Jon Ralston

“It was a very substantive and elegant debate.” — Donald Trump on Thursday’s CNN event

Someday, I hope, we will think of this as a fairy tale — Snow Don and the GOP Dwarves (led by Sleepy Carson and Grumpy Christie).

But for now, the con is on and off to Cleveland we go, with Thursday’s debate essentially a pre-coronation as Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and John Kasich all looked little next to the presumptive nominee.

Many of my colleagues echoed Trump’s description of the debate, which may have been the least puerile but also was the most horrifying yet. If “substantive” means there were no oblique genitalia references, who can argue?

To be fair, there were deeper discussions of issues, foreign and domestic. But those only emphasized Trump’s hollowness, a man of wealth and no taste whose pivot to the general election is made easier by his lack of principles.

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It’s not that Trump does not know the minutiae of critical issues; he doesn’t even understand the basics. He speaks in inanities that make most clichés seem hefty, displaying a knowledge of policy that most fifth-graders could eclipse.

Some may want to focus on just how weakly Trump’s three foes were in taking him on during the debate. But what struck me – again, but with more force – is just how terrifyingly clueless he is.

Don't take my word for it, and I know this exercise is futile for Trumplodytes: This is from the CNN transcript:

—On the H1B visa program, which allows highly skilled workers to come into the country and on which Trump flip-flopped once already, he said: “So I will take advantage of it; they're the laws. But I'm the one that knows how to change it. Nobody else on this dais knows how to change it like I do, believe me.”

So he exploited those laws but now wants to change them so no one else can. Got it?

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—Asked his specific objections to Common Core, Trump indicated he had no idea what Common Core is: “I want local education. I want the parents, and I want all of the teachers, and I want everybody to get together around a school and to make education great.”

Now that’s substantive. Could have been written by a fifth-grader …

—After criticizing the Democratic candidates for not wanting to touch Social Security, Trump offered this: “I will do everything within my power not to touch Social Security, to leave it the way it is; to make this country rich again; to bring back our jobs; to get rid of deficits; to get rid of waste, fraud and abuse, which is rampant in this country, rampant, totally rampant.”

You don’t have to make math great again (look how CNN’s Dana Bash calls him on his Jabberwocky) to know those numbers don’t add up, that “waste, fraud and abuse” is the rote answer given by those who don’t understand the issue.

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—When pressed on his threat to impose a 45 percent tariff on Chinese goods and how that would increase prices here, Trump declared: “China dumps everything that they have over here. No tax, no nothing, no problems, no curfews, no anything. We can't get into China. I have the best people, manufacturers, they can't get in. When they get in, they have to pay a tremendous tax.”

Curfews? Alas, Trump has none.

—Asked about his assertion that Islam hates us, Trump gave this: “There is tremendous hate. There is tremendous hate. Where large portions of a group of people, Islam, large portions want to use very, very harsh means. Let me go a step further. Women are treated horribly. You know that. You do know that. Women are treated horribly, and other things are happening that are very, very bad.”

If anyone can stand up for women, Donald Trump can. Just ask Megyn Kelly or Michelle Fields.

—On Israel, this is almost a parody of itself: "First of all, there's nobody on this stage that's more pro-Israel than I am. OK. There's nobody. I am pro-Israel. I was the grand marshal, not so long ago, of the Israeli Day Parade down Fifth Avenue. I've made massive contributions to Israel. I have a lot of — I have tremendous love for Israel. I happen to have a son-in-law and a daughter that are Jewish, OK? And two grandchildren that are Jewish.”

He was grand marshal of a parade, almost said he has a lot of Jewish friends and has Jewish relatives. Well, how can Mideast peace be far behind in a Trump administration?

There was so much more, too. Trump said things that are demonstrably false, including saying some of the protesters at his rallies “are swinging, they are really dangerous and they get in there and they start hitting people.”

Really? No one else has seen this. And who at these rallies would be most responsible for inciting violence, for creating a culture that condones/enables it? Mirror, mirror on the wall …

Perhaps most egregiously (this is a stiff competition), Trump referred to the protesters slaughtered in Tiananmen Square more than a quarter-century ago and all but praised the Chinese because “they kept down the riot.” The riot!

No sense of history. No sense of the present. No sense of the future.

Other than that, a fine candidate for president of the United States.

This is a presumptive nominee who appears to read polls and watch TV all day, essentially telling the American people he can put his feet up on his couch, call into cable shows and bluster his way to the presidency.

It's comical. It's frightening. It's happening.

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And most everyone in the GOP, including his opponents, are peeping about under his HUGE legs to find themselves dishonorable graves. Among them are Gov. Brian Sandoval, Sen. Dean Heller and Reps. Joe Heck, Cresent Hardy and Mark Amodei, who have refused to rule out supporting a man manifestly unfit for the presidency.

Trump is a thoroughly repellent character; for Republicans who decline to shun him, who put party over country, it’s a character issue.

Jon Ralston has been covering Nevada politics for more than a quarter-century. See his blog at ralstonreports.com and watch "Ralston Live" at 5:30 p.m. weekdays on KNPB.