Jess Lahitou

We talk about having debate-watching parties, popping popcorn, making bets… it’s all a little weird, and probably not good for democracy.

On Thursday night, 17 Republicans sparred in two debates for a record-breaking audience of 24 million, and 15 months before voting day.

Most Likely To Succeed: Carly Fiorina. One word: Yowza! On top of being the only candidate to move up from Fox’s conciliation debate to CNN’s main stage, Carly Fiorina kicked absolute butt. She went after Donald Trump, Chris Christie, every prominent Democrat, not to mention political pandering to women. Pundits agree: Fiorina won it.

As Tom Nichols puts it, ignorance has now become a "virtue." And it takes a whole lot of it to claim you can learn 'everything' about a complex subject - like, say, nuclear weapons - in roughly 90 minutes.

Rejoicing or weeping will depend on who you are, but let’s look at what happened either way.

Democrats:

While watching the third Republican debate last night on CNBC, I thought to myself: Self, you’re going to have to write a straight review of this thing. The candidates are too wonky tonight to be caricatured, and even Donald Trump has reigned himself in significantly. The debate was billed as “Your Money, Your Vote,” and the questions hewed pretty close to the economy. Read: not many social-issues gaffe bait.

This is the first time I’ve seen a sitting president “spin” a clear military defeat to save his own ego, and use a bereft and heartbroken wife in order to get away with it. Disgust is not the right word. Horror, maybe. Disbelief and revulsion crashing into each other.

Democrats need to nominate the person with the best chance of cleaning the floor with Donald Trump. Not just for their own victory, but for the… dare I say, survival of the country itself.

So Michael Moore is known as a provocateur.

A few weeks ago, I thought we might actually celebrate the end of the 2016 election.