The Republican debate on Tuesday was once again an awful display of the extremely low level of political discourse that we have descended to. This state of affairs is not funny but the debate itself was laughable and sometimes you have to laugh at such things simply to deal with the unpleasant truth. So here are some comedic reactions.
Trevor Noah had a hilarious takedown
Desi Lydic fact checked the claims of Cruz, Fiorina, Christie, and Trump.
Larry Wilmore got in his licks as well.
(The above three clips aired on December 16, 2015. To get suggestions on how to view clips of The Daily Show and The Nightly Show outside the US, please see this earlier post. If the videos autoplay, please see here for a diagnosis and possible solutions.)
Stephen Colbert gave his take on it.
So did Seth Myers.
The debates looked like a schoolhouse fight where the two seven year olds have seen a lot of martial arts movie fights but have no idea of how any of it works. They end up striking a lot really tough looking poses that vaguely resemble something a trained fighter might use, if they were knee-crawling drunk.
They offer up highly insightful strategies like “we win, they lose” and ‘dropping bombs where the ISIS fighters are’. Which is like telling someone to rebuild an engine by using a wrench and a screwdriver after opening the hood. It isn’t entirely wrong but it falls well short of a useful level of detail.
Of course a lot of this is subjective and presentation and posturing are always part of politics. The key is often to ‘sell the sizzle, not the steak’. On the other hand there are some things that are not so hard to judge, facts.
Rachel Maddow does a good job fisking a few of the the more obvious falsehoods, and one really serious non-answer:
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/watch/facts-a-low-priority-at-repubican-debate-587365955880
As she says “Please God [I assume FSM] let this not be their final answer”.
These people are simply not credible. They are not showing strength or competence; they are showing caricatures of strength and competence.