A Trump Party in the Reagan Library

“Every time I hear you, I feel a little dumber.” It might have been Jerry Seinfeld, after one of his mouth-agape pauses, responding to George Constanza’s latest theory of life. Better yet, accompanied by a lonesome guitar and rhymed, perhaps, with “plumber” or “warm beer”, the line might have made for a fine country-and-western lyric.

They were in fact the words of Nikki Haley, a former ambassador to the United Nations and governor of South Carolina, speaking during the second Republican debate, on September 27th. And though she was once again squashing Vivek Ramaswamy, a former biotech entrepreneur, after gritting her teeth through another of his peppy paeans to himself, she might well have been speaking for the viewers at home as they thought back on their whole dismal evening in front of the tube.