It Was THAT Bad!

tIt would be safe to say that Joe Biden didn’t take my advice about how to handle the debate.

After Biden’s first response to a question posed by moderators my heart began to sink.
I immediately pivoted in desperation to denial, to thinking that would surely pull himself together. Like the oilman in the Wizard of Oz, he was rusty and a few squirts of The Don’s bravado and lies would certainly wake him up, stir the debate juices. Unfortunately, In this version of the Wizard of Oz, the Tin Man continues to mumble and his ax remains frozen at his side. It was all so sad and so bad.

Here’s an example of his lost cause.

We have a thousand trillionaires in America — I mean, billionaires in America. And what’s happening? They’re in a situation where they, in fact, pay 8.2 percent in taxes. If they just paid 24 percent or 25 percent, either one of those numbers, they’d raised 500 million dollars — billion dollars, I should say — in a 10-year period. We’d be able to wipe out his debt. We’d be able to help make sure that all those things we need to do — child care, elder care, making sure that we continue to strengthen our health care system, making sure that we’re able to make every single, solitary person eligible for what I’ve been able to do with the — with, with, with the Covid. Excuse me, with dealing with everything we have to do with — look, if — we finally beat Medicare.

No matter how many life-jackets The Don threw at him, he couldn’t catch them, he couldn’t stop himself from drowning. And with each garbled, digressive comment, each bewildered look and frozen stare, he became smaller and smaller and The Don, who was lying and aggrandizing at a dizzying pace, became bigger and bigger. It became so out of control that The Don had managed to flip the script and convince viewers to believe that Biden was the worst president ever, that Biden was the true criminal (despite his 34 felony convictions), and that Nancy Pelosi was responsible for the chaos on January 6th.

Even on the subject of abortion he couldn’t get the upper hand. The Don steamrolled him. At one point, he was so dazed and confused The Don shook his head and said: “I don’t have any idea what he said, and I don’t think he does.” That was supposed to be your line! And if it couldn’t get any worse, when The Don praised his golf triumphs, Biden thought that challenging him to a golf game was something worth doing. Oh Joe, say it ain’t so. (What was Dimaggio thing.) Then there was the “I didn’t sleep with a porn star.” How about the “great H20 thing?

So many lost opportunities. Makes you really wonder what the prep strategy was about. It seemed that he had been practicing for the debate like a kid using flashcards to memorize their timetables-a sensible approach if you have to recite them back without your teacher telling you that your answers were wrong, even when they were right.  I don’t know what the debate prep team was doing, but if that’s what their strategy was, they failed miserably. 

Biden was flustered, flummoxed and on the defensive most of the time. Even when he landed a punch it felt weak and  inconsequential. He was like a boxer who is stunned in the first round and tries to stay on his feet by holding on to the ropes praying for the bell to ring and end the round.

You got to give it to The Don. He was able to run roughshod over the questions. and rather than answering them, use his time to track and denigrate Biden. (The moderators should have beheld him more accountable to answering the questions.) It didn’t matter what the question was, the plan for The Don, was to control the narrative and bring up crime, the border and whenever he was on the spot to just lie and deflect. As we well know facts are irrelevant, truth is irrelevant. You can’t argue facts with a sociopathic liar. That should be rule one in debating The Don.

Not to harp too much on what could have been but here are a few:

On abortion: Trump went on about states rights.

Biden: So what you are saying is that in some states it’s ok for women to die and doctors to be imprisoned. Remember when you said that there should be legal consequences for women who get abortion. So let’s be real: You support women dying and jail time. That’s disgusting, barbaric and inhuman.  You don’t give a shit about women. These women and doctors are not criminals are not criminals, you are.

The Don: I didn’t sleep with a porn star.

Biden: You can deny it all you want but you did. Everyone knows that. And from the trial, where you were convicted on 34 felony accounts, your performance with said porn star wasn’t too inspiring. And you did it while Melania was pregnant with Barron. Just like everyone saw you talk about grabbing womens’ private parts on Access Hollywood. Your lack of loyalty to your wife is just like your lack of loyalty to this country. Just about your needs, man. No one else matters but you.  Doesn’t matter who you hurt. YOU ARE A SEXUAL PREDATOR!  Convicted of rape. You are a rapist. Should I say it again? You are a rapist. You owe 83 million dollars to E. Jean Carrol. And look at you over there boiling over ready to say you don’t know her. There are photos of you with her. You are a danger to the women in this country.

And how about The Don’s H2O thing.

What the hell is great H2O? Is that a new product you are selling, like Trump Steaks and the Trump University that scammed people? Do you know what the “H” stands for in H2O, Mr. Science denier? Like let’s have some bleach or animal tranquilizer or how about some ultraviolet light down the throat? Your idiotic and crazy cures for Covid. Because of your incompetence and denial of reality, tens of thousands of Americans unnecessarily died. You should be tried for negligent homicide. Let’s add that to all the other indictments you are going to be convicted for.

You noticed there is not one mention of policy. It’s a full frontal attack on The Don. The strategy was to control the narrative, put The Don on the defensive, which would unhinge him, showing how crazy he is. Once Biden had the upper hand he could calmly state his policies for the future. 

So where do we go from here? The folks surrounding Biden are doubling down on him. They want us to believe that the debate disaster was just a blip. It’s one thing to have a bad debate, it’s another to seem so fragile and out of it that people can’t see you as capable of being president. Let’s face it: Biden is 82. He will be 86 at the end of his presidency. He will almost certainly deteriorate further. That’s just science. Seems to me continued support of him is science denial, the very thing we accuse The Don of. Deciding to rally around a damaged, vulnerable candidate and insisting we pledge our allegiance to him is no different than what the Republicans have done with The Don. There is a time to rally the troops and speak with one mind and there are times to face reality and recognize that the stakes are too high to close your eyes and be all in when potential disaster looms. Joe Biden is a good man and has been a terrific president against difficult odds. He has done what he set out to do. As a true true patriot, who is concerned about the threat to democracy that The Don and his cronies represent, he should withdraw. For him to stay on and lose would be devastating to his legacy and our country. 

I understand how frightening the unknown seems and how little time there is to pick a new candidate. I believe a younger energetic candidate who believes in what Biden has stood for would energize the apathy and lead to victory. It would also take all the media attention away from The Don. People are looking for an alternative to The Don. Joe Biden isn’t that alternative. Let’s give the Democrats and the country one. As Biden says all the time: Our very democracy is on the line.

*After writing this, the Supreme Court ruled that the president has total immunity for any actions taken during their time in office. This ruling is so shocking and frightening when you think about The Don’s desire for retribution and revenge. This will be the subject of my next piece. We can not let him win.