September 30, 2020
by Matthew Rothschild, Executive Director
The debate last night showed the nation, and the world, the kind of President we have: a mean, rude, shameless, childish, bully and boor of a man. He did everything but kick sand in Joe Biden’s face and give him a wedgy.
To say that it was an undignified performance would be the understatement of the century.
Trump is the epitome of a bad role model.
It was so unbecoming for a grown up, much less the President of the United States.
It was such an embarrassment for the country.
And on substance, Trump was downright scary.
First, not only did he not denounce white supremacy after “moderator” Chris Wallace offered him the opportunity to do so, but Trump coddled the white supremacists. He told the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by,” as if they are his private army, his storm troopers. The only thing he called “racist,” actually, was anti-racist sensitivity trainings!
Second, he continued to preemptively discredit the election as “fraudulent.” “This is going to be a fraud like you’ve never seen,” he said, and he repeated that “F” word several times.
Third, he vowed intimidation on Election Day and mayhem after that! In response to a reasonable question from Wallace as to whether he would ask his supporters to remain calm until all the votes are counted and certified, Trump instead said, “I’m urging my supporters to go to the polls and watch” for any fraud. Then he said it “might take months” to find out who the next President is. And he concluded by saying, ominously: “This is not going to end well.”
Biden, for his part, was only and barely OK. The title of the debate could have been “The Old Man and The Snake.” He wasn’t exactly sharp. He wasn’t exactly agile. And he made some mistakes.
He called Trump a “clown” twice, which wasn’t wise because name-calling brought him down to Trump’s level, and for some undecided voters (including one in a CNN focus group) it came off as disrespectful to the office of the President, no matter how disrespectful Trump was.
Biden straight up ducked a question on court packing, which made him look weak.
He couldn’t come up with the name of a single law enforcement group that supported him, even when pressed by Trump.
And late in the debate, he was giving a three-part answer and went straight from number one to number three, which Trump gleefully noted.
For the leftwing of his party, which Biden needs to excite, Biden insisted on clipping their feathers.
On the central demand of the Black Lives Matter movement to “defund the police,” not only did Biden say, “I’m totally against defunding the police,” but he said he wanted to give them more money. And while he acknowledged “systemic racism” in law enforcement, he repeated the myth that there are just some “bad apples” who need to be held accountable, rather than an entire method and culture of policing that needs to uprooted and reimagined.
He also said that he was not in favor of the Green New Deal and not for Medicare for All. And he proclaimed that he was the Democratic Party, which was a bit breathtaking.
But Biden was effective when he talked directly to the American people about the devastation that COVID has brought to so many families. He mentioned “the empty chair” at the dinner table, and the horror that so many have endured when their parents were dying in the hospital and they couldn’t visit them.
He was effective when, on the economy, he asked: “You folks at home: How are you doing?”
He was right on the mark when he said of Trump, “This guy talks down to people … of different faiths and different color.” That came out loud and clear last night.
And, in sharp contrast to Trump, at least Biden acknowledged that he’d accept the results of the election.
That shouldn’t be too much to ask in a democracy.