Biden's terrible, no-good night.
Biden failed to effectively advocate for himself and democracy. But Trump buried us in a torrent of lies.
The Resistant Grandmother
Ed. note: The Resistant Grandmother (TRG) took about a month off, visiting my son, daughter-in-law, and two grandchildren. Then, attending to some business affairs. I also set up my yard for summer and read a novel. Yes, this Literature teacher has not read a work of fiction for more than five years due to the belief I needed to pay more attention to the non-fiction of American politics. For obvious reasons. As of 2020, this country has been living on a knife’s edge between preserving democracy or ceding it to the dark authoritarian forces of Donald Trump. The race has been close, but inching up in Biden’s favor, due to Trump’s being found guilty of 34 criminal counts for stealing the 2016 election. There was reason to be optimistic. Until last night. Or is there, still? — trg
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You could sense it right away as Biden walked out to take his place at the podium. His halting gait spelled trouble. We’ve seen it before, of course. But this time it was coupled with a downward-turned head.
And his eyes looked dull – not like they did three months ago at the State of the Union when they shone brightly, revealing a feisty confidence he would rise to the moment and control the room, which he did.
But last night was different. The Joe Biden of March had shrunk to a frail former version of himself. He tried to recall facts, but couldn’t. His soft, raspy utterances did not stand up to Trump’s smug bullying, leaving Trump’s torrent of lies unchallenged by a forceful, effective voice.
As political writer Joe Klein wrote this morning, “he looked like a hospice patient on the way to the bathroom.”
Lyin’ Donald
The look of being on life support was not out of place. Whereas Biden looked sick and feeble, Trump arrived, Man-Tanned, and loaded for bear. Having reportedly not prepared at all for the event, he resorted to unleashing a torrent of well-worn tropes – all lies – he’s been using ever since he left office:
Biden, not a grand jury of ordinary citizens, indicted him
Everybody, even Democrats, wanted Roe overturned
Democrats want babies killed after birth
Every legal scholar wanted Roe to be overturned
NATO was going out of business until he took office
Illegal immigrants are from asylums or prisons, etc., etc.
All lies.
Ramblin’ Joe
But Biden didn’t counter forcefully enough with the truth. When responding to the lie about abortions in the third trimester, Biden rambled:
“First time is between a woman and a doctor. Second time is between a doctor and an extreme situation, A third time is between the doctor – I mean, between the woman and the state.”
One lie after another on topics that are the bread and butter for Democrats in this election – women’s reproductive care, protection of democracy, support for Ukraine, his good job rebuilding the economy after Trump’s rich-people-friendly stewardship — needed a forceful advocate, but didn’t find one.
Responding to Trump’s lie that Democrats want a policy that allows abortions up to the end of the third trimester, Biden rambled:
“First time is between a woman and a doctor. Second time is between a doctor and an extreme situation. A third time is between the doctor – I mean, between the woman the state.”
He even ended his answer by bringing up the news story of the killing of a young woman by an undocumented immigrant. Why? Without that add-on, his answer could have passed for one of his stronger, albeit imperfect, answers on women’s reproductive freedoms. Instead, the president opened the door for Trump to let loose with another lying remark on his favorite topic of immigration, where Democrats are unfairly perceived to be less strong than Republicans. But even after Democrats this year proposed new, bi-partisan, historically strict laws on immigration that Trump scuttled, Biden’s attempt to explain all that and use it against Trump got lost in the mush.
Biden muddled another key issue Trump is disastrous on – Ukraine – where a convoluted syntax, inartful repetition, and misplacement of “Trump” for “Putin” ruined what could have been a strong answer:
Biden: “We found ourselves in a situation where, if you take a look at what Trump did in Ukraine, he’s – this guy told Ukraine – told Trump, do whatever you want and do whatever you want.”
Who’s calling who a “salesman?”
This encouraged Trump to dump on Ukraine, calling President Volodymyr Zelensky a “salesman,” and berating the U.S. for “spending money” on Ukrainians’ fight to repel a Putin takeover of a fledgling democracy fighting for its life.
Trump’s lies, unchallenged by Tapper and Bash, who gallingly said “thank you” after each Trump falsehood, was described by the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank as a “90-minute disinfomercial promoting the former president, who uttered one egregious fabrication after another, with barely a pause for breath between his inventions. The truth never had a chance.”
CNN – Robotic non defenders of facts
The sterile presentation of questions by Bash and Tapper can also be explained by their head-scratching choice of a lead-off query. You’d think that the first presidential candidate in history who staged an insurrection and has been found by juries of his peers to be a convicted felon and guilty of sexual misconduct would be asked about those failings right off the top. Instead, questions from the CNN anchors to Trump on the insurrection or his conviction(s) didn't come up until 45 minutes into the debate.
Blind, bland journalism
CNN’s first question was about the economy, and Trump’s answers brazenly twisted Biden’s accomplishments into Trump’s and vice versa. These include Trump “oversaw the best economy of any president,” got lower unemployment figures, had the “most perfect economy” before he left office. Trump also contended that he, not Biden, reduced insulin prices. All lies and actual inversions of Biden’s record by dishonestly grafting it onto Trump’s.
When Bash and Tapper asked questions, they robotically showed no emotion or even curiosity to dig deeper, with nary the arch of an eyebrow or shake of a head in reaction to Trump’s deceptions. CNN’s saving fact-checking for post-debate coverage allowed Trump’s lies to spew forth in prime-time as easy as you please.
Campaign team slip-ups
As bad as CNN was, I also place much of the blame on Biden’s campaign team. For starters, why did they allow Biden to go out on stage with a raspy voice that proved to be barely audible throughout the proceedings? Tea with lemon and honey has always worked to soothe a sore throat in my experience.
And if he really did have a bad cold, he also might have said so. Something like: “My overseas travels were important and rewarding in celebrating democracy. But the changing time zones seemed to make me more vulnerable to catching a cold. If my voice is a little softer and raspier than usual, you’ll know why,” sort of thing.
The “guy from Queens out on bail” – not all that popular
While immediate reactions to the debate have conjured a whirlwind of questions for the Democratic establishment – “Can Biden survive?” “Should he step down?” “What if he doesn’t?” “Who could best replace him?” etc. – they’ve also inspired Biden defenders to urge taking things slowly for the next few days to see how things fare with regular folks.
One form of audience reaction during MSNBC’s post-debate analysis was a focus group of Independent voters in Arizona’s Maricopa County, encompassing Phoenix.
Selected because they had favored neither Biden nor Trump, after the debate the group actually came down harder on Trump than Biden, recognizing Trump’s penchant for chaos and lies versus Biden’s proven accomplishments. Trump revulsed them, they said, adding comments of the “We can’t stand another four years of this” kind.
Could voters’ disgust with Trump’s lies provide a fulcrum to launch another Democratic standard bearer to victory in just four months’ time? Or for Biden in the last four months of the campaign? That would require Biden somehow to repair his image as other incumbent presidents have done after a disastrous first debate. Could that happen between now and Nov. 5?
Stuart Stevens throws shade on doubters
Former Republican operative Stuart Stevens and a founding member of the Lincoln Project, brought some killer “Old GOP” attitude to the question of whether Biden should stay or go. In a throwback to his former party’s ability to find ways to win when there were none to start out with, Stevens reminds Democrats not to bash their own candidate, especially when his opponent is far, far worse. He said:
“Nothing is going to change the fact that a guy from Queens who’s out on bail bragging about overturning Roe v. Wade, who is saying to the public he really didn’t have sex with a porn star, wants to cut taxes more for billionaires and who thinks America is a terrible country, the worst country in the world. That guy is not going to be President of the United States.”
It’s comments like these that could give a President with a halting gait a spring in his step.
– trg
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