What got into Ann Coulter last night during the debate? Over a period of about two hours, she tweeted vile, anti-Semitic statements, dissed evangelicals, and accused the GOP candidates of “pandering” to Jews, anti-abortion activists, and evoking the memory of Reagan.

How many f—ing Jews do these people think there are in the United States?

— Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) September 17, 2015

She suggested that all the pro-Israel talk was “to suck up to evangelicals.”

Maybe it’s to suck up to the Evangelicals.

— Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) September 17, 2015

All GOPs = prolife, pro-Reagan, pro-Israel. Pandering on all 3 tonight was EPIC. https://t.co/lZ0ZUtVdSf

— Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) September 17, 2015

I like the Jews, I like fetuses, I like Reagan. Didn’t need to hear applause lines about them all night. https://t.co/4guFehK0CM

— Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) September 17, 2015

Coulter’s star has fallen precipitously the last few years and as it has descended, she has sought to become once again the edgy provocateur that aided her rise to the top of political punditry.

But as I pointed out several years ago, once you start down the road of going “over the top” to please your fans, you fall into a trap. How can you top “over the top”?

In the end, this is Coulter’s dilemma. And the great trap she has set for herself as she has climbed the ladder of success to achieve fame and fortune. In this celebrity, media soaked age where the ravenous appetites of the news nets, “lifestyle” shows, and political talk radio are constantly demanding more and more controversy, more and more outrageous personalities to fill the time and attract more audience, the danger for any one personality like Coulter is that yesterday’s jaw droppers and head shakers can’t be repeated. She must come up with entirely new derogatory sobriquets to call her political opponents and ever more outrageous metaphors to describe her political pet peeves. By definition, she must go “over the top” on nearly a daily basis.

This way lies madness. Once people like Coulter start down this road it can only end in one way; you become a caricature of yourself. The barbs that once zinged your opponents with razor sharp wit causing even your political enemies to chuckle will lose their edge and end up as simple, hurtful, name calling more akin to playground epithets and hardly worthy of approbation except by your most rabid fans.

Hence, jokes about Bill Clinton’s sexual escapades morph into daydreaming about assassinating a President. And spot on, uproariously funny critiques of racialsm and the stupidity of identity politics segues easily into ethnic slurs. She has little choice if she wishes to remain atop the rickety pyramid of notorious celebrity she has carved out for herself. To do less would disappoint her numerous acolytes whose immaturity allows for giving her standing ovations when she casually refers to Arabs in a politically incorrect way.

Tom Sykes at the Daily Beast believes that at one time, Coulter had a chance to be a female P.J. O’Rourke:

The tragedy is that Coulter did used to actually be quite funny. Her writing was massively provocative, but it was also often clever and witty.

In 2011, for example, she told an interviewer, “A liberal’s idea of being chivalrous is to hold the car door for you before driving you off a bridge. Also, a conservative guy will never ask to ‘role play’ with you as the sexy nurse and him as the senior citizen with a pre-existing medical condition who wants a single-payer government health plan.”

In her 2012 book, Treason, she wrote, “Democrats always assure us that deterrence will work, but when the time comes to deter, they’re against it.”