Second Republican primary debate had the lowest TV viewership since 2015

HLMenckenFan@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 509 points –
Second Republican primary debate had the lowest TV viewership since 2015
cnbc.com
97

whats to watch. a bunch of un-empathetic sycophants pretending to have a platform or relevance to an audience already "not votin for a lib"

It was even worse than you're imagining.

I dunno, I'm imagining them doing the Nazi salute to punctuate the end of their hate speech.

This is incredibly obvious but it’s stated this way because a more honest headline would be uninteresting. The last time there was a serious Republican primary was 2015.

So they’re saying debate ratings are lower than the last time there wasn’t an obvious front runner. Yeah, no shit cnbc. Good job.

Yeah, the better question is - whose actually watching? Trump is obviously going to be the nominee unless he's literally forced off the ballot, and if that happens it's just going to be chaos because I guarentee he's just going to continue running as a write in candidate

Watching a bunch of assholes "debate" (read: regurgitate canned talking points on cue) who are only going to lose the primary to a bigger asshole, who is even in the room, is kinda pointless. Especially when said bigger asshole already lost one general election and may well be on track to lose an other one., So, we could either watch losers who are losing to a loser; or, spend our time more productively. Like say, insulting said losers on the internet. Not a hard choice.

We need to be mindful that he can win the general election too. Lots of angry white racists out there and even more evangelicals.

No need to get white into it, racist is sufficient. Trump has plenty of black and Hispanic supporters. I don't know if they are all racists, but they are definitively assholes.

Yeah… he lost the general election, but only by a hair, and a LOT of work went into grabbing last minute votes.

The most dangerous thing you can do is be complacent.

We need to vote and we need to get others to vote.

3 more...

Ya, while I was being flippant about it, I do agree that Trump has a very real chance of winning the General Election. I well remember the noise over polling in 2016 and Nate Silver's epic rant (he was right) about how the data should be looked at.

I'm curious to see how things shake out in the General Election this time around. And I wonder if Biden's Campaign will lean into Trump's criminal actions. In 2016, Trump's campaign pushed the "lock her up!" narrative over Clinton's email server. Now that we have clear evidence of Trump mishandling, hiding and attempting to hang onto clearly marked classified information (some of which is clearly SCI or NNPI), will we get choruses of "lock him up!"? At the same time, Trumpets seem to revel in Trump's crimes and prosecution as almost a badge of honor and/or an underdog fighting "the man". The irony of Trump pretty much being the definition of "the man" seems lost on his supporters. But hey, no one ever said politics has to make sense.

3 more...

Does this mean they eventually got "tired of winning"? Or are they now trying to win at losing too?

Demagogues always need to project an image of control, power and invincibility, reality be damned. I'd expect more of the same from them, and it's why it's important to keep pointing out their failures. By proving how weak and vulnerable they are, it helps to break the narrative they are trying to build. It's all about perception, facts are less important than belief. But, facts can be useful in shaping belief.

I mean, I didn't watch it either, but If you are in a state that isn't purple, maybe you should be registered as a Republican to be part of the primary to pick the best of the worst. My state only has primary by party.

I'm in Virginia, which is pretty purple. That said, we have open primaries, but you are only allowed to vote in one. I have seriously considered voting in the Republican Primary for that reason. Biden is going to win any sort of Democratic Primary; so, not much point voting in the DNC Primary. However, I don't expect my vote would be impactful at all. Southwest Virginia has Trump's cock so far down it's collective throat it stopped being oral and started being anal. Even where I'm at, we have idiots whose yards have been decorated with Trump banners for over 7 years now. If he doesn't win the GOP Primary in Virginia, I'll be incredibly surprised.

If I do go out to vote in the GOP Primary, I'd probably have to pick Haley, just for the fun of seeing Republicans lining up behind a woman for a reason other than groping her. Also, I think it would be hilarious to see leftist pundits twist themselves in knots dealing with the GOP having a relatively younger woman and a minority as their candidate versus the old white guy. But, with her currently polling well behind DeSantis and a very, very distant third to Trump, I suspect that has basically zero chance of happening.

To be fair, didn't Trump poll horribly at first?

Kinda. Early in the 2016 election cycle, Jeb Bush was sort leading the pack. But, by October 2015 (to compare with the current cycle), Trump was pulling ahead in the GOP Primary and held onto the lead for the rest of the Primary. He was helped, a lot, by the large GOP Primary field and lack of a clear front runner. The political environment in 2016 also favored populism and Trump tapped into that very well.

Now, this could all get upended by the various criminal charges Trump faces. While the civil charges he is liable for are interesting, that's not a real impediment to his campaign. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if that ends up helping him, as he will spin it as a politically motivated attack on him by the left. But, should Trump end up behind bars during the run up to the Primary or General election, that's going to make campaigning a bit harder. It won't be impossible, and I'm not entirely confident it would prevent him from winning the Primary or the General Election. Though, I would think that the GOP might find a way to replace him on the General Election ballot, were he behind bars.

3 more...

I mean, they have nothing interesting to say, no policies to discuss, and are a black hole of charisma.

Ramaswamy has ideas about policies. But they're horrible policies.

To his credit, he does appear to be the only GOP candidate with clear, actionable policies he is pushing.

They are batshit insane, but at least he has ideas other than "vote against anything the Dems like."

That last part is all that really matters in this case. None of them can make their insanity interesting to watch without the reality TV star around.

[...] lowest viewership since 2015

Hasn't there only been one other debate since then...? That's rather misleading.

lowest ratings since the first one a little bit ago.

Is the article only looking at presidential primary debates, or all Republican primary debates?

It also represents — by a significant margin — the lowest TV audience for any Republican presidential debate since the start of the 2016 cycle, when Trump first became a candidate.

Probably looking at all republican debates since 2015. In short, the lowest its been since Trump.

Why would you want to watch? They're all a bunch of losers and one worse than the next. They're the current failures that rose to the top.

None have compelling arguments or solutions and are only there to shitsling each other. Even monkeys at the zoo are smarter.

1 more...

Who wants to watch a bunch of mentally ill psychopaths talk over each other? I sure don’t.

Wasn't Jersey shore insanely popular?

Not the tryouts for it.

They were running their mouths not trying to run the country.

It showed that America, if it is going to keep its greatness, is in desperate need of new politicians or a new generation of politicians. All these people on the debate stage have no clue how hard it is out there right now or what people stree going through. Desperate people need help, solutions, and answers. These debaters/ Republicans aren't it.

To the most of the world, they are "mentally ill psychopaths", but to their rabid supporters, they can do no wrong. They will still watch them, cheer them on, and support them and vote for them...

That’s the thing, though. They don’t actually have rabid supporters. Trump does, and they want his supporters to support them.

That’s why no one is interested in watching their debates. The people who actually care about debates aren’t interested in their nonsense, and the ones whose vote they are courting are just waiting for Trump to give them the Go signal.

Yup I've looked at conservative spaces online and it's all still Trump Trump Trump! I was honestly pretty surprised that they don't want to try anyone else considering how much everyone else hates Trump but that's just how out of touch they are I guess.

I was honestly pretty surprised that they don't want to try anyone else considering how much everyone else hates Trump

In their eyes, that's one of his best features. The Republican party's singular common goal these days is to be as contrarian as possible, and the angrier everyone else is with them, the better they figure they're doing.

For a significant portion of them, I think everyone else hating him is a feature

So in other words, lower than the ones in 2019?

Was there a repugnican debate in 2019?

You're right, there wasn't. I didn't read the article at first since I thought the title was clickbait, but it seems like they're actually saying the ratings were lower than any debate in 2015 or later. They just phrased it in a confusing way.

1 more...

It's Republicans debating against each other? Like aren't they all the same?

"I'm a piece of shit."

"No I'm a piece of shit!"

"Heh... that's cute. I'm the biggest piece of shit."

rapturous applause

Narrator: The audience was the biggest piece of shit, after all...

Listen to the difference between their opinions on Ukraine

https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1707219590877421736

Holy shit some of those are comedy gold! These assholes are on the same team which makes it even more funny!

That is kind of a good point tho? Why are we ridiculing this person/debate (I'm not familiar all) based on this video?

It is a championship of "Who is the most shitty politition behind Trump".

They're all racist, misogynistic, homophobic, transphobic, and antisemitic, just in different orders.

Nobody wants to watch a bunch of losers kiss the ass of an elephant who isn't even in the room (honorable mention to C. Christie who clearly does not kiss Trump's ass)

Chris Christie. Maybe the least smelly turd in the group. He still smells like shit and now the question is whether he's only trying to separate himself from the others while still planning to deliver the exact same steaming mess any of them would. Is he hedging his bet that trump is falling to the charges?

At this point, they all are counting on the chance that he won't be able to run for one reason or another.

1 more...

Couldn't watch it without a cable subscription or signing up for a streaming service. That's probably at least part of it.

1 more...

But didn't they watch in the hopes that Vivek would spit out some rhymes? Vivek rhymes with cake, you know.

They are all running for VP candidate but are too dumb to realize it.

They're well aware of it, it's why they're not really badmouthing Trump.

Except we all know Trump will pick his VP during an Adderall fuelled constipation party on social media. So it could be either of these morons, regardless of their debating performance (I use those words liberally).

Or it could be Kanye.

I heard someone point out that Trump might want a dynasty and pick Don Jr. That's probably the most likely option now that I think about it. His son is one person who will be loyal no matter what and and someone who would be even worse than him if he is removed from office.

But that's the thing, even if they're the VP on ticket, all they're going to do is sink the ticket further. Voting for any of these buffoons, whether it be locally, nationally, VP or president, is just asinine. They're all condescending as fuck and they all think we're too stupid to realize how much they suck. It's weird, but I miss the days of Bob Dole and McCain.

2 more...

What a surprise? Why would anyone watch when the front runner isint even going to be there.

If trump isn’t in the debate it’s not worth watching to be honest.

Oddly enough it's still not worth it if he's there. I've seen the exact same scene every time I flush after dropping a deuce. Adding an unflushable nugget to the bowl doesn't change much.