THE DEBATE WE WERE SUPPOSED TO HAVE: At Ricochet, Jon Gabriel looks back of a summer of Trumpian silliness and wistfully writes, “The 2016 election was the grand battle conservatives had been hoping for since Ronald Reagan left the Oval Office. The roster of candidates was to be a who’s-who of smart, proven, center-right leadership:”

We aren’t discussing America’s $18.4 trillion national debt and our insolvent social programs. The stagnant economy and an expansionist China, Russia, and Islamic State. Burning cities at home and burning countries abroad.

Instead we’re trading GIFs of a reality show star on “The Tonight Show,” giggling about menstruation, and wondering if the most impressive GOP field in a generation are a bunch of “dummies” or if they’re a bunch of “losers.”

These are serious times. We are not a serious people.

Well, the American people chose a reality show candidate in 2008 — the comic book superhero “Lightworker,” who could be seen on comic book covers and in the form of plastic action figure replicas, when not appearing on professional wrestling TV shows asking, “Do you smell what Barack’s cooking,” and who modestly pledged that by merely besting Hillary Clinton to win the Democrat nomination, “this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.”

Of course voters want more of the same in 2016.