I feel much dumber and less informed for having watched the complete shit show that was the first Presidential debate. The entire program was simply Trump telling outrageous and obvious lies and Biden trying vainly to stem the sewage flow coming from Trump’s smirking maw.
CNN’s decision not to fact-check Trump (and Biden) during the debate has been proven to be a stupid and foundational mistake. It enabled Trump to simply build a castle of bullshit and fly his freak flag from the bastions. I don’t think I can identify a single thing that came out of his mouth that wasn’t a lie, a denial of simple facts, or a distortion.
Biden valiantly attempted to unclog Trump’s toilet full of lies, but he had no real chance to clear the lines of communication with the American people about the real state of the nation, nor to make any room to lay out his vision for his second term. If CNN had fact-checked Trump to any degree, it would have freed Biden to actually make his plans and accomplishments more clear, instead of spending all his time waiving away Trump’s stench.
Trump’s relentless lies underline one of the greatest weaknesses of democracy in the context of our current media environment: the fascist right has created an alternative reality for their partisans in which reality simply does not intrude. Anyone with a modicum of awareness of the real state of the world and this nation could clearly see that nothing Trump said during the entire debate corresponded to reality, but to those watching who have only been exposed to the reality conveyed by the Trumpiverse of media, Trump’s performance was undoubtedly a fashy triumph.
Biden did no favors for himself by often seeming distracted or forgetful. If Team Biden has a super secret formula to make Biden a firebrand of rhetoric, firing on every cylinder, they failed to administer a sufficient dose. Biden was clearly fed up with the lies and unreality of Trump, but without support from the rest of the reality-based community in damming Trump’s river of shit, it was all he could do to simply keep his head above the surface and do his best to convey a cohertent message. The result was that the two principals seemed to be talking past each other, not really debating.
You can’t have a debate if there is no body of accepted facts. The result here was an exercise in futility, and repeating it will do nobody any favors other than Trump – who will get yet another chance to indoctrinate more innocent Americans into his alternate lie-based reality.
If Biden does agree to participate in another debate, he should bring a sign that simply says ‘MALARKEY’ that he holds up whenever Trump is talking, and then completely ignore everything Trump says and focus on conveying his vision for a second term. The moderators certainly gave their best try at keeping Trump on topic and confined to reality, but they are only human after all.
What a complete waste of everyone’s time.
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The debate was over hyped. Biden was supposed to come on like some kind of superhero, put evil Trump
in his place, and do this all by himself with no fact checking from moderators. Biden promoted these expectations, taunting Trump with “Make My Day” and so forth.
Trump saw the opportunity. No fact checking? He spent 90 minutes spewing his Klan rally lies and propaganda. Of course he was comfortable and at ease with this presentation of himself. He could do this in his sleep and probably does.
It’s bad for Biden and the Democrats that the debate was hyped as some kind of historic event that would prove that Biden is sharp as a tack at 81 and fit to serve until he’s 86.
Trump at 78 wasn’t expected to prove anything except that he could stand up for 90 minutes and deliver his Klan rally trash talk. And that’s what he did.
I don’t think either of them won the night. If anything more Americans are distressed about their choices. But the Democrats, hoping for a boost to Biden’s campaign instead have a much harder row to hoe.
Don’t throw in the towel, let’s have the second debate. Biden needs to stipulate real time fact checking by the moderators. Or he won’t participate. And make the POS draft dodging coward answer the questions.
More will be paying attention in a September debate. Keep in mind Biden didn’t do too well with the first debate in ’20. Meantime refute the lies in ads.
Look on the bright side. Maybe the Judge in New York will have put Trump in jail by then.