THE DEBATE

It was uneven going in.

All Creepy “The Big Guy” Joe had to do was not drool on himself and consistently string two or three sentences together. With a few lapses in grammar and syntax, he pulled it off.

Trump had a simpler task, but, given his natural fighter’s instincts, it was uncertain he could manage it. He needed to focus, master his facts, dominate without being a bully, and bend the restricting format to his ends while managing to play by the rules. Against all odds, he too pulled it off.

Partial credit goes to a moderator who, by all accounts, was as raging a liberal as the rest of them, but who seemed to take the idea of fairness seriously and who kept things under control.

Trump had some help from Joe. Knowing that the opportunity to talk about the laptop scandal was not going to be on the agenda, Trump was going to have to find his opportunity where he could. Oddly enough, Joe handed it to him by complaining about the story without specifying what he was talking about. But that was ok, because Trump happily helped him out.

By the end of the night he’d forced Biden to lie multiple times. For the ten million people who were hearing about this story for the first time, it might not have seemed like he was lying, but when it becomes clear that what he’s still claiming to have been debunked is really a serious body of evidence of the family’s history of corruption and crime, it’s going to come back and bite him on the ass. He really didn’t have much choice, though. He doesn’t have any wiggle room. There are no halfway measures for him. Either the whole thing is a scam cooked up by Giuliani and Banning, or he’s totally fucked.

Other than that, both of them presented their best case. Unfortunately, Biden’s best case sucks. Still, I doubt anyone who was already in his camp decided to change sides. The important viewer was the one who is not fond of government solutions to everything, who believes that Joe is a cut out for Bernie Sanders and the Squad, and who knows he’s a placeholder for Kamala Harris, who might actually like where the country was headed pre-COVID, but just wishes Trump were more “presidential.”

There’s a good chance Trump connected tonight with that person.