The first Republican Presidential debate will take place Wednesday from 9 pm to 11 pm ET on Fox News (of course). The gaggle of birdbrains will be out in full force, featuring: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, former Vice President Mike Pence, former South Carolina Governor and Trump Administration member Nikki Haley, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson, and North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum. This clown car will park in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a pivotal state electorally in Presidential races.
The central figure who will be missing from the debate stage, at least physically, is former President and current criminal defendant Donald Trump. One of the most interesting things to watch for is how the candidates discuss Trump. People like Chris Christie have staked almost their whole campaign on being the anti-Trump candidate. Maybe people won’t remember that he voted for the monster and even helped him in his own debate prep before. But I guess he has awakened! Even though I am no fan of Christie, it is refreshing to hear someone who is not afraid to bully Trump back. Policies aside, Trump deserves to get a verbal lashing and Christie is probably the most equipped to do that on Wednesday.
How everyone else will go at Trump is a little more unclear. Hutchinson is not on the Trump train but many see him as still on the lowest tier of candidates in terms of their chances of winning. Pence is an intriguing player in all of this. Despite helping to execute Trump’s policies for four dreadful and bigoted years, he’s a very different—namely much more traditional—type of conservative than the guy he served under. At the same time, he can’t do or say anything to alienate Trump’s supporters, seeing as some of them still blame him for not overturning the 2020 election. Trump diehards hate him for that—they tried to hang him!—and always will. Rational people might respect that he at least upheld his oath of office but is that enough to win a primary? Aside from the 2020 election fiasco, does Pence have anything that will make voters want to support him? I do not see a huge breakout moment for him during the debate.
DeSantis has so far been the biggest threat to Trump’s likely nomination. He has been polling in second place consistently. He is also one of the weirdest humans on the planet it appears. He is awkward, not relatable, stiff, corny—shall I keep going? He is the poster child for anti-“wokeness,” which Republican primary voters like, but he just comes off like such an oddball. As a second placer, he has to focus on one person only, and that is Trump. That’s the only guy in his way right now. But DeSantis hasn’t shown a lot of willingness to go toe-to-toe with him and to explicitly tell voters why he is a better option.
Another key figure will be entrepreneur Ramaswamy. I do not like him. He embodies what I hate about politics. Some guy who has no idea how to run a country but has money and can garner attention in this celebrity-obsessed, viral-driven culture. People seem drawn to him because he is a bit different and can label himself as an outsider. We will see if he shows any semblance of governability though.
Nikki Haley and Tim Scott seem similar to me. She’s a woman with Sikh and South Asian heritage, and he is a Black man, and both appeal to the Republican party’s desire to (falsely) prove they’re not totally bigoted. They have also been supporters of Trump. They are kind of towing this odd line of being the new and more reasonable choices for the Republican nomination, but still not being willing to criticize Trump too harshly. Something must break for them on Wednesday if they want to gain more traction.
Lastly, we have to watch for how these tools handle the Trump indictments. The frontrunner for your party’s nomination has dozens of felony charges—this is pure insanity. Well, in any normal world, it would be. But the Republican party is nuts and their voters don’t seem interested in having decent, moral people lead their party. So here we are. Who is going to defend Trump? Who will take a cowardly “let’s let the investigation(s) play out” route? And who will go after Trump for being the criminal that he is? And how will the audience react to all of this?!
There are some words and phrases to look out for especially if you are playing some form of bingo or any drinking games! Here is my list: socialist/socialist agenda, liberal extremists, woke, anti-woke, Biden’s failed economic policies, Bidenomics, inflation, school choice, trans/grooming, religious freedom, witch hunt, freedom of speech, and weaponization. Tune in to the debate to see which ones are brought up and how many times!
(featured image: Joe Raedle/Megan Varner/Scott Olson/Ivan Apfel/Getty Images)
