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Trump-Biden Debate Wrap-Up
President Donald Trump faced former Vice President Joe Biden for the first presidential debate Tuesday night in Cleveland. It was a televised headache.
In theory, Chris Wallace was the moderator but immediately proved ineffective at controlling the two septuagenarians bickering for the next 96 minutes. By the end, it felt like the debate was between Trump and a Wallace/Biden tag team.
Trump came out swinging, peppering Biden with interruptions and real-time fact checks. He criticized the Democrat’s 47 years in Washington and pointed out how little he accomplished during that half century.
Biden lost his cool several times, telling Trump “Will you shut up, man?” oddly followed with “Keep yappin’, man.” He called the President a racist, a clown, a liar, and the worst president in US history. He directed most of his remarks into the camera, while Trump faced Biden throughout.
Overall, the Democrat held up well during the break-free debate, making minimal gaffes and keeping a level energy throughout. The Trump team lowered expectations so much that it ended up helping him. The President, however, was definitely the most energetic man on stage.
This is where I’d usually discuss the policies discussed but this brawl was far more UFC than Oxford Union. I offer sincere prayers for the transcriptionists trying to document this thing. It was an hour and a half of crosstalk.
Biden refused to answer whether he supported packing the courts, claimed his Biden-Sanders Manifesto didn’t exist, at one time criticized lockdowns then later supported them.
Trump pressed Biden on the lawlessness raging through Democratic-led cities, Hunter Biden’s sweetheart deals with shady foreign potentates, and the dangers of mass mail-in voting.
Wallace and Biden hit Trump hard on COVID, climate change, and critical race theory (which Wallace deceptively cast as mere “sensitivity training”). The “moderator” seemed balanced at first; by the end, he and Biden were shaking their heads and laughing with each other at Trump’s aggressive approach.
The New York Times headline says it all: “Chris Wallace Tries to Rein In an Unruly Trump at First Debate.” It is not the job of a moderator to “rein in” either side. The fact that a Fox News host ran interference for the Democrat does not bode well for bias at the next two debates.
The next debates are scheduled for Oct. 15 and Oct. 22. Vice President Mike Pence and Sen. Kamala Harris will meet on Oct. 7.
Published in Elections, General
A majority of the popular vote sure would be nice! Although maybe it would be better to have a popular-vote win after places like PRC (People’s Republic of California) and a few other loony states have their “national popular vote compact.” Then we can watch the fireworks as all of PRC’s electoral votes go for the Republican in 2024!
Tim,
You are so right. I think everyone should just turn the other cheek while BLM/Antifa burns the whole country to the ground. What a wonderful idea. Not!!!
Tim, just what are you smoking. Aside from the absurdity of what you just said, it actually is still false anyway. The proud boys weren’t starting the violence. They really were just marching. In fact, they had a permit to march which the idiots of Antifa never do. If Antifa had left them alone all would have been fine. It was Antifa that needed to turn the other cheek.
Antifa is a criminal gang, not a political organization. Nothing they do resembles a legal protest. They are professional rioters.
Regards,
Jim
JamesL,
An animating spirit that caused 2 billion dollars in property damage, injured hundreds and killed more than a handful. Professional rioters organized and paid for. Soon we will find out by who.
Oh, did I mention that George Floyd died of a heart attack induced by a self-administered overdose of fentanyl? The cops were trying to get him into an ambulance. The immobilization hold that Chauvin was using was applied according to police trained procedure and, on video, was applied properly so it wasn’t cutting off his air supply. Floyd was out of his head from the beginning. He was yelling that he couldn’t breathe because he was claustrophobic when he was sitting in the back of the police car by himself.
Antifa, like Biden, is completely full of cr#p.
Regards,
Jim
Because you do not throw pearls at pigs (i.e Antifa and BLM).
Self-defense is a fundamental right, and confronting evil a responsibility.
You know the other really stupid thing that Biden (and his Party) said last night, when the President talked about a vaccine for the WuFlu being available soon, Biden said that he wouldn’t recommend anyone take it because the President is untrustworthy. I mean, it’s not like the President is mixing it up himself in the White House basement.
So dumb. But hey, if they want to wear the anti-vaxxer label, that’s fine with me.
He could be. He could have a secret lab in the basement.
Last night, Trump was himself. He talked the way he tweets. If he hears a lie, he’s not going to stand there and “shut up”, even if his whopping two minutes were up. Biden has been resting up, hiding out and no one has asked him anything. Trump has just spent three and a half years being spied on, impeached, sabotaged, mis-represented and bashed around by the swamp, the media and anyone else who thought Obama walked on water, and Trump is not going to be fake and pretend all is fine.
So this is not going to be a “normal” debate or a normal election. All the questions posed – Obamacare, the environment, race relations, taxes were plated for Biden. He has an answer, vague, but an answer for everything. He’s working class, he’s going to bring jobs, he’s going to do this and that – you mean all the things Obama didn’t do, yet received a Nobel Peace Prize, and Trump has already done? He even stole his platform “Made in America”. He’s a slick politician whose party represents everything I have come to deplore, and I was raised a Democrat.
I reject political violence, whether perpetrated by BLM, Antifa, or the Proud Boys. These groups should be monitored by law enforcement so long as they plan to instigate violent actions and riots. Why can’t Trump, and Biden, agree with this statement? Why do they have to tell us what fringe groups they sympathize with?
So the methods of Ghandi, MLK Jr are nonsense to you?
The Proud Boys, to me, are goading rivals into street fights. Why? How does this achieve their goals?
Why not plan events less likely to attract counter demonstrations?
Both would be soundly rejected by today’s left.
Tim,
Yes, why do they? Because Biden and Wallace brought it up again. A completely false narrative. BTW, again the Proud Boys were outnumbered 4 to 1 and the Proud Boys actually had a permit to march. Antifa attacked. Antifa is the perpetrator of violence. Why can’t you see that and directly condemn this horror which has caused 2 billion dollars in property damage? Why like a princess feeling the pea under twenty mattresses must you search first for something negative to say about the Proud Boys. That is the most irrelevant nonsense I’ve ever heard.
There is only so much time here on earth (I’m not sure where you reside). You don’t get to the most significant point but forever find ways to manipulate trivial facts with no regard to their import. Anyone who demands that Trump waste his breath condemning a barely existent patriotic group while mass mayhem is loosed in multiple American cities by a bunch of Bolsheviks is a cheap political provocateur in league with a perverse political purpose.
You don’t reject political violence. You are just fine with it until somebody punches your cheap leftest thugs back. Then you are against political violence. Pleeeaaaassseee!!!
Regards,
Jim
Regards,
Jim
Because they are Biden’s shock troops. As Biden himself said, the violence will end only when he’s elected. That’s a threat.
It is my opinion that nothing you have said is worthy of serious comment.
I think Ghandi is extremely over-rated (my apologies to the Indians). His method of non-violent submission only worked when dealing with civilized people, for example, the British. If Ghandi and his followers had to do the same thing with Nazi Germany or Imperialist Japan, there would be no Indians left today.
Just before World war II, Ghandi advocated that the Israeli Jews should just offer themselves to the Arabs “to be shot or thrown into the Dead Sea without raising a little finger against them.” This was his strategy for ending the Jewish-Arab fighting. During the war, he similarly suggested that Jews should go willingly to the death camps as their forced suicides will create an unanswerable critique of the Germans. He also advocated British surrender to the Germans. This is just nuts. Thank goodness Winston Churchill didn’t take his advice.
Martin Luther King Jr. took a tremendous and courageous risk in advocating non-violence for his cause. But, like Ghandi, he was dealing with civilized people. The most egregious racists in the South were not civilized, but most of the Southern populace and the Northern populace, were. And when Federal Law Enforcement came down on the Southern offenders, they didn’t use non-violent resistance. They used guns.
The Dalai Lama also advocates non-violent resistance. But as Dennis Prager puts it “He may be peaceful, but he doesn’t have a country anymore.” The Chinese just savagely ate up Tibet.
Tim,
I think you don’t actually carefully read your own links. The Proud Boys obtain a legal permit to march. Then they bring American Flags and march. That’s it! How is that goading anybody into a street fight? No, I think you have a problem following a causal chain of events. As they are legally marching and doing nothing provocative (unless you claim that flying an American Flag is provocative) they aren’t being provocative. Antifa, in their ideological lunacy, attack the Proud Boys without cause. They scream Fascist with a string of curse words and attack. BTW, Antifa does this to about everybody they run into on the street while they are committing arson and looting. No need to be a Proud Boy. They will harass and attack an elderly couple, a senator, or anybody they can. They jump on top of a car desperately trying to just get home. When the poor terrified motorist steps on the gas to get away from these lunatics the idiot who has climbed on the roof slides off and then claims they did it on purpose.
All of this cr#p is on video and so are their sick obscene taunting curses on the audio. Their behavior is relentless reckless endangerment. If you don’t want to see it well goody goody for your willful blindness.
Timmy, please wake up.
Regards,
Jim
Maybe Lassie could save him? Probably nobody else can.
I love this post. Entertainment has elevated these figures to Christ levels and the truth is far more nuanced.
Their methods were only effective due to who they were up against, its not universally applicable.
Edit: I should have read Steven Seward’s response first, he already said it better.
Why wear their dresses too short? I don’t mean that to insult you, but to demonstrate the unreasonableness of giving domestic terrorists a
hecklersrioters veto. The Proud Boys are confrontational to demonstrate that they are not intimidated, that others shouldn’t be, and in some cases to protect others where politicians will not allow the cops to do so.Thank you Steven Seward. These are points I’ve had to make numerous times, always to the shock of my listeners, because they have only imbibed the puff-piece TV movies, never getting the full context and stories of the individuals, especially Ghandi. People will never understand the value and applicability of non-violent resistance, if they don’t know why it worked when it did, and why it is not universally capable of succeeding.
The Dalai Lama’s results are probably a lot more common than Ghandi’s.
As Arte Johnson used to say, “Very interesting!”
Brian,
This is very interesting. It’s a classic Trump phenomenon. All of the high IQ folk are appalled by the Trump/Biden street fight so they get the reaction of the average person wrong. It doesn’t matter whether the high IQ is conservative or leftwing. The average person sees the whole thing differently.
Regards,
Jim
Why not just ask the left for permission to speak. In fact, why not ask them to write the slogans? That will be less likely to attract counter demonstrations.