hearing a set of facts, or are open to being educated. This, on the whole, is not the audience we have here. A large and determinative and still deeply committed portion of the GOP electorate—the MAGA sector—has been more or less a closed box for seven years now...

The other structural defect involves the likely self-neutering of tonight’s putative gladiators. Ideally, a debate features participants who actually want to win. That generally requires a willingness to attack their biggest adversary, whether he’s participating in the event or not, and especially when he holds a massive lead over them. Other than Kamikaze Christie, whom Republicans will almost certainly not nominate, most of the remaining “challengers” on the stage seem content to play for second place—running mate or 2028...

Seriously, none of these suckers will be trump's running mate: trump reportedly wants a woman Veep candidate to counter Kamala Harris, and most of these candidates already know working for trump will put them in the crosshairs with trump AND the MAGA base should they step out of line to protect their own asses like Pence did on January 6th. Haley, the only woman on-stage tonight, ought to be too smart to volunteer for that shit-job. I also doubt Pence will volunteer a second go-around as a whipping boy. Back to Leibovich:

Whether intentionally or not, DeSantis actually coined something memorable the other day when he chided Trump’s supporters for mindlessly following his every pronouncement—“listless vessels,” he called them. (He later said that he was referring to Trump’s endorsers in Congress, not voters.) This struck me as sneaky eloquence from DeSantis, or whoever wrote the line for him. But again, the phrase carried a strong whiff of projection as DeSantis prepared to lead the real parade of listless vessels to Milwaukee, content to bob along in the wake of the Titanic.

DeSantis has truly been a terrible campaigner, losing financial backers and stunning his few attendees with unsettling, almost-inhuman behavior at his rallies. He's performing much in the same way the flame-outs of 2016 performed, like Scott Walker and Jeb! Bush before him: Lacking any true charisma and unable to generate enthusiasm. The rest of the field has been equally unmemorable save for Christie - whose bullying always delights the punditry - and newbie businessman Vivek Ramaswamy - whose conspiracy-addled gaslighting has made him into this year's Mini-trump.

In the meantime, here's a scorecard of the likely Republican assholes candidates (the highest office currently known, and the state they represent) vying for their party base's vote when the state-by-state primaries do take place. Doing this in alphabetical order because HAHA trump you're in last.

Doug Burgum: Governor, North Dakota

Role as: The Guy Who Bribed Republican Voters Into Donating To His Campaign With Gift Cards So He Could Qualify For This Debate (no, seriously).

Funny thing is, Burgum has to call in sick with a "leg injury" during a basketball pick-up game (???) and may not attend his own political funeral, uh this debate. Otherwise, he'd have to spend most of the evening explaining where North Dakota even IS on the map. Update: Burgum decided to show up after all, so he's not THAT cowardly.

Burgum Can Win the Party Nomination If: trump is sitting in a jail cell convicted on any number of charges by June 2024 and the Party holds an emergency vote at the Convention.

Burgum Can Win It All If: The gift cards he promised to voters in the general election were all $5000.00 per person Actually, that would be illegal. And it's unlikely he'll ever get a general voting population defending the conservative agenda he's pushed at the state level and will threaten to inflict on America.

Chris Christie: Governor, New Jersey

Role as: The Guy Who Claims He Likes Bruce Springsteen (but doesn't seem to understand the lyrics railing against HIM and his fellow greed-heads).

Christie is the one most prepped and pumped for the debate stage if only because it gives him the chance to play out his role as Bully, one of the few things he does well. The last time he primaried in 2016, he was the one who nuked Marco Rubio from orbit and destroyed the Beltway Media's fair-haired alternative to trump. If the audience is tuning in tonight, it's to see how quickly Christie gives the likes of DeSantis an atomic wedgie. 

Christie Can Win the Party Nomination If: trump is sitting in a jail cell convicted on any number of charges by June 2024 and the Party holds an emergency vote at the Convention.

Christie Can Win It All If: He can successfully recall Bruce's lyrics to "The Ghost of Tom Joad" and tearfully recant his un-Boss-like ways. Otherwise, the general voting population is going to reject his bully tactics for the more congenial Biden.

Ron DeSantis: Governor, Florida

Role as: Anti-Woke Thin-Skinned Racist Sexist Disney Villain

DeSantis is the candidate who has done the most damage to his own state in pursuit of MAGA voter support, and the candidate who's done the least to actually get any MAGA voters to flip to him. His ROI is terrible. Any early lead he's had at the beginning of this horse race has dwindled to where a virtual noob like Ramaswamy is neck-and-neck. And Christie's going to be there to pounce and make DeSantis grind his teeth like never before.

DeSantis Can Win the Party Nomination If: trump is sitting in a jail cell convicted on any number of charges by June 2024 and the Party holds an emergency vote at the Convention.

DeSantis Can Win It All If: Gods help us if he does. DeSantis' behavior governing Florida - the mismanagement masquerading as leadership, the self-destructive micromanaging, the short-sighted mistakes - will all be transferred to the federal level where his governing style of harassing critics and destroying institutions to give his cronies power and leverage will be on a Jacksonian scale. While any of the Republican candidates will be ideological nightmares if they get into the White House, DeSantis is genuinely terrifying in that he will replicate trump's efforts to seize and maintain power no matter what, with a better idea of how to actually succeed at it.

Nikki Haley: Governor, South Carolina

Role as: The Pollyanna Trying to Campaign as Reagan But Messaging Like Ann Coulter

Haley is jumping into this campaign arguably to present a figure who is known for a certain level of competence and savvy, but she's still saddled with a GOP platform that will force her to support incompetence, fearmongering, and tax cut greed. She's also campaigning to a political party that still can't handle any woman in a legitimate leadership role, which is going to force her into some uncomfortable public stances if she can make it to the general election stage.

Haley Can Win the Party Nomination If: trump is sitting in a jail cell convicted on any number of charges by June 2024 and the Party holds an emergency vote at the Convention.

Haley Can Win It All If: She can truly motivate a dying, out-of-power moderate base that she could appeal to. Problem is, there are no true moderates left in the modern Republican Party, and she's not going to rally enough of them to a primary race that's been alienating them since 2008.

Ada Hutchinson: Governor, Arkansas

Role as: The Guy From Arkansas Who's Not as Creepy As Mike Huckabee

Hutchinson is someone who barely made the cut for tonight's debate, which tells you how low in the rankings he's already playing at. While he can appeal to those who like experience in their presidential candidates, Hutchinson doesn't have as great a national profile as the others and will suffer as a result. He's not going to offer anything any different from what Christie, DeSantis, Haley, Burgum, or Scott are going to offer.

Hutchinson Can Win the Party Nomination If: trump is sitting in a jail cell convicted on any number of charges by June 2024 and the Party holds an emergency vote at the Convention.

Hutchinson Can Win It All If: Somewhere between winning the GOP primary (or the emergency RNC vote) and the November general election he can somehow gaslight his way past the anti-abortion, racism, tax-cut deregulatory bullsh-t he's been selling as both governor and primary candidate.

Robert Kennedy Jr: Democratic Asshole, New York

Role as: Conspiracy-driven Anti-Vax Trojan Horse sent by Republicans to undermine Biden's incumbency run

I know Kennedy's running as a Democrat and he's not on tonight's debate list, but if you're getting most of your campaign funding from REPUBLICAN backers then goddamn you: You're running as a Republican. Go to hell, Junior.

Mike Pence: Vice President, Indiana

Role as: The Scapegoat who can't admit he got suckered and victimized by trump 

Pence is either genuinely clueless that most of the Republican voting base views him as a traitor for failing to cheat the Electoral count for trump back on January 6th, or he's running to validate his own self-worth convinced he's the true future of the Republican party once trump is behind bars. Either way, Pence has no true charisma that appeals at a national level: Another Scott Walker leading himself to primary humiliation.

Pence Can Win the Party Nomination If: trump is sitting in a jail cell convicted on any number of charges by June 2024 and the Party holds an emergency vote at the Convention. Seriously, if this emergency vote happens, Pence is one of the few party leaders with any backroom power to get the party to risk it all on him (if the leadership convince themselves the betrayed MAGA base will change their minds).

Pence Can Win It All If: This is one of the most unlikely things even if Pence navigates his way to the top of the GOP ticket. As mentioned before, Pence is a laughing stock to the voting public at large, and either has to carry the baggage of being associated with trump's ill-run presidency or coping with an angry MAGA voting base that will refuse to turn up next November.

Vivak Ramaswamy: Businessman, Ohio

Role as: The Next CEO Galtian Asshole Who Thinks He Can Run Government Like a Business

Ramaswamy is coming from a proud Republican tradition of at least one financial figure - Forbes, Cain, Foriana, in some respects Dubya and Mitt - jumping into the primary race thinking he's reinvented the wheel when it comes to governance. Instead, he's shilling the same deregulatory tax-cutting damage as before campaigning on a top-down Unitary Executive agenda to turn the White House into a dictatorship (gee, we've heard that before), while making a hard case of going "anti-woke" in ways that make DeSantis look like he's mumbling.  

Ramaswamy Can Win the Party Nomination If: trump is sitting in a jail cell convicted on any number of charges by June 2024 and the Party holds an emergency vote at the Convention. Or if he can sway the MAGA base with his 9/11 Truther, anti-abortion, racist, sexist, fearmongering messaging to back him before the party leaders can choose among their own.

Ramaswamy Can Win It All If: he can make voters look past the reality he's a first-generation son of immigrants bashing the very system of multicultural that allowed him to become a businessman and presidential candidate in the first place. The scary thing is that his rise in the polls this cycle mimics the similar rise that trump enjoyed in the 2016 primaries: Meaning if trump is truly eliminated from the ballot due to a slight case of JAIL, Vivak could replace him among MAGA voters willing to look past his ethnicity and embrace his conspiracy-driven gaslighting.

Tim Scott: Senator, South Carolina

Role as: The Anti-Obama Beard

Arguably one of the few candidates on the stage tonight who actually HAS a political career of some success (and none of the baggage that Christie has), Scott is most often the GOP figurehead that the racists in their ranks point to and say "Look, we vote for him, clearly we're not racist!" even though Scott parrots many of the same anti-affirmative action talking points and supports many of the same social conservative issues that most voting Blacks don't.

Scott Can Win the Party Nomination If: trump is sitting in a jail cell convicted on any number of charges by June 2024 and the Party holds an emergency vote at the Convention. If Pence doesn't appeal to the backroom party bosses looking to replace a convicted trump, Scott is the next most likely who will.

Scott Can Win It All If: Scott can actually appeal to general voters in spite of his conservative bona fides. In my humble but ill-informed opinion, he might actually be the one candidate who could give Biden some trouble in the general election on matters of race relations. Scott will have problems appealing to voters if abortion is the major topic, and he is going to get stuck defending a GOP platform that will be racist towards immigrants and sexist towards women.

Donald Trump: Indicted Loser of the Popular Vote (Twice), Ugh do I HAVE to List Him as Florida

Role as: The Eternal Shitgibbon. If you prefer, The Guy On Four (AND COUNTING) Criminal Trials Involving His Misconduct in Both Business And the Presidency

Trump Can Win the Party Nomination If: Gods help us, he's already polling in the lead, and there is still solid evidence that Republicans will vote for a convicted trump. However, if trump is sitting in a jail cell convicted on any number of charges by June 2024, the Party has every reason to hold an emergency vote to field a replacement choice.

Trump Can Win It All If: he cheats. Again. If he can get the Russians to meddle like he did in 2016, if he can get the FBI to spring another October Surprise like Comey did on Hillary weeks before the general election, if he can get Red state legislatures in states voting for Biden to nullify the Electoral count like he wanted to in 2020, if he can get a Republican-controlled branch of Congress to refuse a Biden Electoral win... Then it's chaos. And trump is ALL ABOUT THE GODDAMN CHAOS.

Among these choices, I dare not make a recommendation. My track record predicting these things have been horrendous: Backing Edwards in 2008 (before knowing his adultery), Backing Harris (and then Warren) over Biden in 2020), Thinking Romney had the nomination in 2008 (instead of McCain, whom I did favor but didn't think would win primaries), Thinking Walker had it sewn up in 2016 (he didn't even make it through the 2015 debates).

If I can say anything, it's that above all DO NOT VOTE trump. He's not worth it. He's going to get convicted one way or another and it will - fairly - drag the rest of the Republican ticket down with him. In general, I've been screaming to NOT VOTE REPUBLICAN at all for decades now, but you've seen how little influence I've had there (grrr).

In the meantime, don't watch any of the debates. They're boring and dull and the highlight reel on YouTube easier to digest. Gnight, krewe.

P.S. Cmon Tampa Bay Rays reclaim the AL East lead into the postseason!!!

No Debate: trump Was Lousy At It Anyway

In minor news today - since all the major news like Putin's genocide in Ukraine gets a bit overwhelming - the Republican Party voted this week to stop joining the 4-year farce of Presidential debating because as it turns out trump is too much of a pussy to risk it anymore. Well, that's MY take on it. Let's hear from the official reporting from Reuters (via The Guardian link):

The Republican National Committee voted unanimously on Thursday to withdraw from the Commission on Presidential Debates, saying the group that has run the debates for decades was biased and refused to enact reforms.

“We are going to find newer, better debate platforms to ensure that future nominees are not forced to go through the biased CPD in order to make their case to the American people,” the committee’s chairperson, Ronna McDaniel, said in a statement.

What McDaniel means by "bias," by the by, translates into "the moderators wouldn't let trump go bugfuck psycho like he wants to."

The move, which followed months of wrangling between the RNC and the commission, will potentially deprive voters of seeing Republican and Democratic candidates on the same stage.

Millions of Americans usually watch the presidential debates and many viewers say they help them to make up their minds about whom to vote for, according to research by Pew Research Center.

The RNC’s decision follows grievances aired by former president Donald Trump and other Republicans about the timing of debates, debate formats and the selection of moderators.

Defenders of the debates say they are an important element of the democratic process, but critics say they have become television spectacles in which viewers learn little about the candidates’ policies.

Trump refused to participate in what was supposed to be the second of three debates with Biden in 2020, after the commission switched it to a virtual contest following Trump’s Covid-19 infection.

What the article didn't mention was how the first debate between trump and Biden in 2020 turned out: A complete and utter disaster for trump. Don't take my word for it: Every other pundit who watched it were sickened by trump's bullying behavior. Here's the link back to what David Frum documented for The Atlantic:

Instead, he talked to Facebook conspiracists, to the angriest of ultra-Republican partisans, and to violent white supremacists. He urged the Proud Boys to “stand by” because “somebody’s got to do something” about “antifa and the left.” He refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power in the (likely) event that he loses. He threatened months and months of chaos if the election does not go his way.

Trump yelled, threatened, interrupted—and changed nothing. All he did was confirm the horror and revulsion of the large American majority that has already begun to cast its ballots against him.

Correction: Trump did one thing. On the Cleveland stage, Trump communicated that he will seize any opportunity to disrupt the vote and resist the outcome. He communicated more forcefully than ever that the only security the country has for a constitutional future is that Biden wins by the largest possible margin...

Even Frum could see by September 2020 that trump was plotting a coup to hold onto power even when he lost the election that November.

Many people will criticize how the moderator, Chris Wallace, managed the debate, and surely he could have done better. But really, nothing short of a shock collar around Trump’s neck would have disciplined the man who is, after all, the president of the United States. A president who does not respect tax laws, does not respect the FBI, is surely not going to be constrained by a debate moderator. It was pandemonium. But it was revealing pandemonium. Who and what Trump is could not have been more vividly displayed in all the psychological reality. Debate one was not Donald Trump versus Joe Biden, or red versus blue. It was zookeepers versus poop-throwing primates...

It was the worst public behavior out of a President Loser of the Popular Vote (Twice) in modern memory. There had been times when Presidents like LBJ and Reagan were combative or defensive during public pressers, and in private the likes of Nixon behaved so much worse. Those were mere flashes compared to trump's performance: trump heckled, he interrupted, he spoke out of turn, he YELLED out of turn, he did everything except physically assault Biden. If trump had been graded by the Toastmasters for his debate behavior, they would have flunked him in the first three minutes.

And it wasn't like trump was masterful in his debates against Hillary Clinton back in 2016. He flared out in the first debate, he acted like a bully during the open forum format of the second debate, and he failed to impress during the third debate. 

You have to remember: trump never won the popular vote in 2016 and in 2020. If debate performances are meant to sway undecided voters to your banner, trump only succeeded in rallying his base. His Democratic opponents were able to do that as well, and in Biden's case rallied an uptick in voter turnout that trump couldn't surpass.

This move by the Republicans has all the markings of a sore loser - trump - deciding he wasn't going to play the game on a level field. Either he's hoping that this will force the Debates commission to revise their policies and grant him more power to set the rules his way, or he's hoping he won't have to face the embarrassment of losing debates in 2024. It'll probably be the latter because the commission is supposed to be non-partisan managed between both major parties, and the Democrats on the commission will refuse to yield to trump's antics.

Part of me even wonders why the debates still matter. I understand the optics of it - a public demonstration of the American electoral system, the spectacle of holding elected officials accountable to the issues that matter to the voters - but the mechanics of it have broken apart the past twenty years as partisan hackery took over the democratic (small d) process.

It's not as though our Presidential elections needed these debates over the nation's history. Impractical back in the day before railroads or cars or airplanes that could allow a large gathering to watch a debate of that scale, it would take something like mass communication of radio and television to pull it off. 

Previous elections didn't even have the candidates campaigning all that hard: Late 19th Century tradition made it that they didn't even leave their front porches. Most candidates still stuck to their individual campaigns, avoiding direct public forums as though to avoid giving their opponent any validation.

There aren't any full explanations I can find why candidates Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy agreed to televised Presidential debates in 1960. Kennedy had his reasons because he was trailing the polls as a still-obscure figure, while Nixon was better-known due to serving as Vice-President under Eisenhower. It could have been that television was still a new technology and both sides saw potential in reaching national audiences. We were in the middle of a Cold War versus Communism, so there may have been the appeal of debating with a free exchange of idea(l)s between candidates to market the virtues of elective democratic republics like the United States.

The results were disastrous for Nixon. He debated well enough on the issues, but his image paled in comparison to Kennedy's charisma. Nixon lost his polling lead and then lost a close election. It should be telling that the following elections in 1964, 1968, and 1972 there were no Presidential debates at all (as Nixon ran in '68 and '72, there was no way he was going to fall for that trap again).

It took Nixon's Watergate, and the distrust in elected leaders, for the debates to return in 1976, as President Gerald Ford and Candidate Jimmy Carter both needed them to appeal to an electorate that barely knew both of them. But the rationale - the open discussion of ideas and opposing views on how to answer crises - for hosting these things quickly devolved.

By the 1990s, the focus of the debates were to avoid getting pinned on any ideological position that would get used in attack ads by your opponents, and to basically avoid saying anything dumb to ruin your poll numbers. The Saturday Night Live skit in 1992 aptly titled "Debate ’92: The Challenge to Avoid Saying Something Stupid" pretty much spelled out how bland and boring these debates became.

Nothing's really ever gained in these spectacles, to be honest. The candidates appearing at these debates are prepped into one-sentence ten-words answers that don't say anything, oft-times stuck with those one-liners creating gaffes of their own. Undecided voters tuning in to watch are mostly watching for those gaffes, not for leadership potential or for policies that matter to them. Decided voters don't want to tune in because we already know why we're voting for our candidate. The partisan nature of our nation's political parties have gotten to where the issues don't even matter (look at how the Republicans didn't even create a new platform for the 2020 elections).

We don't need these debates anymore, or at least not right now. Not when the choices are already too stark and the issues are so easily ignored.

It's actually a good thing donald trump doesn't want to do debates anymore. It means less airtime on my television screens to where I and millions of others don't have to look at his orange-painted lying face.

Deranged and Raging

I didn't watch the debate Mental And Moral Collapse of the United States last night, but I followed the Twitter feed and read the postscripts, and by GODS it was a true nightmare.

To quote James Fallows at the Atlantic:

Start with the supposed moderator, Chris Wallace. It became obvious five minutes in that Donald Trump’s strategy was to interrupt, yell, insult, and disrupt as often as he could. This is a strategy that can work only if no one gets in the way of it, and Chris Wallace just let it go on. Maybe Wallace was caught by surprise by Trump’s bellicosity and primate-dominance. (But—c’mon.) Even so, two or three minutes of this should have been enough to adjust. He didn’t adjust. And he let Trump roll over him...

I recorded a whole detailed minute-by-minute annotation of the debate as it unfolded, but I’m not going to dignify this disaster with any details. It was a giant mess. Did the spectacle change any votes? Who knows. Maybe some people were revved up for Trump by his assertiveness. Maybe other people—I’d guess a larger number, but it’s just a guess—were repelled by his bullying tactics...

But for tonight I’ll say this was a disgusting moment for democracy. Donald Trump made it so, and Chris Wallace let him. I hope there are no more debates before this election. If they happen, I won’t waste another minute of my life watching them.

The modern presidential debate was invented in 1960. We may have seen the end of its useful life this evening.

This was about the most judicious review of the night I found. Everything else ranged from how chaotic and demeaning trump's behavior was right down to the most blunt "It was a shit show" takeaway from CNN's Dana Bash.

The post-game narratives coming out of trump's camp - his debate handlers Rudy Giuliani and Chris Christie were out quickly trying to perform some form of ass-covering afterward - was trump planned to disrupt the debate and interrupt as often as he could to throw Biden off-balance and cause Biden to stutter. trump's intent was to make Biden look weak. It never occurred to trump - or anyone in his circle - that a lot of people who stutter learn to control themselves through focusing on their statements and staying calm. It does make Biden appear placid, emotionally flat, and unable to deviate from script while speaking in public, but it also means that he's actually less gaffe-prone on the stage than when he's in meeting rooms and pre-rally gatherings.

The end result of trump's gameplan was that he showed himself the bully, the screaming rage-monster, the control freak husband/ex-boyfriend of women's nightmares.

As David Frum at the Atlantic put it:

President Donald Trump arrived at the first debate with a theory and a plan. The theory was that American voters crave dominance, no matter how belligerent or offensive. The plan was to hector, interrupt, and insult in hopes of establishing that dominance.

His theory was wrong, and his plan was counterproductive...

Trump yelled, threatened, interrupted—and changed nothing. All he did was confirm the horror and revulsion of the large American majority that has already begun to cast its ballots against him.

Correction: Trump did one thing. On the Cleveland stage, Trump communicated that he will seize any opportunity to disrupt the vote and resist the outcome. He communicated more forcefully than ever that the only security the country has for a constitutional future is that Biden wins by the largest possible margin...

The only ones who did cheer as trump vomited his rage upon the international stage were the Proud Boy/White Supremacist factions whom trump refused to denounce when asked by the moderator Chris Wallace. Worse, trump rallied those wingnuts with the words to "Stand Back, Stand By", a call for them to await instructions for when trump clearly wants them to disrupt voter turnout on Election Day (and worse, to riot in county Elections offices afterward to prevent any clean ballot counts).

To say this was America's Worst Night for Democracy undersells a lot of other bad nights - actually the nights of November 8-9, 2016 when this motherfcking Shitgibbon won the Electoral count are the Worst Nights - but it's the big red flag we've all been waiting for signalling that the chaos of 2020 is going to get worse.

There's only one way out of trump's Hell, America. GET THE DAMN VOTE OUT AND ELECT EVERY DEMOCRAT TO EVERY OFFICE YOU CAN.

trump's derangement and raging ways are getting worse. If he steals this election as he's promising to, we can't survive four more years of this crap. We just can't.

Quick Takeaway from the First Round Democratic Debates for 2020 (w/ Update)

Okay, so everybody likes to make lists during elections.

Here's my list - brief and arbitrary and totally biased - of how the 2020 Democratic primary nominees should be ranked going into the next election cycle.

Big Hitters (The front-runners who stayed in place and those who impressed)	Joe Biden Kamala Harris Bernie Sanders Elizabeth Warren
Dark Horses (The ones who did better than expected or at least didn't embarrass themselves onstage)	Cory Booker Pete Buttigieg Julian Castro
Should Plan On the VP Short List (The ones who showed competence but not enough oomph to get past the main leads, if they were even allowed to show at the first round in the first place)	Michael Bennet Steve Bullock Kirsten Gillibrand Jay Inslee Amy Klobucher Tim Ryan
Should Drop Out Now and Run for Governor or the Senate or Something (Beto in particular is having a Rick Perry moment on the national stage. Just... go back and win Texas instead, okay?)	Bill DeBlasio John Hickenlooper Beto O'Rourke Joe Sestack Eric Swalwell
Should Drop Out of The Party and Go Work for Fox Not-News as the Token Fake Democrat	John Delaney Seth Moulton Tulsi Gabbard
Seriously, Why You Here???	Mike Gravel Wayne Messum Marianne Williamson Andrew Yang

I'll be making Honest Bumper Stickers to reflect this better. Soon. Maybe.

Update 7/7/19: Christ. I swear there are days when I wonder if author John Scalzi and I were separated at birth, because when it comes to politics I find myself agreeing on nearly every argument he makes...

I Know 2020 Is Coming Soon, I Just Wish We Had a Chance To Sleep In First Before the Primaries Overwhelm Us

I am loathing the non-stop cycle of the "Horse-Race" campaign coverage by the media, so coping with the incoming Democratic primary race is gonna hurt my soul.

Thing is, people are announcing now, have announced, and may still announce their candidacy for the 2020 primaries. So attention must be paid. Candidates must be scrutinized. And my predictions made utterly ridiculous early and often because most of the time I get the wrong impressions and back the wrong candidate. Sigh.

I'm also not thrilled about how 2016 ended up. The Republican primaries fell into madness thanks to a bullying and sadistic con artist in trump going up against a weak field that couldn't walk their rabid fanbase back from the cliff's edge. The Democratic primaries ended up a foregone conclusion of Hillary getting the nom but alienating a Far Left base that backed Bernie to the point that support for the Democrats floundered (it did not help that both the mainstream media - which hated Hillary - and Russian meddling crippled voter support in key states to twist an already-broken Electoral College to flip the election to trump).

 So here we are for 2020, facing the horror of trump being in solid position - despite his own mismanaged administration alienating enough voters - to win re-election (stop screaming, everybody) if the Dems fail to raise voter support again.

If there's any good news, voter turnout in the 2018 midterms hints at increased voter turnout in 2020... as long as media manipulation by the Russians and Hillary-haters doesn't depress it again. But the Democrats need to ensure they nominate a more popular figure than Hillary (even I admitted back in 2016 that Hillary wasn't well-liked... I just believed and hoped she was more well-liked than trump). The good news on that front is that so far nearly every Democratic candidate throwing their hat into the ring are more popular than trump (polling in the 50s while trump flounders around 40 percent).

So who exactly are the candidates (listed alphabetically with highest government office) worth our time and support, America?

By the by, David A Graham at the Atlantic is running a 2020 cheat sheet for candidates, so do keep up with his input please and thanks:

Michael Bennet: Senator, Colorado
Role as: The Guy Running as a Centrist From a State That's Turning Into an Up-and-Coming Progressive Hotbed
If Bennet Wins the Nomination: He had to beat his way past a lot of better-known White guys on the national stage, as well as win over enough Far Left voters who'll be wary of his Establishment creds.
Bennet Can Win It All If: He can get out of the second-tier rut that career political guys like him get stuck in. Right now, he's best suited to be a viable Vice-Presidential choice due to geographic necessity (there hasn't been a Democrat on the major ticket as Prez or Veep that far West since 1964). Also if the Russians don't hack the elections again.

Joe Biden: Vice-President, Delaware
Role as: The Savior Candidate That the Beltway Likes And Then Will Immediately Humiliate Five Minutes Later To Enhance Their "Bipartisan" Cred
If Biden Wins the Nomination: The Progressive Left BernieBros will throw a conniption that he crashed into Bernie's "victory" parade.
Biden Can Win It All If: he can genuinely keep the factions in the Democratic ranks aligned to him, avoid the pitfalls of his constant faux pas screwups, and... and... Sigh. Not gonna happen. Seriously, Joe. Just stay on the sidelines like you did in 2016. You're in a safe spot as Party Elder. Getting into a Presidential campaign you've NEVER shown skill-sets for is a bad idea. You're committing a serious faux pas now regarding your misguided belief that Republicans are bipartisan at heart (NO THEY ARE NOT). Also if the Russians don't hack the elections again.

Cory Booker: Senator, New Jersey
Role as: Obama Part II
If Booker Wins the Nomination: It means he ended up as the compromise candidate between the party faction who fear Bernie would be too socialist and the party faction who fear another woman candidate like Warren or Harris will scare away the general election voters.
Booker Can Win It All If: He genuinely impresses during the primaries as a consensus candidate able to stand as a strong Liberal candidate able to win Progressives to his side. Also if the Russians don't hack the elections again.

Steve Bullock: Governor, Montana
Role as: Centrist Dem From a Small Population State
If Bullock Wins the Nomination: It means he won over voters with his Western, small-state populism that may work in rural communities but comes across the urban voting base as uncomfortable Centrism.
Bullock Can Win It All If: Doubtful. I think he's not even invited to the debates, which is sick. In previous election cycles a Governor - especially over amateurs like a motivational speaker - would get invited no matter what. He'll be lucky to be on the VP short list at this rate. Also if the Russians don't hack the elections again.

Pete Buttigieg: Mayor of South Bend, Indiana
Role as: That Straight Gay Guy from College who was best friends with your girlfriend but kept it low-key with you at gatherings so it never felt weird one way or the other
If Butiegig Wins the Nomination: It means he won over voters with his Mayor Pete persona and a genuine charisma that rivals Obama's.
Buttiegig Can Win It All If: If can get past voters' squeamishness for a candidate with... no national political leadership (looks at motherfucking trump and shakes head). Also if the Russians don't hack the elections again.

Julian Castro: Secretary of Commerce, Texas
Role as: That High School President Guy whose obvious law school future kinda made him act like a self-centered jerk but he was the one who came through with hiring the garage band for that house party so we're cool with it
If Castro Wins the Nomination: It means he outbid Mayor Pete in the charisma department and outlasted Biden, fellow Texan Beto, and others to the "Heir to Obama" title, as well as getting past the Progressive base wary of anybody who's been deep with the party Establishment as long as he has.
Castro Can Win It All If: He can convince Texas to flip Blue while keeping the 2012 Blue states aligned to the Democrats. Also if the Russians don't hack the elections again.

Bill DeBlasio: Mayor, New York
Role as: The Guy Ripping Off Other People's Roles (c'mon boss, Buttigieg beat you to the "Mayor" clique weeks earlier)
If DeBlasio Wins the Nomination: It would cause the Republicans to create fake "Law And Order" ads accusing DeBlasio of committing ALL the crimes in New York City since 1990. Ding Ding!
DeBlasio Can Win It All If: He can convince enough Americans he's done a good job of running the largest city in the United States - which he kind of hasn't - and deserves a shot running the country: Thing is, I don't think he can win re-election in NYC right now anyway. Also if the Russians don't hack the elections again.

John Delaney: Congressman, Maryland
Role as: I Have No Idea
If Delaney Wins the Nomination: I Have No Idea other than the Russians DID hack the elections again.
Delaney Can Win It All If: Is he even invited to the preliminary debates coming up?! I have no idea...

Tulsi Gabbard: Congresswoman, Hawaii
Role as: Insane Sorority Girl Who Sent That Crazy Email
If Gabbard Wins the Nomination: It'll be due to her Syrian buddies hacking the elections as well as the Russians.
Gabbard Can Win It All If: Are you joking? She's actually the least-liked candidate - due to her odd foreign policy stances - on the board. When you're the Either/Or punchline to pop-up Twitter polls with DeBlasio or Bernie, that's never a good sign. Also if the Russians don't hack the elections again.

Kirsten Gillibrand: Senator, New York
Role as: The Hillary Replacement (literally) who doesn't have the same baggage Hillary had
If Gillibrand Wins the Nomination: It will be with a party divided between the pro-business Centrists - coming from New York, she kind of can't avoid that - and the socialist Progressives who might view her as just another Establishment figure who "stole" the rightful nomination from You-Know-Who.
Gillibrand Can Win It All If: She can get out of Hillary's shadow in more ways than one and make the goddamn mainstream media give up their disdain of women candidates for the White House. Also if the Russians don't hack the elections again.

Kamala Harris: Senator, California
Role as: Stern Neighborhood Mom who ran the PTA but kept the Bible Thumpers from burning everyone's Harry Potter books
If Harris Wins the Nomination: It means she won over voters with her tough-seeming stances and confident campaign style (and probably enough Dems hoping she'll physically punch trump in the mouth first chance she gets). But she's going to have to get past the Progressives who view her background as a hard-charging prosecutor as a detriment rather than view her current calls for reforms as "evolved."
Harris Can Win It All If: The goddamn mainstream media gives up their disdain of women candidates for the White House. Also if the Russians don't hack the elections again.

John Hickenlooper: Governor, Colorado
Role as: That Poor Guy Who Has to Fill Out Legal Forms That Don't Leave Enough Space for Long Last Names
If Hickenlooper Wins the Nomination: the bumper stickers are going to have to be twice as long than usual.
Hickenlooper Can Win It All If: It means he had to beat back a fellow Colorado candidate hogging airspace as well as a field of better-known political figures on the national stage. All joking aside about his name, Hickenlooper is a competent candidate but also the kind that ends up being a second-tier player who usually ends up on the winner's Cabinet roster (and if he's from the Rocky Mountains, that's usually the Interior posting). Sorry. Also if the Russians don't hack the elections again.

Jay Inslee: Governor, Washington
Role as: That West Coast Guy Nobody's Heard Of Who Might Make a Decent Veep Candidate but probably won't
If Inslee Wins the Nomination: It means his agenda on sticking to a Climate Change/Eco-Friendly campaign won over the voters.
Inslee Can Win It All If: He adds on Warren's multilevel platform as a broad agenda to win over enough voters to a relative unknown. Also if the Russians don't hack the elections again.

Amy Klobucher: Senator, Minnesota
Role as: That Cool Sheriff from the movie Fargo
If Klobucher Wins the Nomination: Her homestyle persona won over voters despite not getting enough attention to her issues.
Klobucher Can Win It All if: The goddamn mainstream media gives up their disdain of women candidates for the White House. Also if the Russians don't hack the elections again.

Wayne Messam: Mayor of Miramar, Florida
Role as: Florida Man
If Messam Wins the Nomination: I think the rest of the nation will officially saw the Sunshine State off of the map like Bugs Bunny only for reals this time.
Messam Can Win It All If: Hnnnnn, don't make me laugh. I'm from Florida and even I know this is crazy. He's not making the first debates and nobody on the national level will ever recognize who he is. Also if the Russians don't hack the elections again.

Seth Moulton: Congressman, I forgot the state
Role as: Tim Ryan's Scapegoat
If Moulton Wins the Nomination: It means people forgot he tried taking down Pelosi as Speaker of the House and failed miserably.
Moulton Can Win It All If: He can't. He came at the Queen and missed. Nobody at the national stage thinks of him as a player. He missed the debate cutoff, that's how little support he has. He's probably not even on anyone's VP list. I doubt the Russians will hack any election for him.

Beto O'Rourke: Congressman, Texas
Role as: The Lead Guitarist for That Cool Garage Band from your high school/college days that never hit it big, damn the record companies
If O'Rourke Wins the Nomination: He could guarantee flipping Texas blue in 2020 (he barely lost in a midterm, when turnout is habitually lower). But he's got to run on solid Democratic (read: Liberal) platforms. And right now, his policy ideas aren't impressing...
O'Rourke Can Win It All If: he can translate the media love for his charisma into voter support for his centrist track record. But it's unlikely given how often Beto is putting his own foot in his mouth. Also if the Russians don't hack the elections again.

Tim Ryan: Congressman, Ohio
Role as: Passive-Aggressive Middle Manager at the corporate office
If Ryan Wins the Nomination: Doubtful. His highest-profile moment had been a palace coup - along with Moulton - to unseat Nancy Pelosi as House Speaker after Dems retook the House in the Midterms. He's not exactly Mr. Popular within his own party. His only saving grace is coming from a key battleground state - Ohio - that makes him a player on the national stage.
Ryan Can Win It All If: He can convince the Democrats and enough Indy/Republican voters his Centrist "Bring Back Jobs" Message can win voters. Also if the Russians don't hack the elections again.

Bernie Sanders: Senator, Vermont
Role as: Your Uncle Who Doesn't Understand Why Nobody Wants to Talk About 1970s-style Euro-Socialism at the family barbecue.
If Sanders Wins the Nomination: You're going to hear a lot of Hillary voters complaining before physically holding their noses to vote for him in November
Sanders Can Win It All If: He can convince enough Hillary voters to forgive him the various backstab moves he'd pulled in 2016 - and is pulling now - and to forgive his rabid and tone-deaf base who obsessively hate Centrists more than they do the Far Right. Problem is, of the major candidates Sanders is the one with the most baggage and the most polarizing hate. As much as Progressive turnout for Hillary fizzled, there's a risk of Centrist Democrat/Indy fizzle if Bernie embarrasses or insults them as a bloc. Also if the Russians don't hack the elections again.

Elizabeth Warren: Senator, Massachusetts
Role as: The College Prof with the reading syllabus that actually rocks
If Warren Wins the Nomination: The Republicans and the Beltway media will play it up as yet another Northeastern Liberal Elitist (not to mention trump and the GOP likely bashing Warren over her questionable Native ancestry claim from years ago), but it would signal another genuine attempt for Dems to elect a woman President, this time with a candidate with stronger progressive values (and positive polling numbers) than the less-liked Hillary.
Warren Can Win It All If: the goddamn mainstream media gives up their disdain of women candidates for the White House. Also if the Russians don't hack the elections again.

Marianne Williamson: Motivational Speaker, Somewhere
Role as: Seriously?
If Williamson Wins the Nomination: It's because the choice came down between her and Gabbard.
Williamson Can Win It All If: Ahem. Lemme go straight to the punchline. Also if the Russians don't hack the elections again.

Andrew Yang: Businessman, New York
Role as: A Technocrat with a single-issue platform and no political power base or national profile
If Yang Wins the Nomination: It would be insane. Granted, he's not as evil as trump, but you'd think the Democratic voting base still cares for such priorities as EXPERIENCE for the job, fer crissakes.
Yang Can Win It All If: The Russians don't hack the elections again.

Did I miss anybody? (Joe Sestack hops into the ring yesterday) OH FUCK YOU I AIN'T REWRITING THIS FOR THE UPTEENTH TIME. This is it, the list for 2020. OKAY?! Okay.

Personally?

I am pining for a Harris victory for several reasons - I agree on her education platform of paying teachers better, which plays into both stronger jobs-based economy AND improving our schools - and have Warren - who's got a plan for that - as my favorite back-up choice. I'm not a fan of Bernie - obviously - but I will vote for him if he wins because trump is evil. I'm not a fan of Biden - man, I keep telling you just stick to the Mentor role you're good at - but will vote for him because trump is evil. I'm kinda saying that for any Democratic nominee... but I do hope the final candidate is a competent, multipurposed and positive figure able to draw more than 50 percent of the electorate to vote Democratic across the board in 2020.

But I'm hoping beyond anything else that the confirmed Democratic ticket is a Harris/Warren or Warren/Harris match. YES. An all-woman ticket. BECAUSE FUCK YOU, INCEL GAMERGATE HATERS. Ahem.

Here's hoping the Russians don't hack the debates as well as the elections.

Things We Learned From the Final Presidential Debate of 2016

1) Trump thinks he should have won an Emmy.

2) Trump still can't stop himself from interrupting people. Not just Hillary - which he clearly does out of spite - but also the moderator Chris Wallace, which Trump did out of narcissism.

3) The turnaround time on making t-shirts, buttons, posters, and other marketing materials is close to magic today. Within HOURS, Hillary's fanbase was selling tees of "Nasty Women" to crow against Trump's tin-eared attempt to insult her.

4) Thank God for the baseball postseason.

4a) Cleveland Indians are in the World Series. Chicago Cubs tied up with the Dodgers and may be back on track to win the NL title. We may be facing a World Series in which one sad-sack team FINALLY WINS.

This is, of course, the Seventh Seal harkening the End Times.

5) Trump kept lying last night like an unrepentant muthafu.......

6) Saturday Night Live is kinda at the point where they don't have to write a script, they just have to read the original transcripts of the debate and react accordingly. For example, there's a specific moment last night where Kate McKinnon should just break out the celebratory wine bottle during the inevitable cold open skit.

7) Trump is still an idiot.

8) Trump is still incredibly scary on foreign policy issues, especially Putin and other dictators he admires.

9) The biggest fallout from that debate has been Trump's refusal to accept the results of the November 8th election night if it goes against him. This ties into the last week or so of Trump yelling that the election "is rigged" in a direct attempt to undermine the entire process. When asked about if he will concede if he loses during the debate, Trump's vague answer was "I will look at it at the time. What I’ve seen, what I’ve seen is so bad."

And during today's rallies post-debate, Trump added with a horrifying condition: "I will totally accept the election results... if I win."

He's essentially saying the only legit result of the election should be HIM winning, even if he loses by 7 percent of the popular vote and with Hillary trouncing him in the Electoral College 342-196. And he's encouraging his voter base to think the same way.

This is insane. Trump is taking a flamethrower to the entire integrity of the electoral process, which he can't prove is that corrupt and broken - rigging a Presidential election is actually so large-scale and complex that it's next to impossible - but he still tries to sell as such.

10) Hillary essentially won all three debates by presenting herself as informed, composed, confident, and prepared. They weren't the best debate performances of all time - Hillary still tries to talk to people like a college professor and can't really be as relaxed in her presentation - but compared to the sniffling, bloated, rude, ill-informed mockery of a candidate next to her, she hit home runs all three nights.

Get the damn vote out, America. Early voting is already starting in some states and should be going on everywhere by next week (Florida's starts on the 24th).

Vote Hillary for President. Don't vote Republican for ANY office if you can help it.

This election matters.

Things To Do For Tonight's Final Presidential Debate for 2016

Tonight is the last televised debate between Hillary and "Screw You Guys I'm Going Home" Trump.

Here are your options for tonight's viewing:

1) Find a writers' group meeting to attend tonight and get prepped for your upcoming NaNoWriMo writing effort for November.

2) There's playoff baseball on tonight, I think.

3) Are hairstyle salons open at 9:00 PM EST?

4) Find a pro-Hillary debate watch party in your area and bring enough booze to endure the Trump-shitshow but not enough to prevent you from safely driving home. Either that or make sure there's a designated driver to come by after the debate to pick you up. I doubt anybody at the party is going to want to stay sober watching that draft-dodging tax-dodging tiny-fingered Cheeto-faced ferret-wearing shitgibbon.

5) You might wanna start shopping at the local CostCo for your winter survival supplies and tonight might as well be the time to do it.

6) Read a book. I've got some lovely books you can purchase and download to your Kindle... (ow stop hitting me)

7) Watch sober, and then get on your knees and pray. BEG FORGIVENESS FROM THE ALMIGHTY that we as a nation were fools to let Trump anywhere near the Presidency and BEG BEG BEG a thousand times for the Good Lord to show Mercy upon us by gifting enough voters with the wisdom to NOT VOTE TRUMP when their time in the ballot booth comes.

7a) And for the Love of God don't vote Republican, period.

Keep your head down and survive, America. We're going to get hit by the eye of this Trumpstorm...

I Had to RageQuit a Debate Watch Party Last Night

The local organized Hillary office was hosting a watch party for the town-hall format debate this Sunday night, so I decided to be sociable.

I brought an apple pie.

Sat around with about 20 people to watch the Internet stream of CNN. Sat solemnly while the debate organizers spent about half an hour explaining the rules and need for decorum. A lot of attention was paid toward showcasing how these debates "demonstrate to the whole world how a democracy operates."

And then they let Trump out to show how he'll tear it all down.

Dear F-CKING God. Trump could not answer the questions straight. He'd go off on tangents, jumping to talking points that didn't relate, and ending up pointing at Hillary going "she's worse, people. She'll wreck all of it, believe me."

The opening question on campaign decorum turned into Trump attacking Obamacare. It went downhill from there.

And he lied, sonofabitch did Trump lie during this town hall. He couldn't even keep the number of "deleted e-mails" straight.

When it got to the part where Trump went off on his taxes "Oh I pay millions in taxes" I was thisclose to dropping every F-bomb I had and punching out the walls. It was either that or walking out of the watch party in a rage.

So for that, I apologize to my fellow watchers.

It was just... GOD DAMN TRUMP.

Here's the biggest takeaway I got from last night:

If he's elected, Trump is going to jail Hillary. He openly declared this on the debate floor. I think this is a first in all of American History. Granted, we haven't had many years of head-to-head debates - we really started with Nixon vs. JFK in 1960, and didn't make these debates official until 1976 - but I can't recall in my studies ANY other Presidential candidate threatening to arrest his political opponents as a campaign pledge.

That's something dictators do. That's not at all representative of the Democracy Experience we're supposed to be displaying to the world.

Damn Trump. And Damn US if enough of us voters back this con artist into the White House. We're getting every warning red flag possible about the damage Trump can do if he's in power, and he's STILL getting 40 percent support?!

/ragequit

The Gravity of the Situation

(Update: Thanks as always for the link, Infidel!)

So last night was the debate. I was planning on going to a watch party but I came down with the sore throat bug (tis the season) and forced myself to stay home and livetweet #Gotham before livetweeting #debatenight

Gonna see if I can share some of my tweets:

well you can see who liked THIS one.

Cough. Excuse me, head cold. More tweets from last night:

It's enough to make a man sick. Twice.

Lemme just share from Balloon Juice about last night:

If you didn’t watch last night, rest assured: Hillary did a fine job, and Donald Trump… repeated all his Greatest Hits from the Rallies bits. He didn’t lose a single member of his devoted “base”, but he sniffled, lied, talked over the woman on the stage, claimed that America is a job-leaking hellhole which every filthy brown terrorist can’t wait to invade, lied some more, contradicted the African-American moderator (while lying), sniffled, called President Obama “your president”, took credit for “settling” the birtherism issue, and by every metric and “optic” looked like a coked-up, aging con artist in a bad suit rambling about “the nuclear” and “the cyber”...

Trump's own physical appearance became a liability. The tweets about his constant sniffling - which brought up jokes about his being sick, or else jokes about cocaine being a hell of a drug, and both - and his wilting on-stage became brutal and unavoidable. Per Drezner at the Washington Post:

The most interesting thing, however, was that as the debate went along, Clinton got stronger and Trump got weaker. A look at the debate transcript suggests that Trump’s answers got more rambling and more incoherent toward the end of the debate. Clinton remained her steady self...

...By the end of the debate, after 95 minutes of petulance, Trump claimed that he had a great temperament. The audience spontaneously laughed in response.

Presidential debates are tough, but being the president is tougher. And my main takeaway from tonight’s debate is that Donald Trump doesn’t have the stamina to last four years as America’s commander in chief. Or, as Clinton put it: “I think — I think — I think Donald just criticized me for preparing for this debate. And, yes, I did. And you know what else I prepared for? I prepared to be President. And I think that’s a good thing.”

Zing!

As Drezner notes: Can you picture Trump lasting four years in the White House? Not just in terms of stamina but in terms of focus and dedication to the job. He's all over the place, uncontrollable and undisciplined. Bush "Strategery" the Lesser handled himself better at these final-round debates, and that's saying something.

There was the expectation that because of the weak Republican primaries - where Trump's opponents were terrified to whack at him, leaving him unbruised - he'd flail and fail at a debate where his opponent - Hi, Madam President! - would actually punch back. And while Hillary did land a few blows, the real shocking thing is that a lot of Trump's wounds were self-inflicted. His own appearance defeated him (which begs the possibility he's going to refuse to show up to the next two he's supposed to do).

Of course, the big takeaway from last night is... that this will not greatly affect the polling or the amount of support Trump is getting from his GOP base. The horror that at the very least Trump is getting 40 percent of the vote will not go away (not unless he eats a live baby on-stage or something). The best to hope for is that the remnants of the Undecideds or the moderate Indy voters are now - hopefully and finally - terrified of Trump and will boost Hillary over 45-50 percent and in enough swing states to ensure an Electoral College stomping.

Hope hope hope.

What should happen here is a switch in the Narrative that the Beltway prides itself on: That is, that the Beltway insiders are "always right" and plugged-in to the "real power-brokers" with real news. There may still be a push for "both sides!" false equivalence to force their ongoing lust for a horse race, but we should see a major shift in the tone among the media elites towards highlighting the sins, flaws, and outright lies of Trump and his handlers.

But will that all happen?

Here's where my hope turns to despair. For more than a year we've seen Trump campaign exactly in this manner: Shameless, reckless, lying, self-serving, arrogant, noisy, inhuman, insane. Everything he did last night was a greatest hits version of every horror Trump displayed on the campaign trail... and in all those previous disasters, Trump's numbers went up. He kept moving, he kept lying, he kept winning in the worst ways. That shamelessness is key: Most other politicians would never sink to the levels Trump does, because they are actually concerned about their reputation and their futures. Trump doesn't care: He believes his reputation is flawless - hint: it's not - and his soul unblemished, so he continues to behave this way because nobody stops him and because too many people buy into his con game.

The normal dynamics of an election cycle tells us that what happened to Trump tonight would sink any campaign. The law of gravity regarding any single gaffe requires that Trump sinks below his support and fades into zero. But that has not happened to him yet: And after all of the failures and insults and chaos, Trump keeps gaining ground he should not gain. I've seriously begun worrying that either the polls are rigged or that there really are that many clueless voters buying into Trump's scam.

It would be pretty to think that Trump sinks to 33 percent support by the end of the week, and that Hillary regains solid leads in swing states like Florida, North Carolina, and Ohio, and that even Georgia and Missouri and Arizona become Leans Blue with some happy relief on my part.

But does political gravity work the way it used to?

If I Were Moderating the Presidential Debate Between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump September 26 2016

If it were me as moderator this coming Monday night, these are the questions I would ask Trump:

1) Why did you use your non-profit Trump Foundation to pay out for things related to your for-profit businesses? Were you aware that you were violating certain laws when you did so?

2) The IRS has informed the media that their audits on your tax returns DO NOT interfere with your obligation to the voting public to reveal said tax returns over at least the previous decade. Other candidates, including Senator Clinton here, have released their tax returns in part or full. Why are you hiding your tax returns from the voters?

3) You’re currently accusing Hillary Clinton of being the one who instigated the entire Birther movement that falsely accused Barack Obama of not being a natural-born citizen of the United States. But Senator Clinton is on official record from her 2008 campaign calling such accusations ludicrous and much of the Birther movement has been tied to Republicans and those on the Far Right, those who openly repudiate Clinton as much as they do Obama. Sir, WHY ARE YOU LYING ABOUT YOUR OWN BIRTHER BULLSHIT?

4) Please justify every bankruptcy filing for your failed businesses.

5) You’ve recently gone public with the belief that the “Stop And Frisk” program by city and county law enforcement should go nationwide, even though studies have proven that Stop and Frisk DOES NOT REDUCE CRIME and even though the courts have ruled that Stop And Frisk is Unconstitutional for its skewed racial bias. Why are you being a total dick about this?

If it were me as moderator this coming Monday night, these are the questions I would ask Hillary:

1) Can you believe the chutzpah on this guy accusing you of shit you didn't do?

2) Why aren't you speaking out more aggressively at the corporate criminals committing banking fraud and insane price hikes on pharmaceuticals?

3) Seriously, this guy? Beat the crap out of him at the polls, Hillary.

If it were me as moderator this coming Monday night, these are the questions I would ask the American voters:

1) WHAT THE HELL IS YOUR PROBLEM VOTING FOR A GODDAMN CON ARTIST LIKE TRUMP?

2) NO, SERIOUSLY, WHAT THE FUCK IS YOUR PROBLEM, AMERICA? TRUMP SHOULD NOT BE POLLING OVER 40 PERCENT EVER. EVER! /rage

Why I Didn't Come Up With a Drinking Game for the Trump/Clinton Debate September 2016

I created drinking games early on in 2015 for the Republican and Democratic primary debates, but not for the one that's coming up next week.

It's because back then it was funny and caustic and there was a sense of how much of a circus the whole thing was. Especially because Trump was going to - and did - go into the debates with a Scorched Earth tactic that made the debates both painful and malicious to watch.

Today, this shit's not funny.

Trump is honestly one vote away from the White House and the unlimited damage he could do in the Executive branch.

That doesn't require a game for drinking. Not one damn bit.

Stay sober, America. SOBER UP DAMN QUICK and stay that way for November, because it is up to you now. Every voter, sane and sober, needs to show up and stop Trump.

What Happened At Last Night's GOP Debate

With the New Hampshire primary vote coming up this Tuesday February 9th, we're about to get more crazy results from an increasingly disturbing Presidential campaign cycle.

Whereas the Iowa Caucus can get discounted, the New Hampshire vote is a more serious affair: the mechanics of a primary is more streamlined compared to a caucus and so the results are more clear, and New Hampshire's voting bloc - more libertarian than religious conservative - counters the results Iowa gives towards social wingnuts.

That said, the two parties hosted one more debate round this past week. With the Democrats now whittled down to two - Hillary and Bernie - it made their debate last Thursday easier to follow, and despite the attacks between the two over policy differences there was at least a sense of comity.

About the Republicans' debate this Saturday night?

Ye Gods.

Never mind the confusion that happened during the introductory walk-out, the debate itself was a disaster.

On the bright side, the debate opened with Marco Rubio - the anointed Savior of the Establishment who "won" Third Place in Iowa - getting his prepped spiel shoved back down his throat by an alert Chris Christie. Rubio's habit of reading off and repeating the same line "Let's dispel this notion..." over and over - a nice trick for campaign rallies but foolish for a live debate - got called on by Christie who noted such platitudes don't resolve specific issues, and that leadership involves showing up and making decisions (an open attack on Rubio's poor attendance at the Senate). When Rubio's reply was the exact same line he keeps giving, Christie interrupted with glee: "There it is! There it is. The memorized 25-second speech. There it is, everybody."

Twitter is an unforgiving and cold reality. #RubioGlitch and #RoboRubio hashtags spread like wildfire.

You have to give props to Christie, who needed to punch his way upward this debate to find any traction to build his flailing campaign back from the brink. He's still stuck somewhere in fifth or sixth place, but if he can impress the state GOP voters that he's got the leadership skills - the advantage a governor-candidate has running for President - he could move up to OH BOY the coveted THIRD PLACE every pundit likes.

Either him or fellow governor-candidates Jeb Bush or John Kasich. Jeb! apparently convinced the pundit class that he was still sober, and Kasich didn't say anything offensive which convinced the same pundit class that he was still sane.

But the entirety of the debate revealed serious psychological and intellectual flaws for the entire Republican Party. As Will Saletan notes at Slate:

The disaster, the blame game, and the establishment’s surprise at what’s happening are related. Since President Obama’s election, the GOP has abandoned its role as a national governing party. It has seized Congress not by pursuing an alternative agenda but by campaigning and staging votes against anything Obama says or does. The party’s so-called leaders have become followers, chasing the pet issues of right-wing radio audiences. Now the mob to whom these elders have surrendered—angry white voters who are determined to “take back their country” from immigrants and liberals—is ready to install its own presidential nominee. The Trump-Cruz takeover is the culmination of the Grand Old Party’s moral collapse...

...Republicans no longer have a policy agenda. They have a scapegoating, base-stoking agenda. Their economic plan is to blame legal immigrants for the demise of upward mobility. Their social policy is to defund the nation’s leading birth-control provider and promote disobedience of court orders. Their foreign policy is to carpet-bomb Syria, insult the faith of our anti-ISIS partners, and void Iran’s pledge to abstain from nuclear weapons production...

I've mentioned it before on this blog: for all the talk about how the Republicans were "fielding strong candidates" this election cycle we're getting a lot of wounded ducks instead. Every potential candidate has serious flaws that would - not could - cripple the GOP's chances in the general election.

There are several reasons Trump is polling in the lead - STILL even after finishing Second in Iowa - and one of them is the fact the entire Republican field is terrible.

• The Designated Front-Runner in Jeb! turned out to be terrible at campaigning, period (and wasting PAC money to boot). 
• Pundit favorite (from 2012) Christie turned into a bully with unresolved and REAL scandals trailing him. 
• The latest Pundit favorite Rubio has no legislative record he can run on (even mentioning his own failed efforts at immigration reform hurts him). 
• The crowd favorite Carson has no elective or political experience at all, and his lack of knowledge involving the issues can underwhelm.
• The candidate performing best this early phase of the primary cycle is Cruz, who panders best to the evangelical base but has alienated his own party's leadership to the point open rebellion could happen if Cruz wins. Cruz's scheming and abrasiveness has made him DC's Guy That Nobody Likes.
• Token female candidate Carly Fiorina came in with huge baggage as a failed CEO of HP and made it worse by lying so much about Planned Parenthood even fellow anti-abortionists ignore her.
• The Only Sane Candidate Kasich has a track record that looks great on paper for a general election, but has made enough moderating moves such as backing Obamacare that the Far Right base of the GOP won't vote for him in the Primary.
• Gilmore? Gilmore hasn't dropped out yet?
• All topped off by TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP, a massive blowhard with no elective experience whose policy positions are scatterbrained except for the one he's keyed on: a hard-right anti-immigration agenda that would drive 99 percent of the Hispanic vote out of the GOP with no guarantee of picking up any other voting bloc to compensate.

And remember, these are the ones who haven't dropped out yet. That's a field including the likes of Perry, Walker, Jindal, Huckabee, Pataki, Graham, and Paul. Some of them with impressive resumes but bigger flaws that drove them out early.

And all of these candidates are touting a Republican platform of massive tax cuts for the rich and the corporations, defunding a popular health program in Planned Parenthood, pushing an unrealistic foreign policy of "bomb everybody", and a deregulatory agenda across the board that would privatize our schools, public utilities, and social aid programs that we've seen will collapse into chaos without said regulations. There's honestly very little distinction between each candidate's positions on those issues: all that's left to decide on are the personalities, and that's no way to choose effective leadership.

It's a choice between flawed people. From a political party promising another Big Reagan, all they are offering the electorate this 2016 are a bunch of Little Nixons.

There are no grand leaders of bold vision - no Roosevelt, no Rockefeller, no Goldwater, no Kemp, not even Bob Dole - among the Republicans anymore. The party is made up of hollow men (and women) who follow right-wing media talking points rather than carve out and create solutions. Because creating solutions would take initiative and daring (and bipartisan effort), and nobody wants to risk alienating their voting bloc.

Even the real Richard Nixon was able to lead on issues, taking surprising action on various matters (Nixon To China) and working with his political opponents in Congress. His political descendants, his lesser children - the ones who follow his footsteps in the wake of his personal implosion over Watergate - can't even comprehend how to do that.

This is a serious question:

• Can you picture what it would be like in 2017 if our President was Jeb? We'd have a rehash of his brother's administration, the same players who caused our woes of 2001-2008.
• Can you picture a Trump presidency? An internal war of mass roundups and deportations among a ton of civil rights violations as he pushes the anti-immigration policy he campaigned for.
• Can you picture a Cruz presidency? Having campaigned on an evangelical agenda, Cruz will likely shred the First Amendment and the Constitution's No Religious Test rules, and go about carving a Fundamentialist Christianist "utopia" that will put blind faith as policy over all.
• Can you picture a Rubio presidency? How can you: he hasn't done anything of merit to go by. He's been so robotic and empty-suit a candidate that if he does get into the White House he'll likely disconnect from setting policy or any activity, leaving it all to others while he enjoys the perks of the office and none of the accountability.
• Can you picture a Christie presidency? Just take the worst elements of the Nixon administration - the backroom bullying - and turn it public.
• The only candidate who even looks like he could form an administration with bipartisan and forward-thinking policies - based on his track record - would be Kasich... and even he will get hamstrung by a party platform that will dictate no deviation from massive tax cuts.

Not to mention what our foreign policy will look like regardless which Republican goes into the White House. Our stance of "bomb bomb bomb" in the Middle East will alienate even our staunchest allies - UK, France, Germany, India, Japan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia - and the entire world could conceivably come up with plans to sanction and isolate the United States. They've openly debated in the British Parliament about banning Trump from traveling to their nation due to his racist Mexican-bashing.

The scary thing is that the way our electoral system is geared, two major political parties will have to offer up a candidate for the White House this 2016.

And one party - the Republicans - are doomed to offer up a Tyrant-In-The-Making, someone obsessed with a harsh Far Right domestic agenda at odds with an increasingly Left-leaning and progressive nation.

This is getting serious, people.

I dread how this is all going to play out in my home state of Florida. We're due to get the ad push any day now, with our Primary just one month away...