I see that the editors of the Wall Street Journal reacted to last night’s “presidential” “debate” much as I did:
No one expected a Lincoln-Douglas debate, but did it have to be a World Wrestling Entertainment bout? Which may be unfair to the wrestlers, who are more presidential than either Donald Trump or Joe Biden sounded in their first debate Tuesday night.
The event was a spectacle of insults, interruptions, endless cross-talk, exaggerations and flat-out lies even by the lying standards of current U.S. politics. Our guess is that millions of Americans turned away after 30 minutes, and we would have turned away too if we didn’t do this for a living.
Anyone who believed that a Biden presidency would bring a “return to normalcy” should certainly be disabused of that notion. We can’t go home again. On the flip side of the coin, do we really want four more years of this?
I have been trying to determine whether my response were atypical and, in some senses, it was. The pundit reaction to the so-called debate has been overwhelmingly negative, most proclaiming Biden the winner if winning such a debacle is possible. The quick takes of C-SPAN and Telemundo viewers must be inducing some scrambling in the Biden campaign. Both overwhelmingly proclaimed Trump the winner.
IMO the only winners were those who chose to turn off the television or watch something else.
My reaction is that the “debate” was the predictable outcome of abandoning linearity, logic, reason, and facts in favor of agonistic declamations—those are features of a literate society. We are now a visual society and we can’t return to the cool, dispassionate rationality of the past.
Return to normalcy? Trump was called a Russian stooge from day one. Falsely. Clinton has claimed a fraudulent election since she lost. Adam Schiff? Seriously? Let’s not lose sight of the utter nonsense that has been driving this vitriol for 4 years.
In any event, as always, if we can get past the theatrics I think most people are missing the most important point of the night. Biden threw the Bernie/AOC bros overboard. There must have been some calculus that the time was right. The real question is what effect it will have on his bizzarro left support.
Since I didn’t watch, I thought a transcript might be useful. This one seems pretty good:
https://waitbutwhy.com/2020/09/debate2020.html
Drew, I don’t think Biden meant to throw water on the progressive platform. Rather, he was put into a corner where he was pushed to be decisive in trying to pander to a more moderate constituency.
How could Biden possibly have stuck to his guns, saying he was on board with stacking the judiciary, bankrupting the US by the Green New Deal, adding states, taking away the filibuster, putting everyone under a Medicare for all plan….people would have trampled each other fleeing the Dem party had he chosen to be that honest!
Best line I have seen today. Concerning BLM, but applicable to Antifa:
“They are experts at unraveling an old order but considerably less skilled at building a new one. That’s why, even after more than 100 days of protest in Portland, activists do not agree on a set of common policy goals.”
This is always the case. And which is why it should have been easy for Biden to disavow for months now.
Jan –
You may be right. I have read commentary that this was an explicit objective of Trump in the debate.
That’s true of every revolution. It’s why after the Bolshevik Revolution and the dust had cleared so many of the people running the new Soviet government had been bureaucrats in the Tsar’s government. Building a new order is hard.
That’s exactly right, Dave. The rabid criticism is just a mechanism to achieve power.
So what did Biden say that really is responsive to the issues of the day? “I promise to talk to smart people and do the right thing?”
Oh, OK. Excellent, that sounds like a plan.
Agree or disagree with him, Trump has pursued the policies he said he would. Biden cannot or will not articulate policies, and anyone who believes what he says believes in the tooth fairy. See: Green New Deal.
Biden is nothing more than a walking, talking empty shell of a man, with few genuine policy accomplishments, mostly acting as a conduit for family members to undeservingly enrich themselves. Last night alone 33 pieces of misinformation or lies were attributed to his 90 minute performance.
“Last night alone 33 pieces of misinformation or lies were attributed to his 90 minute performance.”
I read over those for fun. A lot of lies and misinformation in the claims that he was lying. But you know, the beauty of Trump is that almost any sin you want to throw at his opponent, Trump is worse. Trump lies about everything all of the time. Easily documented. He wants to claim Joe has been committing nepotism. Trump is already way ahead on that score. Corrupt? Trump wins again, and lets give him credit, he is better at ti. Long family history of practice gives him an advantage.
“They are experts at unraveling an old order but considerably less skilled at building a new one.”
Many are self proclaimed anarchists so I hope that this was not a surprise.
” Biden threw the Bernie/AOC bros overboard.”
Pretty much being true to what he has always been. In primaries people lean to the extremes to win, then move back to the middle for the general. Very old tactic, but in this case that has been where Biden has lived for his career. But dont you guys worry. We will still make sure AOC gets mentioned every now and then just to trigger you all.
Steve
Steve
Trump blusters and generously uses hyperbole. Biden simply lies, saying one thing while the exact opposite is true – a few examples being: the debunked Charlottesville slur Biden introduced his campaign with; taking credit for manufacturing that was actually off-shored during the Obama Administration; even the NYT stamped his assertion of handing over a great economy to Trump as false; saying Hunter’s lucrative money-making ventures were not true; saying he didn’t back the Green New Deal when it’s in the dem platform and he then said the “the GND would pay for itself.†Biden is a BIG liar, while DJT deals more in exaggerated claims and back-slapping.