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What did we just watch? Was it a political party committing suicide, or was it the country? We’ll find out next November.

That Democratic debate Thursday was something else, and by something else I mean horrifying. Not only wasn’t there a sane person on that stage, there wasn’t even a mildly crazy adult. “Bat feces crazy” comes to mind.

Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren didn’t miss a beat as they promised to spend more money than exists by simply “taxing the rich.” Their health care, free college, student loan forgiveness, everyone gets an electric car, peace, love, and understanding platforms only lacked giving everyone a cash-excreting unicorn. But it’s still early in the process.

Kamala Harris wants to be clear about everything, then avoids every opportunity to get specific. All the candidates have had to disavow some of their past positions for being insufficiently “woke,” but Harris has had to deny everything she’s done that brought her to this point. Being a former prosecutor would normally be a positive, people tend to like not having criminals roaming the streets. Somehow, having served law and order has become a liability in the Democratic Party – you can’t run on supporting cops in the party that hates cops. So Harris, being the only person who finds herself funny, just giggled a lot and spoke in platitudes.

Beto O’Rourke, on the other hand, spoke in his typical series of halting shouts. The cross between Napoleon Dynamite and Butthead’s faux outrage was only eclipsed by his eagerness to continue to dance a jig on the graves of El Paso’s shooting victims. I’d say he’s replaced coherent sentences with cursing and indignation, but he’s never spoken in coherent sentences and likely doesn’t know what indignation means. Someone told him he could win the nomination by calling everyone and everything racist while promising to forcibly take away the most popular rifle in the country and forgot to tell him they were joking. The drunk drivers’ campaign holds the record for setting the world’s largest pile of cash on fire. It, along with his ego, can be seen from space.

Joe Biden gave his best debate performance to date, which is a bit like celebrating your kid getting on base because he was hit by a pitch but otherwise went 0-for-4. It’s amazing how low the bar can be set for a former Vice President of the United States. Not that the job requires any abilities, which made Biden perhaps the most qualified person to have ever held it. His dentures nearly fell out, he lectured on the importance of playing records for kids, and rambled off-topic a couple of times. For him, aces!

It was considered so good for Joe because it was so bad for Julian Castro. The twin who not only split a womb but also a brain with his brother, attacked Biden for being old, repeating three times that Joe had forgotten something he’d said just 2 minutes earlier. The only problem was Castro was the one who was wrong. Oops. Castro’s resume is thinner than his short-term memory. He served as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (YAWN) and Mayor of San Antonio, which is just this side of an honorary position with no power aside from wielding scissors at ribbon cutting ceremonies. He would’ve been chosen as Hillary Clinton’s running mate in 2016 because he’s Hispanic, but he couldn’t speak Spanish well enough so she went with a white guy who could. He’s completed his Rosetta Stone Spanish courses now, and seems to be running for the second slot on any ticket based on his last name. Doubtful it’ll be Biden’s now.

Andrew Yang promised to give 10 people $1,000 per month for a year, drawn randomly from people who signed up at his website. My name wasn’t picked, so who cares?

Pete Buttigieg didn’t do himself any favors, he didn’t do any harm either. That’s a problem for him since his time as “flavor of the month” expired several months ago and he’s been relegated to top-tier of the “also-ran” category.

Cory Booker is trying to sell himself as the one candidate who lives in a poor neighborhood. But his parents were executives at IBM and he attended Stanford, Oxford, and Yale, so his “poverty” is closer to tourism and vanity than anything resembling reality. That’s is biggest problem – nothing about him is sincere if you look under the surface. The image he seeks to project to the public is as real as the imaginary friend name “T-Bone” he pretended existed and spoke about often while Mayor of Newark, New Jersey. (Seriously, check it out.)

Amy Klobuchar was on stage too. A fact I had to Google because I couldn’t remember who else was up there but knew there were 10.

One of these people will be the nominee of the Democratic Party, and whichever one ultimately falls out of the clown car needs to be taken seriously. They will have a 50 percent chance of becoming the next president. Then we’ll discover whether we watched a party destroy itself, or the country last Thursday.

Derek is the host of a free daily podcast (subscribe!) and author of the book, Outrage, INC., which exposes how liberals use fear and hatred to manipulate the masses.