We Are All Dumber Now

May God have mercy on our souls

“What you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.”

— The Principal, “Billy Madison”

We are now dumber for having watched that Fox Business debate.

The network declared at the start that if someone was named, they’d get thirty seconds to respond. Sixteen minutes in, they finally went to candidate on stage with the highest polling, Ron DeSantis. Then, when Mike Pence name checked DeSantis in a criticism, Fox Business went to commercial instead of letting DeSantis respond. They then went to Christie on the other side of the commercial break. Fox Business would not respect their own rules.

The pile on of Ramaswamy kept happening, led by Tim Scott and Mike Pence. Pence got the best dig, referencing Vivek not voting until 2018.

Nikki Haley, yet again, had a strong performance, but she does better when she does not initiate the attacks, but amplifies the attacks. The attack on DeSantis came off as very aggressive, but seemed desperate and did not need to be.

DeSantis could learn from Doug Burgum on how to jump in and force microphone time. He could have forced Fox Business to keep to their rules, but he did not.

In the lame, designed to provoke argument segment between Scott and Haley, DeSantis won the whole segment. That whole segment was poorly thought out by the moderators.

Survivor? Really? I think this debate is why Rupert retired. He didn’t want to be around for it.

Frankly, there’s just not a good way to do one of these debates, but this one really was not a great debate. They tried. But unless they are willing to use shotgun microphones that restrict surrounding sound that they control and cut so you don’t hear the chatter from others, this format is not going to work. Doug Burgum is too desperate for a sound bite. The stage had too much echo. Stop using the Reagan Library. The sound is not good in that venue, given its design.

Cull the herd, control and cut the microphones, and minimize the numbers of moderators too. Dana Perino alone would have handled the field and been great. Her moment cutting off Burgum was priceless. But Survivor? Stop it. That was lame.

We are all dumber for that debate. Good Lord, make it stop.

This is a race between Trump, DeSantis, and Haley. And it is not much of a race beyond Trump, in reality. The only thing that could have redeemed that debate was if the Fox moderators picked one candidate to kill on stage at the end as a blood sacrifice to the audience for having subjected them to that spectacle.

Can we let another network try their hand at a debate now?