He Makes Everything a Train Wreck
Biden and Trump, the New Odd Couple
Good lord, that was a train wreck.
Seriously, what did we just watch?
Over at CNN, Jape Tapper called it “Horrific.” Co-anchor Dana Bash went one better: “You used some high-minded language — I’m going to say it like it is: that was a shit show.”
Shit show. Dana for the win.
Chris Wallace struggled hard to maintain control, but no one can control Trump. He was spewing nonsense on his time, on Biden’s time, talking over Wallace and at times, even interrupting himself.
Insanity. It was supposed to be 90, but it felt like hours. Trump was all over the map, rarely answering the actual question, insulting, lying, arguing, constantly interrupting. Just being an asshole, just being Trump. He was treating the whole thing as a monologue, as if it was a Trump rally.
And when was the last time you saw a moderator tell a sitting president to shut up? We did tonight, several times. Poor Chris Wallace, poor audience. And when Trump was finally, briefly, quiet, he sneered and pouted unable to keep still.
As usual, Joe Biden was, mostly, his calm and affable self. Trump was a bully, verbally shoving and pushing. Even Joe blew up a couple times. Telling Trump to ‘shut up” told him “You’re the worst president America has ever had. Come on!”and criticized his comments calling soldiers ‘suckers’, with Biden’s voice rising in anger, telling Trump that his deceased son who served in Iraq was not a ‘sucker’.
So, did we learn anything?
Well, Biden did fine, and will do fine. He stood up under the Trump blizzard of lies about as well as you can, the verbal vomit coming fast. He wasn’t thrown off too much. Trump is desperate to get attention and has a list of far right-wing conspiracy talking points that he got in regardless of what the actual question was. Biden tried to stick pretty much to the question and get through the constant interruptions.
Some key moments?
To me, the key moments came towards the end, when Wallace asks both candidates about mail in ballots. Trump went off on his usual slurs and lies about the process, claiming non-existent fraud, and ended with “not going to end well.” It sounded like a threat. When asked if both candidates would pledge to call for peace from their supporters while the counting was going on, and to support the result once the votes were counted. Biden said, outright, of course he would. Trump?
Trump said he would send his supporters to the polls, to ‘watch the polls’ because of ‘fraud’. And he refused to answer the second part, about respecting the results. He said he might have to go to the courts, to the Supreme Court to ‘have the look at the ballots’. So, flood the polls with ‘watchers’ and try to get it in front of the Court where three of the Justices owe their seat to him. Of course that’s what he wants to do. Of course.
Tried to this is the other moment of the night, when Wallace asked Trump to denounce his violent supporters, the white nationalists and ‘militias’ that show up armed to protests. Both Wallace and Biden pressed him, and he hemmed and hawed, and said violence is “not a right-wing problem” and then finally, “Who, who? Give me a name”
Both Wallace and Biden suggested the ‘Proud Boys’, a white nationalist group that often threatens, and does, violence. “Sure, Proud Boys, stand down and stand by.”
“Stand down and stand by” is not a condemnation. It’s telling armed thugs to ‘wait’. Maybe go to those polling places, with your guns. You know, to ‘watch’ and make sure everything is ‘fair’. Trump kind of ‘fair’.
Trump is dangerous, Trump is trying not to win an election, he knows he can’t, but he’s letting people know how he will try to steal it, and how they can help him do it. The Proud Boys erupted on Twitter at Trump’s ‘shout out’.
Biden won the night, but it wasn’t much of a night. He showed the world a contrast of decency versus angry bullying, clear competency versus incompetency, planning versus no plan. And I hope that will be enough
Dana Bash was right, total ‘shit show’.
Let’s go vote.