One line kept echoing in my head throughout Wednesday night’s Republican presidential primary debate.
But it didn’t come from any of the eight candidates onstage. Nor did it come from the GOP front-runner, Donald Trump, who didn’t show up in Milwaukee and was busy chatting online with a man who hates him.
Nope, it was a line from a right-wing Republican billionaire and notorious presidential kingmaker. You may have heard of him: Logan Roy, the late media titan. According to the acclaimed documentary series “Succession,” Roy once told his children, “I love you, but you are not serious people.”
Well, I don’t love the Republican presidential candidates, yet I can’t help but agree with Roy.
These. Are. Not. Serious. People.
Most of the eight contenders seemed intent on performing for the Fox Cinematic Universe rather than for the American public.
Wednesday night, we witnessed over two hours of fear-mongering and gaslighting, of cynicism and whataboutism, of canned talking points and memorized one-liners.
Despite the pious-sounding, high-minded promises from moderators and candidates alike to focus on the really, really important issues — China! Ukraine! Abortion! — there was little that was serious or substantive in this so-called debate.
Consider just some of what we heard — or, more accurately, what we had to endure.
Consider, for instance, the response to this simple question: How would you fix the American economy?
You bring Anthony Fauci into the Oval Office, “sit him down, and you say, ‘Anthony you are fired!’” declared second-place candidate Ron DeSantis. (Fauci is a doctor, and he retired in December.)
The second question of the night came from a young conservative activist: How do you tackle climate change?
It’s a “hoax,” declaimed third-placed Vivek Ramaswamy. (A survey of 90,000 climate-related studies found 99.9% of them agree that carbon emissions are harming the Earth’s climate.)
OK, how about crime?
“When I’m president, the first thing I’ll do is fire Merrick Garland,” announced fifth-placed Tim Scott. (I’m pretty sure Democratic appointee Garland will no longer be the attorney general when — if? — the Republican Scott arrives in the Oval Office on Jan. 20, 2025.)
It was another reminder that the Republican Party of the United States is not a normal center-right or conservative party. The debate was hosted by Fox News — and most of the eight contenders seemed intent on performing for the Fox Cinematic Universe rather than for the American public. Multiple candidates — DeSantis, Scott, even Chris Christie — screamed “Hunter Biden!” at different points. There was the constant demeaning of transgender people. The nonsensical threats of a war against … Mexico. The brazen lies about Democrats’ allowing abortion up until “the date of birth.” Forget a vision for America. These people have no vision for the Republican Party — a party that lost the House in 2018, lost the presidency and the Senate in 2020 and only narrowly regained the House in 2022. A party whose front-runner didn’t bother to turn up at a Wisconsin debate stage Wednesday night — but will turn himself in at a Georgia jail Thursday night. It was another reminder that the Republican Party of the United States is not a normal center-right or conservative party. The eight candidates in Milwaukee are nothing like the British or Canadian Tories. They have little in common with Germany’s Christian Democratic Union or Australia’s Liberal Party. Heck, they have little in common with the Republican Party of George W. Bush, let alone the GOP of Dwight D. Eisenhower. These are political pygmies, trailing a disgraced front-runner who is facing 91 criminal counts in four different jurisdictions. These are not serious candidates for president of the United States. They had nothing original to say — nor credible policies to offer. “It’s not enough to be right,” the late Logan Roy once remarked. “You’ve got to be persuasive.” The GOP candidates we saw and heard onstage in Milwaukee were neither right nor persuasive.
Mehdi Hasan
Mehdi Hasan is host of "The Mehdi Hasan Show" on Peacock and an MSNBC political analyst. He is a former senior columnist for The Intercept, for which he launched the "Deconstructed" podcast. He was also the presenter of "UpFront" and "Head to Head" on Al Jazeera English. He is the author of two books and the winner of the Society of Professional Journalists' 2018 Sigma Delta Chi Award for Online Column Writing. 
