Day: August 25, 2023

More Republicans Thought DeSantis Won First Debate

Buck Banks

29%

A new Washington Post/FiveThirtyEight/Ipsos poll finds 29% of debate viewers thought Gov. Ron DeSantis came out on top, followed by Vivek Ramaswamy at 26%, Nikki Haley at 15% and Mike Pence at 7%. “The findings may be surprising because DeSantis generally stayed above the fray in a raucous debate, though Ramaswamy received and delivered lots of barbs.”

Trump-Free GOP Debate Draws Nearly 13 Million Viewers

Buck Banks

12.8 million

“An average of 12.8 million viewers watched the event telecast from Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee… The TV audience was larger than what any Republican presidential primary debate drew during the 2012 campaign season, four years before Trump emerged as the main attraction. It also surpassed audience of 12.5 million for Fox News’ January 2016 primary debate held in Iowa, which Trump skipped as well,” the Los Angeles Times reports. By contrast, Mashable reported that, as of the publication of this article on Thursday evening, Carlson’s Trump interview has received 14.8 million video views on X.

The Republican Party Is Now Full-Blown Authoritarian and Racist

Buck Banks

It is quite a thing to see leading Republicans—including a former president—in mugshots for their assault on our democracy and to know that party leadership supports their actions. Indeed, it is unprecedented, and for those who remember what a grand party the Republicans have been at times in their history—Lincoln, after all, was a Republican, and so were Theodore Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower—it is a sad end. But an end it is. The authoritarians who have taken over the party have abandoned their history and are now building something altogether different.

— Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American.