I watched the Republican debate last night, minus the several candidates who didn’t make the cut, and minus the elephant in the room, Donald Trunk. Oops, I meant Trump, I was thinking about elephants.

Wait a minute – aren’t they all elephants?

I thought that the three NBC moderators did a good job – they asked meaningful questions, they tried their best to keep the answers within the allotted lengths of time, and they controlled responses when a candidate could respond to being targeted by one of the other candidates. Often the candidate was not permitted to respond – but when Ramaswammy meentioned Haley’s daughter, all bets were off. That’s when Haley called Ramaswammy “scum”.

I thought they could, though, have asked more pointed questions in a couple of ways. First, it was almost like Donald Trump didn’t exist. Yes, they did ask why each candidate felt himself more qualified than Trump to be president. But they didn’t ask what they thought about the aftermath of the 2020 election, or about the 91 felony indictments, or about some of the very controversial things Trump has said. And they didn’t ask anything about what has been going on in the House of Representatives or whether or not they supported some of the antics of the Republican crazies in the house, such as the Biden impeachment or even tying Israeli aid to cuts in IRS personnel.

They did ask about Israel and Hamas, and about the growth of antisemitism, though. That was the first set of questions – and here you got what appeared to be unanimity. The Republicans were all strongly pro-Israel – the U.S. should give them everything they ask for (and more, perhaps) and let them use it any way they want. The U.S. should only give advice to Israel when asked for it, not gratuitously. The responsibility of Israel and its prime minister (who the candidates wanted to appear close to – so several of them called him Bibi) is not only to secure Israel, but to wipe out Hamas. Wipe Them Out!!

And as to antisemitism in American universities? Cut off the funding of all universities that don’t cut off the activity of campus antisemites.

What about anti-Muslim activities? Meh. “Not interested”, seemed to be their response.

As to Ukraine, their responses were more nuanced – four of the five were in favor of more support for Ukraine, although the support for Ukraine was to be sending them war materiel that would be made in America and help our economy (no such conditions seemed to be put on Israel aid). Nikki Haley was probably the most pro-Ukraine. If we back down on Ukraine, she thought, not only would Russia be emboldened, but China and Iran would be as well. Ramaswamy, however, disagreed with his fellow Republicans and would pull out of Ukraine tomorrow, it seems. He thinks we have no national interest there – and that to look at it as Russia = bad guys, and Ukraine = good guys is just wrong. And then he went full Russian-like attack on Ukraine, its corruption, its lack of free speech and democracy and the fact that is run by a “Nazi”, a “clown in cargo pants” named Zelensky. Wow!

Of course, there was some Biden bashing. His environmental policies led to the increase in gas prices (wrong). The border should be closed so fentanyl won’t come in from Mexico (not coming in that way). Negotiating with Iran and releasing resources to them is a sign of weakness and appeasement (who cares about the four American hostages who were released?). And so forth.

On abortion, each of the Republican candidates considers themselves to be pro-life. But they are not all in agreement that abortion should be up to the states, although Christie and Haley are comfortable with that. Scott claims that he can, in week one, sign a something that will restrict abortions to situations where a pregnancy is under 15 weeks. Just like that. Don’t remember if Ramaswammy said anything on that one.

Every thing else is as expected. Our national debt is too big, we must build up our Navy, the border should be closed, entitlements must be amended (but not for current oldsters like me, and so forth. This part was pretty much as expected.

But Ramaswammy had more to say:

First, he thinks that Haley is just an old fashioned liar, while she thinks that Putin and Xi would love to see him become president. Second, Ramaswammy would like the Democrats to stop the charade that Joe Biden is going to be their presidential candidate. Biden isn’t even in charge of the presidency now, he says. He is just a puppet of the elite classes. Why don’t the Dems go straight with the people: “Just tell us who your candidate will be. Will it be Michele Obama? Or that guy from California?”

Finally, we learned the Christie hates Tiktok. It gives China all the info it wants about us, it spreads antisemitism, it corrupts minors. He is probably right. And it’s addictive (even I know that).

What did we learn? Scott is outclassed, Ramaswammy is a nutcase, DeSantis is a non-personality (I didn’t even mention him yet, did I?). Christie is a viable candidate in another era. Haley is probably the most likely of the bunch to be able to do the job – although how relevant will any of this be?

What a whacko Ramaswammy is. Really.

But we know, don’t we, that Donald will be the candidate, campaigning either from Mar-a-Lago, or from jail. Lawrence O’Donnell said it best on the MSNBC after-debate panel: These guys are just hanging around in case Trump chokes on a cheeseburger.

Amen.