There's a difference between ignorance and stupidity. Donald Trump is one of the most ignorant people you could imagine, but he's not a stupid guy. Trump is a fascist who's attempting to rise to power by acting like a populist. It's a very old trick, but it's a smart one because it works sometimes.
Skipping this debate is also not stupid. There's no downside in this for Trump. He gets the attention he craves without having to debate the people who are actually trying to beat him. He gets to watch everyone attack Ted Cruz while he puts on a rival event as a monument to his narcissism and megalomania.
And there's a stretch goal too. Trump's supporters only get news from Fox. Those are his people. If he can convince his supporters that Fox is just like every other media outlet, with their bias against Trump and his amazing truth telling, then he can inoculate himself against any criticism. There will be no source of information that can convince his supporters that they should look at other candidates, no matter what he does. This could be a decent plan.
Meanwhile Democrats are LOVING this. I watched MSNBC for most of the hour leading up to the debate. I would describe the mood on Chris Hayes' show as "Obama election level giddy". They're watching this one guy, this silly joke of a man, burn down their rival party on national television. You can see how this would be fun for them. But listen Democrats. Trump support is incredibly virulent. He's like one of those movies where one monkey escapes from a lab and two days later it's only monkeys and zombies and Brad Pitt. Be careful what you wish for Democrats. Trump getting nominated seems like an easy win...but what if you lose. We all still have to live here with the zombie monkeys.
8:57PM: I had to watch Bill O'Reilly read his fan mail while I waited for the debate to start. It appears Bill mostly writes books about killing people. That's not weird.
9:00PM: Tonight's debate is being moderated by Fox's A team (which is just Chris Wallace) along with Bret Baier and Megyn Kelly. Points to Megyn for not eating shit from Trump. I don't like her haircut, but to be fair, I don't like Bret's head.
9:03PM: Megyn asked Ted about Trump not being there. Ted, in a stunning display of his superficial charm, said "I"m a maniac, everyone on this stage is fat and ugly and Ben, you're a terrible surgeon. Now that we've got the Trump stuff out of the way...".
9:06PM: Rubio called Trump the greatest show on Earth and then immediately started insulting Barack Obama. Marco seems riled up tonight. I don't love it.
9:07PM: Everything Jeb says sounds a little pathetic. Jeb!
9:09PM: More than anyone else, Chris Christie likes to talk directly to the camera. He has this habit of dramatically turning to the camera mid-answer. It's pretty unsettling.
9:11PM: Rand just called his dad "the most honest man in politics" in a generation. He may not be wrong about that. Baier asked him if Cruz is the intellectual and political heir to Ron Paul. Rand responded with a low key disdain that was really the correct tone.
9:13PM: Rubio just interrupted a discussion between Ted and Rand about auditing the Fed to tell us that he's going to kill ISIS fighters and keep everyone safe (this was, I guess, a response to Rand's position about bulk data collection). As usual, Rand is for the government getting a warrant before they can go through your stuff and Marco is for killing terrorists and worrying about your stupid rights later.
9:16PM: Ben has performed lots of surgeries, so obviously he's qualified to be President. Why is Ben still here? Everyone knows he's done. Can't we at least put him at the kiddie table with the other nobodies?
9:18PM: Ted, again, says he'll utterly destroy ISIS. With talking points I assume. Ted wants to arm the Kurds. Please can we just once not arm random people we just heard of in the Middle East? Please. Just try it once. Why is handing out weapons always our move? Why are we so stupid?
9:20PM: Ted saw an opportunity to mention Reagan and dove right in. No mention of that time Reagan sold weapons to Iran though. Republicans always forget about that.
9:26PM: Wallace tried to get Christie to attack Cruz and Christie took the opportunity to hammer Hillary Clinton for a minute. Ted argued that he should get his 30 seconds since his name was mentioned, but Wallace correctly pointed out that his name was only mentioned in the question, not in Christie's answer, and completely shut Ted down. I'm glad Wallace is here.
9:28PM: The crowd booed Wallace for asking Jeb about his brother's quagmires. Why? I'm concerned that we let this state have such a big voice in electing our Presidents.
9:29PM: Cruz is complaining about the questions. THAT NEVER WORKS. WHY DON'T ANY OF THESE GUYS NOTICE HOW THAT NEVER WORKS??? I also can't tell if the crowd is for or against Cruz. They booed after Cruz finished complaining, but it was hard to say whether they were booing his complaining or Wallace's mean questions.
9:31PM: Rand on Syria "should we be bombing both sides of the war?" and then "arming the allies of ISIS will make the situation worse." Maybe I should just be for Rand. There's something I don't like about him, but his foreign policy is so much better. Like, SOOOO much better.
9:34PM: Megyn asked Rubio if his position on dealing with muslim citizens and closing down mosques runs afoul of the first amendment. Marco responded by saying the word terrorism a lot and being very angry. I'm souring on Marco.
9:37PM: Christie says Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have made law enforcement the enemy. I don't agree with the Obama part, but I have to ask about the Hillary part. Where is he getting that? She was Secretary of State. What does that have to do with domestic law enforcement?
9:39PM: Ben rambled for a while but then he mentioned Teddy Roosevelt. Bully!
9:40PM: Megyn just asked Kasich about technological back doors for smart phones and Kasich said we really shouldn't talk about that because it needs to be solved in the White House situation room, which he seemed very confident would happen. Sometimes I feel like Kasich knows lots of secret stuff.
9:41PM: I've said this before but it's worth another mention. Kasich is a sneaky hawk. He seems like a really nice guy and you think "nah, grampa John would never bomb people". But he would, he'd bomb lots of people.
9:42PM: Jeb is talking about how people died because of the VA. From the guy whose brother sent those veterans to Iraq for shits and giggles. It really does bring the problem with Jeb's candidacy into focus.
9:44PM: YouTube question about the relationship between African-American communities and police departments. Baier wisely threw it to Rand because he's the one guy on the stage who might actually give a shit.
9:48PM: Bret just astutely pointed out that promises to cut waste, fraud and abuse never materialize. Points to Bret.
9:49PM: Christie is going to cut Planned Parenthood funding. Hooray for talking points!
9:49PM: According to a Fox infographic, first amendment repeal is the third most searched repeal topic. That feels concerning and I'd really rather talk about that instead of more stump speeching about repealing Obamacare. We get it. You guys don't like Obama.
9:51PM: I think Bret just called Jeb Senator Bush, so I'm taking his points back. Jeb is for Puerto Rican statehood. OK.
9:52PM: Question to Kasich about poison water in Michigan. John's answer was less than inspiring, but he doesn't really have that passionate anger gear. I'm fairly certain John wouldn't poison his own citizens. I wish he would have calmly said the Michigan Governor should resign.
9:54PM: Marco never thought cap and trade was a good idea. That makes two of us, but I suspect we have different motivations.
10:00PM: Video montage of Marco's flip floppery on amnesty. Is it so bad that Marco isn't 100% sure about the best way to deal with immigration reform? That would seem to put him in the category of everybody. Some of these guys just want to build a giant wall. At least Marco has been willing to talk about actual ideas.
10:01PM: Jeb just plugged a book he wrote as "affordable for everybody". I think he was going for self-deprecating, but it came off more like "I know my campaign is over so please buy my book at least".
10:03PM: We're arguing about immigration now. I couldn't be more tired of this topic.
10:04PM: Question about how Ted added a poison pill amendment to an immigration bill, then claimed it wasn't a poison pill, then claimed it was. Yes, Ted is a pathological liar and a monster. We already knew that. I did, anyway.
10:06PM: Big applause for Steve King (the terrible Iowa Congressman, not the author). I can't wait until Tuesday when we don't have to pay attention to Iowa for another four years.
10:08PM: Ted just listed Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin as references. So yeah.
10:09PM: Marco just said, directly to Ted's face, that Ted's been willing to do or say anything to get votes. Shots fired. I like Marco again. On the other hand, we're still on immigration so I kind of wish one of those shots would hit me in the face.
10:10PM: Christie is going back to his "I hate listening to these guys argue" thing. I think it's a good move for Chris. He really ought to be doing better.
10:11PM: People who post nonsense on YouTube are now calling themselves YouTube creators, so that's fun. YouTube may be the worst thing that's ever happened to us.
10:12PM: Carson was clearly sleeping when Megyn tried to throw the YouTube question to him. Like me, Carson had apparently forgotten that he was at the debate. Carson suggested that one out of every ten immigrants could be a terrorist. That's baseless and dangerous and makes Ben less funny.
10:14PM: Wallace is steering us away from immigration. Once again, I'm glad he's here.
10:14PM: Question to Ted about how nobody in Congress likes him. He says people who work for his campaign like him, and so do idiots like Steve King. So there.
10:16PM: Jeb says he's seen polls where he's beating Hillary pretty regularly. Those are just polls Jeb takes at family gatherings, and even those are pretty close.
10:17PM: For the record, I think Barack Obama would be a pretty good Supreme Court Justice. Marco disagrees, but that's mostly because Marco, like way too many people, believes the Supreme Court is a political body.
10:18PM: Marco wants to be clear that Jesus is the only savior. Ugh. Then he said "Bernie Sanders would make a good President...of Sweden". Ha, that was good. Then he mentioned Benghazi. Ugh again. That answer was a real roller coaster for me.
10:20PM: Wallace just asked Christie about the bridge thing. Is this actually a real thing for people? I always thought this was the stupidest story. Do people really care about it? It makes no sense to me.
10:25PM: I always like Kasich's answer on taking federal money for medicare. People in Ohio paid federal taxes, then the federal government was like "hey, do you want some of this money back?" and Kasich was like "yes please". I don't think that makes you a big government guy.
10:27PM: Wallace seems to be on a tear of religious questions. I'm getting less happy that he's here. We're talking about Kim Davis now. Ugh. Christie's answer was pretty not terrible. Why couldn't somebody else in her office just do the marriage license? Seems like a simple enough answer. I would also suggest she could have just quit if she didn't like her job anymore, but apparently that's not a viable answer.
10:30PM: Marco says Jesus makes us a special nation. I don't really know what to make of Marco these days. I really want to be able to vote for him if he winds up running against Hillary, but he's not making it easy.
10:32PM: Abortion always undermines Rand's Libertarianism. It did the same thing to his dad. He has to be anti-abortion, being a Republican and all, but saying the government should make that decision for people runs counter to everything he believes. It's tough being a Libertarian in a party that wants the government to enforce their religious beliefs.
10:36PM: Marco gave us plenty of tough talk about Iran. Then Kasich chimed in. He's been talking to Belgian diplomats and thinks we can bring the world together. Is Kasich James Bond?
10:38PM: Christie starts every answer with a brief explanation of how he's going to make his answer about Hillary Clinton. I don't like her either, so I'm kind of on board, but it's also kind of annoying and repetitive.
10:43PM: Rand thinks that any CEO who did what Bill Clinton did with an intern would be fired and shunned. I think Rand may have some rose colored glasses regarding how effectively CEOs are held accountable. I'm fairly certain Bill wasn't the only CEO touching the interns, especially in the 90's.
10:46PM: Jeb says Republicans shouldn't be mocking disabled people. Agreed.
10:46PM: Big applause for the Governor of Iowa, who can't finish a full sentence without shilling for ethanol. Iowa really is the worst. Ted's not in the pocket of ethanol because he's too busy being the pocket of oil. I wouldn't call that a principled position.
10:49PM: Ben says we are blessed with tremendous energy in this country. That's pretty ironic coming from Ben.
Here come the closing statements:
Rand - He misses doing eye surgery and doesn't like debt. Then the Rand people went nuts.
Kasich - We can solve problems, and I know this because I'm actually the secret shadow president of the world.
Christie - He mentioned September 11th. I'm not kidding. He's like Giuliani in a fat suit.
Jeb! - My band has some CDs for sale in the back if you want to grab one on the way out.
Dr. Ben - Ben recited the preamble to the Constitution, seemingly from memory. Ben gets an A in 7th grade social studies.
Marco - Something about shining America's light and the 21st century. He's still better at debating than these other guys.
Ted - Ted frequently brags that he will kill the terrorists. I wonder if he's planning to do it himself.
I'm really interested to see who wins on Monday. This should be fascinating.
