Quick takes on the GOP Debate

I watched it all. 

Probably none of this matters. 

Judging from the audience reactions, a huge share of GOP voters like Trump and nothing but Trump. That is my big take-away. 

No one so fully distinguished him or her self to become the obvious alternative to Trump. The nomination pits Trump against a pack of aspirants, each with a different agenda, all more-or-less qualified, which sets the frame for the GOP nomination. Trump versus nothing-much. 

Vivek Ramaswamy burst onto the scene. Smiling. Articulate. He was a know-it-all newcomer bully, dripping with hubris and put-downs of the others. He interrupted constantly, grabbed extra time, talked over others. He was Mr. Dominant, Mr. Bully. On policy after policy, he said he was right and everyone else was clueless. And old. And corrupt. They had bad motives, looking for a job on MSNBC. 

Wasn't he being a jerk? Who would introduce himself to a national audience this way? Trump did. Republican voters liked it in 2015 and still do. Trump voters have developed a taste for a contemptuous fighter. The audience last night seemed to like it.

I credit the debate moderators. They inquired about the elephant in the room. They asked candidates if Michael Pence did the right thing on January 6, in refusing to count electoral votes cast for Biden. The question was artful. It didn't ask if Biden won, a question that would have allowed meandering answers about  the GOP primary electorate's lingering doubts about the election. The question was binary: Did Pence do the right thing? With Chris Christie's help, Michael Pence re-positioned the acceptable GOP position on reversing the election result. Pence said it. He was right and Trump was wrong.  

That is huge.

Chris Christie made a straight, sincere statement of support for what Pence did. That  praise for a rival seemed to have broken a spell. The heresy was voiced in front of Republicans, and the earth still spun. Asa Hutchison agreed. So did Haley and Tim Scott. North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum said, "of course." It was safe to come out of hiding. Ramaswamy tried to evade by saying the important thing was the immediate pardon he would give Trump, but buried in his evasion was a yes, Pence was right. 

Ron DeSantis looked at his very worst here. Desantis appears a bit elf-like. Now he looked timid, too, in his effort to evade a clear answer. I already addressed this, he said. The debate hosts pressed him, saying he wasn't answering here and now. Was Pence right? DeSantis pivoted to "weaponization" of law enforcement. The hosts did not let go. Was Pence correct? DeSantis said, "Mike did his duty. I have no beef with him." It wasn't a "yes," but it meant yes. "No beef," will serve. DeSantis had crossed the Rubicon.

Amid the candidate agita and audience noise in this section of the debate, Mike Pence turned out to be last to make a statement on the question about himself. Pence was at his most solemn. He put on a face of Mr. Rectitude, Mr. Christian, Mr. Do-One's-Duty, so help me God. He said he had put his hand on Reagan's Bible, that he swore an oath to the American people and to God, and that what Trump asked him to do was wrong and forbidden by the Constitution. That, too, crossed the Rubicon. He was not saying that what Trump wanted was a good thing to do in concept, were it possible and not technically illegal. That has been the standard GOP formulation, and Pence's way of describing it. He would sound like he regretted he had to do his duty. Not anymore. Pence said that Trump was morally wrong to have demanded it. It was selfish and dishonest.  

All the candidates are on record now defying Trump's claim that Pence should have thrown the election to him. Ernest Hemingway's formulation of bankruptcy -- gradually, then suddenly -- may be at work here. One tiny snowflake finally triggers an unstable snowbank into an avalanche. Eight candidates said Pence was right to deny Trump. Might Lindsay Graham say it? Might Ted Cruz and Mike Lee and Marco Rubio? There is a moral conclusion imbedded in the question of whether Mike Pence was right. If Pence was right, then Trump was not just wrong to have urged Pence do it. It would mean Trump made a request that threatened democracy, and that good Republicans had a responsibility to stop him, not accommodate him. That means the indictments target genuine misbehavior.

I doubt there will be an avalanche. There is a convenient moral escape. Ramaswamy said it, when he said that Trump was the best president of the 21st Century and that he favored an immediate pardon. Trump's errors are irrelevant. Dismiss them. Pardon them. Trump's actions against democracy -- maybe they are crimes, maybe just misunderstandings -- don't matter, not in the face of how wonderful Trump was otherwise. What really matters is that the Department of Justice is making a fuss over things that don't matter. That makes the legal system the bad guy, so move on and investigate something important. Investigate Hunter Biden.

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