How can you carry out a debate in a political party when almost half of the voters in that formation trust one of its leaders more than their own mother?

That is the position in which the Republican Party found itself on Wednesday. Eight candidates for the White House, with a voting intention between 1% (Doug Burgum and Asa Hutchinson) and 16% (Ron DeSantis) debated for two hours on the television network closest to their candidates, Fox News.

And, meanwhile, another candidate, Donald Trump (62% voting intention), gave an interview to the former fired star of Fox News, Tucker Carlson, on Twitter, the social network of the richest and most influential businessman in the United States who, In addition, he has gone from voting Democrat to Republican, Elon Musk.

So what was seen on Wednesday night (early Thursday morning in Spain) could be called Donald Trump and the Eight Dwarfs, if it weren’t for the fact that the mere mention of the studio that made that classic, Disney, is a declaration of war for the supporters DeSantis still has left.

On the one hand, there was the former president, on Twitter, in an interview with a commentator who supports Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, strongly believes in the ‘replacement theory’ invented by Frenchman Renaud Camus, who claims that ‘globalist elites ‘ have laid out a plan for the white race to be replaced by darker ones, and that he has recorded a video in which he suggests that, to limit the loss of virility in modern society, Western men should tan their testicles.

On the other, eight candidates who wait for Yahweh to open the waters of the Red Sea and allow them passage to the Promised Land, without wanting to realize that Donald Trump is already building a temple in Jerusalem..

In such a situation, the winner of the debate was, of course, the most bizarre and Trumpist candidate – both personally and politically – of all: Vivek Ramaswamy, a 38-year-old businessman with zero experience in politics who is threatening the second place of a Ron DeSantis who started this campaign as the favorite of the anti-Trump Republicans and in just seven months he has achieved the impossible: discourage his supporters, embolden his rivals, bore the curious, scare away the undecided, disappoint the anti-trumpists and fail to convince the trumpists.

Ramaswamy repeated, almost point by point, the ways and manners of Donald Trump, but with his own style.

He sent a more than catastrophic message, declaring that “we are living in a moment of darkness” in the United States, denied that climate change exists (in that, DeSantis supported him and none of the other six candidates was able to say “yes” or “no”), stated emphatically that if he wins the presidency he will immediately cut aid to Ukraine, and mocked, in the style of Donald Trump in the 2015 and 2016 debates, the other participants.

“You have ridiculed everyone on this stage,” said the former ambassador to the United Nations with Trump and former governor of South Carolina Nikki Haley, who has a 2% vote intention, according to the YouGov company for the chain of cbs television. More than an accusation, it was a verification.

With his exaggerated gestures, his ability to break the rules of debate and speak when he felt like it, Ramaswamy dominated the conversation.

Former vice president, Mike Pence (5% voting intention), broke with his image of a sober evangelical and made it clear that he can’t stand him.

The former governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie (2% support), who had gone to the debate basically to put Donald Trump back and a half – of whom he has been a rival, an ally and, now, a rival again – called him ” amateur” and said “you sound like ChatGPT”.

The point is that ChatGPT is very popular, so Ramaswamy, at least, managed to be the center of the debate. Which is not little, although most likely, as Trump himself has said, the most that comes out of those eight candidates is the candidate to be vice president with him.

That is the big problem with these candidates.. The aforementioned YouGov poll for CBS states that 71% of Trump voters feel that the former president is telling the truth, compared to only 63% who place that trust in their family and friends, and 42% who give it their religious leaders, an especially low number in a markedly Christian party like the Republican.

If it is taken into account that in the same poll Trump obtained 62% of the intention to vote, it turns out that 43% of Republicans believe the former president before, for example, his spouse.

And on Twitter, a much calmer Trump than his rivals gave his faithful new tenets to believe in.. Or, rather, he endorsed some of the conspiracy theories that have been circulating for years in the bowels of the Internet and to which Elon Musk has given free rein on Twitter.

For example, Trump lent some credence to the theory that financier and pimp Jeffrey Epstein didn’t commit suicide in prison but was murdered, and he rounded it out by indicting his own attorney general (a title equivalent to attorney general). ), Bill Barr, of covering up the murder. He also said that his enemies may try to kill him — “they are wild animals.

They’re sick, really sick. I have seen what they do; I have seen what they are capable of doing” – and again implied that, if he does not win in 2024, there is likely to be violence.

“There is a degree of passion like I have never seen. There is also a degree of hate that I have not seen either. Those two things are probably a tricky combination.”.