About Last Night: Debate Debacle Edition
Trump was who he always is. Joe Biden was a shocking, hard to watch shell of himself on camera. That’s the story of this debate debacle.
Since he announced his presidential run back in 2019, I’ve been wrong about many things when it comes to Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. Ol’ Joe, Sheriff Joe, President Biden, has, for the last 5 years or so, had a knack for delivering when he really had to. Left for dead in his 3rd primary attempt? Big comeback win, as his party looked into the abyss of a Bernie Sanders candidacy and ran, not walked, to the polls to nominate Joe Biden. Sharp enough to debate an incumbent Trump? He malarkey’d his way right through helped by a spastic Trump’s constant interruptions. Questions about his age and fitness in the general election? Yeah, but he’s “not Trump” and that was enough to win. State of the Union? Exceeded expectations. Whenever someone – like me – thinks President Biden might finally have played out the string, Joe figures out, lucks out, or finds a way to keep on keeping on, at least perception wise.
That is why last night’s debate was so jarring, and such an alarm to even the president’s most ardent surrogates and supporters. Joe Biden was incapable of doing it. Incapable of answering questions. Incapable of stringing thoughts together. With a few exceptions, incapable of retorting to the fire hosing of Donald Trump’s replies, redirections, and often ridiculous assertions. The CNN debate with Donald Trump was not just gaffes, not just mistakes, not just low energy, it was PAINFUL to watch. The visceral feel of many folks who themselves have had to, at some point in their lives, deal with someone they know not able to perform and communicate at a basic level, but it being on national TV. Presidential elections are never really about policy anyway; they are almost always decided on the optics of “who do I want to see in the media for the next 4 years more than the other candidate” for most voters.
Sure, as VP Harris and California Governor Newsom spun in the spin room, President Biden said some correct things on policy and had brief moments of being more alert as the debate went on. But that doesn’t overshadow the first few minutes of outright mumbling, hard-to-hear even with the volume up nonwords, and the obvious losing of thoughts, inability to speak, and the sad to watch breakdown as we all knew what Joe Biden knew. The brutal, awful, seemed like it was forever moments as he stopped speaking, looked up, looked down, closed his eyes and tried really hard, then – unable to find whatever it was he was trying to say – blurted out nonsensical things like “Look, we finally beat Medicare.”
Presidential debates are tv shows designed for optics, and the optics of President Biden not being able to answer the bell is something most normal, decent people never want to see on their televisions or devices ever again.
Right about now in an opinion piece is where one is supposed to hedge and remind you, the good readers, of things like there are still 130-some-odd days left before the election, Trump has all sorts of legal issues out there including a sentencing in his New York case coming up in two weeks, a lot can happen, Trump is still Trump, yada yada yada. That’s all true. We are completely off the map in this election on many levels. For the first time in the modern era we have an incumbent against his predecessor. We have a convicted felon as one of the candidates. We have two historically old candidates. We have a direct rematch for the first time in generations.
There are a plethora of unknowns going forward towards November. Here is the core fact of this election: Just being “not Trump” is not enough for Joe Biden to get elected anymore. All the chatter of President Biden’s age and ability now has irrefutable evidence that can’t be excused because of selective editing, out-of-context moments, or the pathetic even if true spin during the debate that went out to the journalist contact lists that “the president has cold.”
Biden catastrophically lost that debate last night. Did Trump win it? Yes, he did by default, but winning debates doesn’t mean much. You can ask Mitt Romney about that. Did Donald Trump help himself last night? That is the better question.
By Trump’s standards, and despite a long list of typical Trump falsehoods that took the fact-checkers full tv segments just to list through, the former president was pretty disciplined. At least by Trumpian standards. Outside of the bizarre golf swing tangent, he stayed on message, stayed to camera, and kept talking about Joe Biden more than talking about himself. Despite the best efforts of Dana Bash and Jake Tapper, he rarely answered the posed questions, but he was exactly what the viewing public expected a slightly reigned-in Donald Trump to be on camera.
And this was an optics contest. Donald Trump was who he always is on camera. Joe Biden was a shocking, hard to watch shell of himself on camera. That’s the entire story of this debate debacle. So bad was the optics that news networks and talking heads started to openly demand a switch of candidate or Biden to step aside, moves that would all but guarantee a fracturing of the Democratic Party that has no clear successor and a win for Donald J. Trump in the process. It would look desperate, because it is desperate, and desperate doesn’t inspire folks. Team Blue has only themselves to blame for that though. The bill for “beat Trump at any cost” just might come due against the very Trump they mortgaged their future for, and expose the weak national bench that necessitated a Biden nomination in the first place.
It’ll be a few days before polls on this debate come out, just in time for Trump’s sentencing to hit and require all new polling again, but I suspect Trump will gain some ground here. That’s not really the problem Joe Biden has though. The problem President Biden’s team might not have an answer for is he is losing ground, and the stupidly labeled “double haters” the politicos are obsessing over are more likely than ever to split ticket vote, leave the top of the ballot blank or go with a protest candidate, or just stay home. This kind of debate between unable to perform Joe Biden and performative cascading lies in Donald Trump might be driving down election participation more than it moves actual support.
Maybe Joe Biden once again proves everyone and especially me wrong. Maybe he has another comeback in him. But every time I see Joe Biden on my screen from now on, I’ll be clenching my teeth not really wanting to watch it, waiting for another moment where you want to reach through the tv and stop the embarrassing display of our president unable to form cognitive sentences. That’s a feeling that goes far beyond politics, that I never want to feel again, never want to see on my screen again, never want Joe Biden the man to go through again, never want to see my president look like to the world again.
And I suspect I am not alone.
My household I was watching it, mostly folks who don't follow politics closely, were appauled by it.
Everything you said is true. I'm a diehard Dem and yet I found myself hitting the mute button over and over because it was just too painful to watch. On a scale of 1-10, it was a zero. I didn't expect perfection, but I was hoping for far better than I saw last night.