America is in pain.
The presidential debate
offered no help
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Nearly all of the evening’s chaos can be blamed, of course, on President Donald Trump, who spent the evening lying and misrepresenting his own record, his opponent’s record, President Obama’s record, Hillary Clinton’s record, the records of several Senate and congressional Democrats, and the state of fires, crime, economic activity, coronavirus infection rates, and ballot distribution in various states and regions. He claimed, wrongly, that Joe Biden supports “socialist medicine”. He claimed, wrongly, that Joe Biden supports a Green New Deal. He claimed, wrongly, that Joe Biden opposes the police. And he claimed, wrongly, that Joe Biden had the power to limit the coronavirus outbreak during his time as a senator, vice-president and presidential candidate.
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When he wasn’t lying, Trump was speaking over his time, whining at the moderator, and undermining the election. At one point, asked to disavow white supremacists, he instead spoke directly to the racist group known as the Proud Boys, telling them to “stand by”. At another point, he requested that his supporters deploy themselves to “watch” the voting in progress. It was hard not to interpret these comments as threats to incite his supporters to racist violence if the election does not go his way. And Trump seems convinced that it won’t. His closing remarks were dedicated to insisting that the election would be illegitimate if he lost. “This is going to be a fraud like you’ve never seen,” he said. “This is a rigged election.”
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Debating Donald Trump is like debating a chimpanzee: he is less likely to deliver a thoughtful and substantive answer than he is to throw his own feces at you.
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It was difficult for the former vice-president to make clear and complete statements to the audience in the midst of Trump’s onslaughts, a reality he tried to confront head-on. “It’s hard to get anything in with this clown,” he said. Biden called Trump a clown several times and was frank in his exasperation and contempt, often looking directly at the camera and addressing his frustrations not to Trump or the moderator, but to the viewers at home. “Folks, do you have any idea what this clown is doing?” he asked the audience. At other times, he was dismissive of Trump. “Will you shut up, man?” he asked.
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What was the point of tonight’s debate? The circus of vanity, lies and hostility certainly didn’t reveal anything new about the candidates, and it would be laughable to suggest that the exchange was productive to the democratic process...Tuesday’s debate was a new nadir of national embarrassment...