Grand Old Pity: 2nd Republican Debate Dumbs Down the Discourse

by guest contributor Brennan Vickery

The United States has given about $75 billion to Ukraine since the beginning of the war, and so when Tim Scott and Nikki Haley were ping-ponging about the $50,000 curtains in the State Dept. left by the Obama administration…and when Scott asked Haley why she didn’t “send them back”—like some irate Wayfair customer service employee—it was clear the synapses weren’t firing as strong as the sound bites. 

I watched Wednesday night’s second Republican debate on Rumble, the rightwing-ish YouTube alternative (it was the free option). If there was any indication of the hellish, bold political aesthetic onstage in the Reagan Presidential library, it was represented well in the suggested video tabs on the Rumble interface. All caps, drips of red, white, and blue, and big five-pointed stars, hoisting up titles like “SAVE DEMOCRACY” and “FAUCI KILLS,” (I must admit to having taken a peek at the randomly placed Osbourne podcast). 

I wanted to apply some Vaseline to the corners of moderator Stuart Varney’s lips as he stumbled asking the candidates to keep the civility, a request that fizzled out 120 seconds in. But this is nothing new: the raucous cries to one-up someone whilst ignoring the 90-second time limits; the shouts and horrific wannabe-shade thrown towards each other; the poor moderators’ limpid pleas to respect the time limits. The whole travesty is so redundant that it’s hard to believe any viewer/voter takes it seriously.