I don’t know what was wrong with Joe Biden. It’s hard to imagine that they ever would have asked for a debate if this was the way he is normally. We’ve seen him recently holding press conferences and giving speeches and he seemed to be fine. They said he had a cold so maybe he really was on drugs — Nyquil or Mucinex or something that made him seem so shaky and frail. Whatever it was, it was a terrible debate for him and if he does stay in the race (which is almost certain in my opinion) the campaign is going to have a lot of work to do to dig out of the hole that was dug last night. The media smells blood and they are circling like a bunch of starved piranhas.
. . . For some odd reason, moderator Jake Tapper told Trump in the beginning that he didn’t need to answer the questions and that he could use the time however he wanted. Trump ran with that, essentially giving a rally speech whenever he had the floor and was unresponsive to the vast majority of the questions. He made faces and insulted Biden to his face, at one point calling him a criminal and a Manchurian candidate. If anyone had said 10 years ago that this would happen at a presidential debate they would have been laughed out of the room.
After the debate when most of the country had turned off cable news or gone to bed, CNN aired its fact check. And it’s a doozy:
It sure would have been good if even some of that epic litany of lies could have been checked while people were still watching. The decision to have the moderators sit like a couple of potted plants woodenly asking questions about child care while Trump responded with irrelevant lies was inexplicable. Why did they even bother to ask questions at all? They could have just run the timer and let the candidates talk for two minutes each about anything they wanted. It probably would have been more enlightening.
The second you say not great, but not bad, it’s over.
The threshold is wanting great, so much the maga asshole made it his slogan. Nobody (collectively) wants “okay”
I want okay. I want a country that doesn’t backslide into fascism. I would be overjoyed by okay.
You are not the vast majority of people. People want killer economy, no unemployment, no inflation (I know these are all incompatible). They don’t want meh.
The problem is Biden’s team has been saying the economy is great, look at all the metrics… but people don’t feel that it’s great for them. It would be helpful for Biden to validate people’s concerns and feelings instead of dismissing them.
The economy is doing well, let’s admit that. But the first question of the debate demonstrated that things are not great. Denying that reality and pretending otherwise is extremely damaging. I don’t want a grandpa who will lie to me to make me feel better, I want a grandpa who will sell it to me straight but help me through what I’m going through.
If Biden could accept and be upfront that people are struggling day-to-day, he may not alienate as many people over to Trump on economic success.