All and all I was generally quite pleased with the debate on Thursday. It was certainly more coherent; as much as I appreciate Trump’s bulldozer-like debate style, I was glad to see that he took the criticism of that first debate to heart. And it seems to be showing in these little focus groups, for what that’s worth at this point.
A lot of people were worried that the mic-muting protocol that was installed into the debate by the commission would be used to muzzle Trump and give Biden an undue advantage; but I think it really had the opposite effect. The first thing you have to consider is that, if there had been salient footage of Trump’s mouth moving but no sound coming out, Trump’s supporters – and even those coveted undecided voters – would have made that the talking point of the rest of the month. The commission’s been under enough pressure since canceling the second debate and being accused of bias that I don’t think they’d want to risk that level of one-sidedness. I think the muting was well applied, you actually see it stop Biden before Trump.
The other thing is that, in the first debate, it was actually the constant back and forth that kept Biden from fucking up and slurring his words like a drunken, stammering, undergrad. Left to his own devises, with nobody stepping in to correct his course or take jabs, Biden did – at least three times by my count – break down into incoherent mumbling. And what was even worse for Biden, he seemed to forget what answers he was supposed to give when asked about the energy sector; as he stated that he would phase out oil completely – apparently as unaware as the far left that damn near everything under the sun uses petroleum in it’s manufacturing process. The absolute best part of the night, by a fucking mile, was when the moderator, Kristen Welker – who actually did a decent job in my opinion – went, “Why would you do that?” Like she was channeling the collective eyerolls and facepalms of Biden’s handlers. It was glorious.
It’s a shame we didn’t get all three debates, and it’s a shame we won’t be getting any more. It was some fine entertainment, and illustrated a very stark contrast between the two forces at work. Make no mistake, this election goes beyond the traditional Liberal verses Conservative dichotomy; we are currently spinning on a different axis. I’m going out on the third for Trump and I don’t care who knows it. I hope you’re all ready to do the same – in person, of course.
Arabic
French
Spanish
Portuguese
Deutsch
Turkish
Dutch
Italiano
Russian
Romaian
Portuguese (Brazil)
Greek