DEBATE FALLOUT

 

After a mostly sleepless, worrisome night, I awoke to read the analysis of last night's presidential debate with a sense of dread.  No, I wasn't just being a paranoid progressive; Biden's performance really was a disaster.  How bad?  As the podcasters on Crooked Media pointed out in their post debate obituary, there was a moment when Biden, after being served up the issue of abortion, pivoted to the issue of immigration, going from his strongest issue to one of his weakest!   This may rank as the worst presidential debate performance in TV history.  The only upside may be that Trump was still unlikable to most viewers.  But that wasn't enough in 2016 and it probably won't be enough this year.

I should mention that it pains me to dump on Joe Biden.  In terms of policy, I agree with nearly everything he has done as president: he passed an infrastructure bill, the Chips Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act, which did more to fight climate change than anything done by any previous president.  He appointed the first African American woman to the Supreme Court, and put environmental regulations in place that will reduce lead poisoning and air pollution.  And he's supported Ukraine after the horrible Russian invasion.

And he's one of the most likable politicians ever: he's a good husband and father who has stood by his son Hunter despite all of his troubles.  His bromance with Barack Obama when Biden was Vice President produced some really fun political moments.  And the viral clip of him encouraging a young boy with a stutter like he  himself once had is one of the sweetest things you'll ever see.

But as endearing as Biden is, this is no time for sentiment.  Trump poses a truly existential threat to American democracy, with his plans to use the Justice Department to persecute political enemies while deporting millions of undocumented immigrants that would  tear apart families and wreck the economy. Trump must lose, and I can't see Biden beating him.  Not after a debate performance that was often painful to watch.  There comes a time in almost every person's life, if they live long enough, where they must step aside to let someone younger take their place.  That time for Biden is now.  Sorry Joe, you did a great job in your one term, but please step aside for the good of the world.

 

CAN BIDEN SURVIVE THIS DEBATE?

 

The first televised presidential debate took place in 1960 between Richard Nixon and John Kennedy.  People listening to the debate on the radio thought that Nixon did better, but people watching on TV preferred Kennedy.  The reason given was that Nixon refused makeup beforehand and looked pasty on the screen.  And after seeing tonights first debate, it's possible future historians may see  Joe Biden's sore throat as the equivalent of Nixon's lack of makeup. 

I tuned into tonight's debate with cautious optimism: there seemed to be some momentum towards Biden in the past few weeks, with Trump's lead shrinking after he was convicted on 34 felony counts.  But within minutes of the debate starting my heart sank: the sore throat giving Biden a scratchy voice hurt, but even worse were the moments were he seemed to lose his train of thought, which Trump pounced on.

Although Biden did seem to get better as the debate went on,  it didn't make up for his earlier stumbles.  And he seemed to have to no counterpunches to Trump's absurd verbal charges.  He looked, weak, feeble and yes, old.  The one thing he needed to show was that he has enough vigor to get through 4 more years, and he didn't clear that bar.

Trump for his part ran through his usual list of grievances, lies and boasts.  He shrugged off the felony charges and accused Biden of being a felon at one point.  He ducked questions and moved each one to attacks on Biden concerning the border and inflation.  As horrible as he is, he came across as stronger, certainly more energetic, and yes, presidential.  

Now, presidents have recovered from bad debate performances before: Barack Obama clearly lost to Mitt Romney in 2012 in their first debate, but Obama turned it around in later debates.  In 1984 Ronald Reagan clearly lost his train of thought and rambled through a debate, and he too turned it around in later debates and won handily.  But I don't see Biden, in a race as close as this one is, recovering from this disaster.  

Is it too late for Biden to step down?  Technically, no, he doesn't accept the nomination officially until the Democratic National Convention in a few months.  But there's no way for him to pushed out, he has to step down on his own, and his clearly doesn't want to do that.

My hope is that his aides sit him down tomorrow and plainly tell him that he lost, show him the clips from the debate that made him look weak, and say that he has no chance of winning.  Perhaps that will change his mind.  Finding another candidate would be tricky for the Democrats, but this debate was a mess, and Trump, who was already leading, will have the wind on his back after this.  Four more years of Trump is starting to look likely.

THE BIBLE STORY YOU PROBABLY HAVEN'T HEARD

 

Recently the state of Louisiana passed a law requiring that all public school classrooms  post the biblical ten commandments on the wall.  After he signed the law, Governor Jeff Landry said“ If you want to respect the rule of law, you’ve got to start from the original law giver, which was Moses.”  What I find hypocritical here is that conservatives like Landry will use the bible as justification for their actions, and then reject specific passages from that bible when they are confronted with them.  For example, let's take a look at how Moses himself enforced one of those commandments from the King James version of the bible, Numbers chapter 15 verse 32-36: 

 Now while the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man gathering sticks on the Sabbath day. And those who found him gathering sticks brought him to Moses and Aaron, and to all the congregation.  They put him under guard, because it had not been explained what should be done to him.Then the Lord said to Moses, “The man must surely be put to death; all the congregation shall stone him with stones outside the camp.”  So, as the Lord commanded Moses, all the congregation brought him outside the camp and stoned him with stones, and he died.

Yes, that's god working through Moses saying that a man who gathered sticks on the Sabbath should be put to death.  Now, obviously, Landry wouldn't pass a law giving the death penalty to anyone gathering sticks on the wrong day.  But if he's going to use Moses as an example of a righteous law giver, why should he reject the way Moses carried out that law?  If the argument is that times have changed since then, why use Moses as an example at all?  As is so often the case in this country, politicians quote the parts of the bible that they like and ignore the rest, assuming that very few people have actually read the whole thing.  So passages from the book of Leviticus condemning male homosexuality are quoted, and other passages sentencing women found not be to a virgin on their wedding night to death, are not.  

While supporters of the law have shrugged off objections by pointing out that the paper with the commandments in the classroom can't be more than 11 by 14 inches large, and can therefore be easily ignored by students who don't want to look, it's clear what's going on here.  This isn't just about this one law, this is about states testing the boundaries of a conservative Supreme Court to allow religion in public school classrooms.  If the conservatives win here, and there's a good chance that they will, they won't stop: soon there will be laws mandating crosses in classrooms, and before you know it we'll be back to debating whether or "Intelligent Design" can be taught along with evolution in public schools.  This is despite the fact that that gussied up version of creationism was thrown out of public schools years ago, sadly, the desire of conservative Christians to impose their beliefs on others and officially proclaim America as a Christian nation never seems to end, even as more and more Americans every year say that they have no religious affiliation.  

Much like the conservative desire to allow school vouchers that would use public funds to pay for children to go to religious private schools, putting more religious imagery  into  public schools is all about trying to influence the next generation of Americans into following their conservative beliefs.  Much like the debate around so called "critical race theory", conservatives want their values fed to the children of America so that they can stay in power for as long as possible.  The youth are the future, and they want to control them.

TRUMP'S WORST DAY AS PRESIDENT?

 

While the horrifying thought of Donald Trump returning to the White House continues to be a possibility, it doesn't hurt to look back at the chaotic 4 years of the Trump presidency.  There were many terrible days during the Trump administration: from  his possibly criminal behavior  on January 6th to his  offensive defense of white supremacist protestors in Charlottesville (remember "wonderful people on both sides"?), to the utter stupidity of him suggesting that injecting bleach could stop Covid.  

While all of those days were awful, I think today marks the 4 year anniversary of the absolute worst day of the Trump presidency.  On this day he held the first public rally of his 2020 campaign.  The rally itself was unimportant: it featured his usual ridiculous talking points about Covid, or what he offensively referred to as "kung flu".  But it was the context of the rally that made it so terrible: it was held at the BOK center in Tulsa Oklahoma, an indoor stadium.  And while masks were available, they were also optional.  It was the kind of gathering of thousands of people in one place that would have normally been banned during the dark days of the pandemic in 2020, long before the availability of a vaccine.

But Trump's enormous ego and desire to stand again in front of a cheering crowd was so great that he clearly didn't care that he was threatening the lives of his own supporters (not to mention other people that they would come in contact with).  While whether or not there was a surge of cases in Tulsa after the rally is a matter of some debate (different studies say different things), there simply was no good reason for Trump to have held this rally other than his incredible need for constant praise.

The perfect example of this can be found in the sad story of Trump supporter (and former presidential candidate) Herman Caine.  Caine attended the rally in Tulsa, and then planned to attend another Trump rally on July 4th.  On July 1st. Caine tweeted out" Masks will not be mandatory for the event, which will be attended by President Trump. PEOPLE ARE FED UP!".  But Caine did not attend that second rally, because he was hospitalized for Covid on July 2nd and died before the month ended.  While it is possible that Caine contracted the virus somewhere other than the rally in Tulsa, it's certainly likely that attending an event with thousands of screaming people, few of whom were wearing masks, is what eventually killed him.  

For the record, Trump did make some public condolences about Caine's death on July 30th, the day he died.  But the next day he  just shrugged off the distinct possibility that Caine's attendance at the rally was when he first got Covid.  As always, Trump sees all other people as lesser beings; surely his rally was more important to him than the life of Caine and any other people who caught Covid at that rally.  And sure enough, a few months later he would boast that there were "no problems" from his rallies, essentially forgetting the death of Caine entirely.  In many ways Caine's sad story echoes that of former Governor Chris Christie, who nearly died from Covid that he is convinced he got from Trump while he was helping him prepare for a presidential debate.  And in typical fashion, Christie claims that Trump called him when he was sick, and his only concern was whether Christie would tell other people if  Trump was the one that gave Covid to him!

While there are many examples of Trump's psychopathic behavior over the years, I think that holding that rally four years ago was the absolute low point; a completely unnecessary gathering that could have been a super spreader event.  How anyone can vote for this man who clearly has so little concern for anyone other than him is beyond me.

TO JAIL OR NOT TO JAIL

 One of the frustrating things about politics in this century is how, every time a Republican presidential candidate wins the presidency while losing the popular vote, conservatives loudly say that "That's the system we have, accept the result."  But recently, after Donald Trump was convicted of 34 felonies in a court of law by a jury of peers, as our judicial system  dictates, virtually the entire Republican party has echoed his baseless assertion that the whole system was rigged.  It's obviously hypocritical to say that a system only works when it benefits your side, but that's where America is politically in 2024.  And that argument about a rigged legal system gets even weaker in light of President Joe Biden's son Hunter's recent conviction under that same legal system.

Hypocrisy aside, the question that now awaits is just what kind of penalty Trump should pay when he is sentenced by Judge Juan Merchan on July 11th.  Penalties include fees, community service, probation and yes, even jail time (with a maximum of 4 years).  

But should Trump go to jail? On the one hand, he's an old man, this is his  first criminal  offense, and it's a nonviolent crime.  On the other hand, he's been found guilty on all 34 counts, he's clearly shown no remorse for the crime he's been legally found to have committed, and he violated the gag order put on him  by the judge ten times during the trial.  Plus,  he would not be the first criminal convicted of falsifying business records in the state of New York to get jail time.

I'm not quite sure how I myself feel about this; Trump in an orange prison outfit is an amusing image   to me, and I am sure that the man has committed criminal offenses in the past that he's gotten away with (it's not hard to believe those 26 women who have accused him of sexual assault or rape).  So it is satisfying to think that man who has seemingly gotten away with so many terrible things over the years is finally facing jail time.  But there is every reason to believe that it would push his already insanely loyal supporters over the edge into some kind of act of violence, perhaps something even on the level of what happened on January 6th.

But it's not just his fervent supporters I'm worried about; since we would be entering completely uncharted territory with a presidential candidate behind bars (and yes, he could still legally run while incarcerated), it's impossible to gauge exactly how the American public would react to such a thing.  While there's a good chance that many swing voters might turn away from him in disgust, it's also possible that they might believe his lies about the system being rigged and see his incarceration as a political act master minded by Joe Biden, even if it's not true.  It seems crazy, but since American politics has been completely changed since Trump took that escalator ride back in 2016, we have no way of knowing whether jail time would help or hurt his campaign.  

Given that, I am leaning towards idea of Trump having to do community service instead of prison time: Trump with a pair of tongs picking up garbage off the highway would be such a humiliating thing for a man so obsessed with his own perceived strength that I think it would weaken his image and his campaign, while actual prison time could have the opposite effect.  But, again, who knows?  I remember thinking that Trump was going to be forced out of politics when he said that John McCain wasn't a real war hero, so what do I know?