Yesterday I suggested you should watch the WHOLE debate... and not take someone else's word for it. I take that back.
After the twenty minute mark, it was no longer a debate. One newscaster later called it a "circus"...until the circus people called in and demanded that he apologize. Others called it a train wreck, which offended railroad buffs. A pundit on one cable network called it a s**t show. If pigs could talk, they would protest that s**t shows are more fun. And if pigs could fly... well... it would be no less jaw dropping than what we saw last night.
The debate started off normal enough. The moderator (Chris Wallace) asked a question about the Supreme Court. (Each candidate was to have two uninterrupted minutes to answer the question, then a "free" conversation could take place between the two of them.) President Trump gave a very sensible answer to the question, and he was not interrupted. And then former Vice President Biden gave his opinion. Biden was a little flat and shaky and unsure, and Trump did not interrupt him. It was a hard two minutes for Biden supporters to watch.
For the next six minutes there was the usual tussle... both candidates getting quarrelsome and sort of talking over each other.
And then the whole debate thing dissolved at the ten minute mark. Donald Trump went after the moderator. He interrupted Wallace's question. It got so bad between the two of them that Wallace said, "Mr. President, I'm the moderator of this debate and I'd like you to let me ask my question." After Wallace finally got his question out, Trump said, "Well, first of all, I guess I'm debating you, not him..."
As a tactic, Trump effectively took over the role of "moderator" at that point. Wallace was toast for the next 80 minutes. It was a smart move on Donald Trump's part. But that would be the last smart move he made during the evening.
Because Biden was off to a slow and painful start, Trump needed to bait him and then give him enough rope to hang himself. But the president had no self-control. He interrupted both Biden and Wallace repeatedly. He blatantly violated the debates rules. He tried to goad Biden into losing his cool, but in the process lost his own cool. We might have discovered that Joe Biden can't think and speak at the same time... but Trump never let us make that discovery. He was in his bully mode, and we couldn't take our eyes off him long enough to learn anything new about Joe Biden.
As for Joe Biden, he had 90 minutes to recover, and he did, somewhat... sort of. Trump is a master at putting his opponents on defense. Like all bullies, he imposes his rules on a situation. Many of his supporters don't like the fact that he is a bully... but he is their bully, and uses his strong-arm tactics to get them what they want (like Supreme Court justices). And when you are the object of that bullying, your options are limited. Biden needed to 1) avoid acting like a bully himself, 2) avoid acting like a wimp, and 3) find some way to get people's eyes off Trump long enough to show us something laudable and desirable about his own self.
If you were Biden, what would you do?
He wasn't pitch perfect. But he also didn't fold or fail. With the debate commission rules quickly invalidated by Trump, and Trump's new rules being something akin to "heads... I win... tails ... you lose," Biden had to conjure some rules of his own to get through the event. It used to be a rule to never tell the president of the United States "will you shut-up!" But Biden threw that rule out the window. And polite people do not call each other "racists." But Biden tossed that one also. Of course, we never thought we would need a rule for when the President of the United States says, "Proud Boys," (a violent, white-supremist hate group), "Stand down and stand by." The phrase means, take a break, but get ready for action. We also never thought we'd need a rule for when the President of the United States ridicules a drug addiction that his opponent's child has battled.
Biden's most effective moments were when he looked at the camera and spoke to viewers directly. But even then he only got a few seconds in before Trump interrupted. Biden wasn't great. But then, nobody can come up with anything much different he could have done in the circumstances.
It was not a debate. We heard no well-reasoned arguments. It was not even an immature quarrel between childish contestants. It was a slasher scene. It was an 80 minute brawl without any commercials. Even the worst Hollywood movie knows to mix in a little something different for the viewer.
As an American, the spectacle last night embarrassed me. Instead of showcasing democracy and vigorous debate of important issues, it simply aired our dirtiest laundry to the world. As a journalist from Kenya observed: "This debate would be sheer comedy if it wasn't such a pitiful and tragic advertisement for U.S. dysfunction."
