But the GOP itself should get a failing grade overall. The party seems to be operating in an alternate reality where political candidates give their own personal views on vaccine strategy. Or where George W. Bush’s presidency gets applause. Jeb Bush, implausibly, complained that Chief Justice John Roberts was something of an unknown when he was appointed to the bench by his brother. That’s just false. And in three hours the only memorable mention of the middle class and their economic fortunes was made by Chris Christie, who interrupted a long aside about the respective business careers of Carly Fiorina and Donald Trump. A party that wants to win an election talks about hobs, the economy, and middle class. The GOP mostly didn’t.

The party also operates in an alternate reality on foreign policy. Candidates in both the undercard debate and the main event tried to blame the rise of ISIS on Obama, for withdrawing American troops from Iraq. The fact is that this withdrawal was the will of the elected Iraqi national government, and ratified by the signature of Republican President George W. Bush. Republicans throughout the night warned that ISIS was a threat to the United States, which is why they must be defeated in Syria and Iraq. Somehow, the party is committing itself to the idea that the United States can’t possibly have effective visa enforcement or border controls and so must reconstruct two war-torn failing states in the Middle East.

Republicans should not count on this one debate hurting Trump in the long run. He is still going to dominate the coverage until he is actually overtaken by someone in the polls. But this debate revealed little strategies of overcoming him: Forget asking him to apologize; instead, bury him in details, call him out in a subtle way.