Remember: coming into this, Biden supporters said Trump is a lying ignorant bully, who supports white supremacists. He confirmed their story. Trump supporters said Biden is senile and suffering from dementia. He clearly isn’t. Everything else is peripheral. Paul Krugman @paulkrugman Nobel laureate. Op-Ed columnist, @nytopinion. Author, “The Return of Depression Economics,” “The Great Unraveling,” “Arguing With Zombies,” + more. New York City nytimes.com/column
Who was more truthful in his answers? Biden 65% (+36) Trump 29% @CNN, Among Debate Watchers #Debates2020
Radical Left Democrats are going CRAZY! Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump 45th President of the United States of America Washington, DC Instagram.com/realDonaldTrump
Watching the debate, my first reaction was that Trump was winning by beating up on Biden and that Biden had to just get in Trump’s face and stop the carnage by taking control, by saying something like “Shut the fuck up, let me talk when it is my turn and I’ll let you talk when it is your turn”. He had to take Trump on, he had to take command of the room. My reaction was visceral, so visceral that I got up and started pacing back and forth. I seriously considered turning off the TV.
All week I’ve wondered how Joe Biden would take on President Trump. I never wondered how Trump would take on Biden – well, not never, but not very much, although I vaguely expected him to try to rattle Biden enough to him to stutter or stumble I didn’t think of how he would try to do that – so I was rocked back by Trump’s right out of the gate full frontal attacks. Trump’s good at it, – at them – he is a natural gutter fighter, always going for the kill, and Biden isn’t; that Biden stayed coolish and almost civil, except for the few times he struck out like a cornered small dog, bothered me.
As an aside, Biden seems like he believes in government, he believes in being deferential and civil to his superiors, he believes in saluting the uniform, and it must have been excruciatingly hard for former Vice-President Biden to call the sitting President of the United States, “A clown.” End aside.
I felt dismay and anger. I felt Biden was losing. Now, thinking about the debate rather than just blindly reacting to it, and hearing and reading comments from other people , I am feeling much more sanguine. I hope and think that my first reaction was wrong. I hope my first reaction was wrong because it is those white, alpha-dog, male reactions that got us here in the first place. Like almost all of my fellow white guys, I grew up in a binary bubble thinking it was the whole world and I can still feel the undertow of my paternal, European, reactions; the pull of my ingrained European standards and beliefs. The deep down, knee-jerk, core beliefs that the alpha beta hierarchical structure, with the alpha male at the top, is somehow only natural and as it should be. This is the belief structure that has formed today’s world. This complex of beliefs have made our world a physical Eden, and they are now destroying the planet.
I think I was wrong because a big hunk of those beliefs are based on the alpha dog gets the bone so, the fact that Trump’s bullying of Biden did not work to Trump’s advantage, is hope for us all. To me it says that we, as a species, are growing past that behavior. Don’t get me wrong, we still have the ability to wipe out our species; quickly with nuclear weapons or slowly because of our addition to fossil fuels. That we have to change to survive seems self-evident but there are lots of people that admire Donald Trump and change is not going to come easily. Still, that most voters seem to be coming to the conclusion that the kind of cooperation that Biden espouses is better than the politics of anger, hate, and discord, makes me hopeful.
Hey Steve. This is why I love you. You can both recognize and call out the white make privilege that is built in to the structure of our world. Interesting that I felt as if I had been emotionally and even physically abused.
Hi Karen, I can understand why you felt abused, there have always been guys like Trump abusing people, yelling over everybody in the room. Trump has been practicing this for years.
Interesting indeed from a woman’s perspective. I am a woman in my late 70s and I thought Biden was the clear winner. He spoke directly to the voter while Trump couldn’t get his focus away from Biden. I am the suburban woman who will help swing this election ( God willing and the crick don’t rise).
Paula, you are not a typical suburban woman but I take it that Trump didn’t impress you with his Law and Order pitch.
I too am a suburban woman and I couldn’t agree more. I think his view of us is seriously outdated. My very suburban neighborhood is wonderfully diverse and hopefully we will turn the tide.
My first thought was that we are a lily-white suburb because there are not many black people here but greater Silicon Valley is about 25% Hispanic, 33% European, and 35% Asian. We went over 75% for Hillary.