There's not much I could add to the assessments already out there about the debate itself. Phrases such as "Americas was the loser" and "Wallace lost control" abound, and I concur.
Following-day takes have made for some good writing, which I always appreciate.
Matthew Walther at The Week was inspired to construct this priceless metaphor:
It was like witnessing an argument about an arcane procedural rule during a senior bingo night at a nursing home in purgatory.
There has been plenty of Trumpists whose lenses through which they viewed the proceedings are so Trump-colored that they sincerely think this was helpful to their cult-leader (or that Chris Wallace somehow kept it from being so). Some, however, have acknowledged what really went down. Michael Goodwin of the New York Post, who is generally a reliable shill for the Very Stable Genius, was forced to acknowledge that the VSG had outdone himself with regard to his signature self-sabotage:
Joe Biden was sharp and coherent enough, though he relied heavily on notes in front of him. He didn’t exactly raise the bar of decorum with his name-calling, alternately labeling President Trump a clown, a liar and a racist. Ho hum.
Yet the bulk of the blame falls on Trump, who came with a clear plan and executed it flawlessly. Unfortunately, it was a very bad plan.
From the get-go, the president was determined to rattle Biden by being a persistent interrupter, rarely letting the former vice president finish two consecutive sentences. On occasion, his interjections were smart, but mostly, they made him look boorish.
If you read my Precipice piece the other day called "Health Care Thoughts," you know that I said that the VSG is useless in this nation's debate about health care, and that he certainly doesn't understand free-market economics and how it could be applied to that subject. Justin Stapley tweeted that point ably:
It's maddening that a moron like Trump is the defender of the conservative position on healthcare. He has no plan, he can't explain his position, and he's not even truly philosophically grounded in what the conservative argument is: free markets and consumer choice.
It's a little after noon in Wednesday as I write. Has the VSG made any attempt to walk back or "clarify" his "stand back and stand by" remark? Not that I've seen. And the Proud Boys are making hay with it big-time:
Outside of the debate, Proud Boys leader Joe Biggs saw Trump’s remarks as permission to “fuck” up the group’s foes.
“Trump basically said to go fuck them up!” Biggs wrote on Parler, an alternative social media network that courts conservatives. “This makes me so happy.”
Other Proud Boys leaders posted on Parler and Telegram, another social network popular with far-right figures banned, that they would follow Trump’s request to “stand down and stand by.”
“I will stand down sir!!!” Proud Boys national chairman Enrique Tarrio wrote on Parler. “Standing by sir. So Proud of my guys right now.”
In an interview with The Daily Beast, Tarrio predicted that “stand back, stand by,” would become a Proud Boys slogan. Earlier Proud Boys mottos have included “The West Is the Best” and “Fuck Around and Find Out,” a warning to the group’s perceived enemies.
“I think this ‘stand back, stand by” thing will be another Proud Boy saying,” Tarrio said.
Real nice.
A taste of the British view:
The Guardian described it as a "national humiliation".
"The rest of the world - and future historians - will presumably look at it and weep," the paper wrote, adding that Mr Biden was the only man who looked "remotely presidential" on the stage and saying that if Mr Trump was re-elected in November, "this dark, horrifying, unwatchable fever dream will surely be the first line of America's obituary."
From France:
"Chaotic, childish, gruelling" - that's how French newspaper Libération described Tuesday's debate. Le Monde agreed, calling it a "terrible storm", and saying that the president had sought to "push his opponent off his hinges" with constant interruptions and by mocking his answers.
From China:
The state-run Global Times called it "the most chaotic presidential debate ever" and noted that Mr Trump had taken "aim at China by blaming [it] for the raging Covid-19 epidemic and US economic woes".
Editor-in-chief Hu Xijin wrote on Twitter that the debate reflected "division, anxiety of US society and the accelerating loss of advantages of the US political system".
From India:
Hindi-language news channel AajTak accused both candidates of "mud-slinging", while broadcaster Times Now said the debate was "marred with personal jibes and political barbs".
But the strongest commentary came from The Times of India, the country's largest-selling English-language newspaper, which compared the debate to "mud-wrestling".
"The US embarrassed itself before the world for 100 minutes," it wrote.
Last night's debacle causes me no anxiety, since my position is that whichever of these two completely unfit candidates wins, this country's downward spiral will continue. I would like to see the Senate remain in Republican hands, just so that there's some kind of check on the leftist agenda of identity politics and redistribution. Not that that agenda won't proceed to get implemented, though, with state and municipal governments, as well as corporations, civic groups and schools - even a lot of churches -doing much of the legwork.
You might ask, well, Mr. LITD, why do you continue to practice the dark art of opinion writing, then?
To give the actual principles an airing. If ever our civilization would give consideration to reversing course, it's going to need the lodestar that made advancement possible the first time.
It's a worthwhile mission, I feel, even though it's quite late in the day.
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