Did anybody catch the funeral that posed as a Republican primary debate on Wednesday night? It would have been difficult to stage a more joyless event.

Megyn Kelly said it best on X , formerly known as Twitter, a little before the hour mark: “The lighting is terrible. The Qs lack any charge which is why we are getting these boring answers. The Mike Pence sniffing is weird. Vivek needs a haircut. DeSantis looks sweaty. ‘Donald Duck’ line was lame. Certainly hope it gets better from here.”

It didn’t. It got much, much worse for everyone involved.

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley managed to stomp out her own campaign momentum by lowering herself to the level of entrepreneur Vivek Rama-smarmy with childish barbs. The usually genial Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) bafflingly picked a fight with a woman over the cost of her drapes. The ghostly pallored and bushy-browed Gov. Todd Burgum (R-ND) tried desperately to inform America that he was “the only person on the stage that has a career in technology” before being scolded and sent back to his corner by Dana Perino. I guess he can’t be blamed for trying.

Former Vice President Mike Pence, who famously refuses to be alone in a room with a woman who isn’t his wife, made the whole of America squirm uncomfortably by talking about “sleeping with” her for 38 years. Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, never to be outdone in attention-seeking behavior, delivered one of the cringiest prepackaged lines in the history of presidential debates. Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), despite having the best night of his campaign, kept flashing those painfully forced smiles upon finishing his remarks. (Can someone please help him out with that?). It was easily the best night of his campaign, though that may only be because the bar is so low at this point.

Meanwhile, at the White House, President Joe Biden fell asleep within 15 minutes while his rabid German shepherd Commander growled at the grumps on the screen.

Somewhere in between Pence’s zinger about Ramaswamy’s voter history (talk about a subplot!) and Christie’s hysterical revival of the Truman Doctrine, it became clear that this debate was little more than an exhibition. Former President Donald Trump, who is leading the entire pack combined, said on Monday that his opponents “ought to stop wasting their time,” and as much as it pains me to admit , Wednesday’s utterly unwatchable debate proved him right. No one on that stage did anything to change the trajectory of the race by an inch, nor are they likely to in the future.

Trump’s worst national poll in the past two weeks has him leading by 38 points. In Iowa and New Hampshire, where the news media is pretending a race exists, his worst recent poll has him leading by 30 and 26 points, respectively. A new CBS-YouGov poll suggests that Iowa and New Hampshire voters are still largely undecided , but this amounts to wishful thinking. When likely voters were asked who they’d vote for today, Trump led by 30 and 37 points, respectively.

The Trump campaign called for an end to the debates on Thursday morning, which is a reasonable request at this point. Unless the field were to suddenly shrink and coalesce around a single candidate, as Democrats did with Biden in 2020, only incapacitation or incarceration would stand between Trump and the nomination — and possibly not even the latter. And even if a non-Trump candidate caught fire, his court appearance on the day before Super Tuesday would almost certainly blunt their momentum and rally the MAGA troops.

The Republican National Committee should seriously consider sparing their voters the indignity of having to pretend to care what Christie did 12 years ago as governor of New Jersey or whether or not Ramaswamy likes TikTok. The whole charade is insulting. If it can’t produce a relevant product, the RNC should indeed shut the whole thing down before lasting damage is done to the GOP brand.

Peter Laffin is a contributor at the Washington Examiner. His work has also appeared in RealClearPolitics, the Catholic Thing, and the National Catholic Register.