Twenty minutes into the presidential debate came a simple question. The answers were anything but.

After reading out some statistics from the deadly Hawaii wildfires, they played a clip from a member of the Young Americans for Freedom, a conservative youth activist organisation, who said climate was the number one issue for young people.

Asked to raise their hand if they thought mankind was to blame, not one went up. And only one candidate said climate change was real in the short discussion that followed.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said it was childish to ask for a show of hands and instead laid into Joe Biden for the president’s response to Hawaii.

  • gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world
    542·
    1 year ago

    [the following was judiciously paraphrased]

    Earnest young Republican activist: “So a lot of my classmates at college say the Republican party doesn’t care about climate change, I know that’s a lot of fake news, but could you tell them that you’re taking this issue seriously?”

    DeSantis: “This is a woke media trap! Fox news is part of the woke media!”

    [Unintelligible yelling]

    Ramaswamy: “Environmental regulations are smothering our economy like a wet blanket, which incidentally is also what I’m secretly hoping increased humidity in the global climate does to all you fucking rubes in the next 20 years while I chill out in my bunker and totally don’t get backstabbed by my body guards.”

    [More unintelligible yelling]

    Christie: “Vivek Ramaswamy is brown and has a funny last name, just like Barack Obama!”

    [Even more unintelligible yelling]

    [Unclear]: “You’re being paid off!” [Different voice, still unclear who]: “No you’re being paid off!”

    Earnest young Republican activist [internally, off camera]: “♪ Hello darkness my old friend ♪”

    • ShakeThatYam@lemmy.world
      132·
      1 year ago

      Christie said that because Vivek literally quoted Obama’s line about being a skinny kid with a funny name.

      • girlfreddy@lemmy.worldOP
        131·
        1 year ago

        Who the hell in their right mind would vote for the king of the Bridgegate debacle?

        I mean Christie shouldn’t be anywhere near a GOP candidate debate.

        • jscummy
          9·
          1 year ago

          To be fair, Christie’s done a great job of antagonizing the other candidates when they say or do stupid shit. I wouldn’t vote for him either, but I appreciate that he’s dragging the rest of the field down with him

        • SeaJ@lemm.ee
          4·
          1 year ago

          He is shit. But he has a really quick wit and is quick to pounce on any candidate who does not have their shit together. He essentially killed Rubio’s campaign in 2016.

      • gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world
        103·
        1 year ago

        So I do still believe Christie was doing a racism there and should be called out for it (like, anybody who talks about their last name is Barack Obama now? Just taking that piece of rhetoric off the table puts non-white and second generation immigrant candidates at a big disadvantage), but I just discovered that one of the extra psychopathic Republican lawmakers apparently made this same argument last night and now I feel dirty, so I’m just gonna say fuck everyone on that debate stage, edit in a joke a Ramaswamy’s expense to make it more clear that I think he’s a piece of shit too and call it a day