Honest Joe vs. Dishonest Abe

Trump speaks, Biden and America cringes.

Donald Trump says 2.2 million people were going to die. That only 210,000 have is thus a great success.

It’s a lie. A rather vile lie, since it traduces human lives. I know, Trump is not responsible for 210,000 deaths—many would have died had the country taken adequate action against COVID-19. But the death toll could have and should have been much lower, and the spike can be lowered now, with effective, science-based action that this president can’t wrap his head around.

It was a night of lies from Donald Trump. The final presidential debate of 2020 is over, and I have to admit I am relieved.

Trump did score some points. His contention that Biden’s environmental plan spell economic disaster is going to be the point pounded on again and again in attack ads for the next 12 days. Not that it’s true. As is much of what Trump said tonight, it’s a lie.

A lie delivered coldly and calmly by a president who dismisses severed families as the fault of coyotes, COVID-19 as the fault of China and economic meltdown as—well, I’m not sure who he is blaming. Trump claimed the economy would be a disaster if Biden is elected, but who the heck was president this year when the recession kicked in?

Typical Trump. "Don’t elect him or the chaos I have caused will continue." "Elect me so that I can put out the fire that I lit in the first place."

Sigh.

Some keys in tonight’s debate:

• Biden nailed Trump on his tax returns. Trump tries to paint Biden as corrupt, but one of Trump's consistent patterns is to project his own flaws onto his foes. I don’t think Joe is pure like the October snow—but on the corruption meter, Trump has pretty much everyone trumped, yet he says Biden is corrupt. And Biden is the one who has released his tax returns, not Trump. Tell me again how Trump is more honest?

• Trump made anybody with a brain sick to their stomach with his Lincoln lines. No, Trump, you are not the “least racist” person in the room. As Biden said, his dog whistles are fog horns. In one breath, you’re the least racist, in the next, your saying immigrants who show up for hearings have low IQs. You’re blaming China, coyotes and claiming not to be racist.

• COVID-19 should be the nail in the coffin for this president. Just consider this exchange: “People are learning to die with it,” Biden on the pandemic. “I take full responsibility. It’s not my fault.” Actual comeback quote from Trump.

I do think that Trump did better tonight than the first debate, although he set a rather low bar to lumber over. Trump was still spouting insults, lies and trite campaign lines.

Biden speaks during debate.

Trump needed to change the dynamics of the election tonight. I do not think he did. I think Biden held his own, which I hope is all he had to do. And what was that about pillows and sheets? Earth to Trump: What?

Image by Gage Skidmore from wikimedia commons. Kristen Welker of NBC in Arizona in 2018.

Kristen Welker of NBC News did pretty well, I thought. She had been insulted by Trump before the debate, but was praised by him during the debate. Despite that, I think the use of the enforced time limits was good. There was some cross shouting, but not the chaos of the first debate. Her questions were decent and she stayed calm.

Well, that phase of the campaign is over. Five-thirty-eight is starting to write about a possible blue wave that could take the Senate, keep the House and win the presidency. Trump’s fantasy about taking the House rang very hollow, and I don’t think Trump built much of a flood wall against the coming blue wave.

Trump: I’ll Burn Down This House Before I’ll Give It Up

View of candidates on MSNBC before debate begins. From the back side, Biden looks to be in way better physical shape.

The quote came late in the debate, when the candidates were discussing urban violence and the BLM movement.

“He does not want to calm things down,” said Joe Biden of Donald Trump. “He pours gasoline on the fire.”

And right after that, moderator Chris Wallace asked Donald Trump to condemn white supremacist groups—whom his own government has identified as the main domestic terrorism threat.

Trump’s answer was incoherent. His message to the Proud Boys was “stand down, but stand by.” And then he referred to Antifa as it if were a thing.

“Antifa is an idea, not an organization,” Biden correctly countered.

 

Biden speaks. Trump is not happy listening.

I don’t think Joe Biden debated all that well, to be honest. He had his moments, but he did not always track the questions well and sometimes did lose count of his own points as he was answering.

But Trump. Holey orange crazy! What a hot mess. A family member observed on WhatsApp during the debate that it seemed like Trump became more orange as the night went on. Trump got into disputes with the moderator and seemed to be debating him rather than Biden. Trump repeated slogans like “law and order, law and order” but didn’t note any policy that leads to that.

Biden noted Trump’s pathetic response to protests so that he could clear a street for a photo opp, and Trump just responded with anecdotes about urban violence. But the uptick in violence is happening after more than three years of Trump as president. Warning us things will fall apart in Biden’s America because they are falling apart now seems like a really weird case to try and make.

 

And as Biden noted, the real threats to suburbs aren't BLM and Antifa. It's coronavirus and climate change that may wipe them (and the rest of us) out.

Sure, I know Trump claims violence is a problem because Democrats run cities—but as Chris Wallace noted, Republican cities are not peaceful, either.

And then there was the election. I don’t think our election system is perfect, but Trump suggests in advance that it’s fraudulent because he senses he will lose, and if you can’t win the game, you try to yell at the refs, I suppose.

Well, I saw on Facebook that some friends had tuned out. Honestly, after 45 minutes I was ready to do the same. I did not—I felt like I had to observe the whole thing. But it was tough to watch. A dumpster fire.

Like Trump’s America.

Put these yard signs up tonight. Nothing tonight changed my mind at all.

Democracy on the Edge on this Freedom Holiday

Freed woman statue in Austin, Texas, image by Jennifer Rangubphai, from Wikimedia Commons.

On the eve of the relaunch of the Trump presidential horror show, I’m worried.

Polls, which have caused him to rail against not just CNN, but also Fox News, are showing that President Trump’s campaign has struck the iceberg and is fast taking on water. Maybe Trump can suck down some of his GOP cronies with him.

But it’s June. Polls now don’t mean much. If we’ve seen anything in this bizarre year of 2020, it’s that reality shifts rapidly in these turbulent times.

Paging Julie Nolte her videos in which the Canadian comic explains the pandemic to her past self:

So, Democrats, Libertarians, Socialists, independents, sane Republicans: Don’t let your guard down. This is the orange monster who lost the popular vote by millions in 2016 and still got the ticket to attempt and fail to lead the Free World. He could do it again, if his enemies are divided and complacent--and division and voter suppression are his strategies.

And wounded Trump is clearly dangerous Trump. As racial unrest has roiled the nation, Trump has played divider rather than any kind of unifying figure. For example, he set a rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on Juneteenth. Public pressure forced him to change to June 20, and he acted like he is the Marco Polo of holidays, bringing Juneteenth to the light of day when one of his Secret Service agents explained it to him.

It was news to the president that his own White House has released a Juneteenth statement every year. I encountered the holiday as a young reporter in Missouri in the early 1980s, and it was a deficit of my white Iowa education that I had not heard of it before—but at least I’m not so naïve that I need it explained to me more than a generation later.

Then again, Trump has repeatedly shown that, whatever happens on Tuesday, he won’t remember it on Thursday even if there is a video.

And once again, the monster-in-chief is hogging the media oxygen at a time when too many of us can’t breathe. Whether it’s due to official violence or a respiratory pandemic, the breath of life is in too short of a supply. Truth is being constantly chocked by nonsense and violence.

I worry. Wounded Trump has issued not very veiled threats of violence against protestors in Tulsa on the eve of his rally. He has celebrated a holiday of emancipation by disrespecting attempts to petition for redress of grievances. Let freedom ring?

Meanwhile, big issues still face us. The virus has not gone away, nor will it magically disappear. Global warming, despite a massive economic downturn that reduces pollution, hasn’t become a problem of the past. Racial injustice is a tough reality for us to figure out how to equitably fix. The world economy faces challenges that it would be difficult for an intelligent leader to face, let alone one who both knows next to nothing and is convinced his is the best brain in the room. (Donald, no, just no).

Masks, which are a key to slowing the spread of a new, potentially deadly disease, are politicized. Clumsy fake videos that seek to discredit CNN are tweeted by our Dear Leader. The Supreme Court has the gall to read the law and attempt to apply it, which causes nuclear Don to go to DEFCON Rage.

A friend of mine posted recently on Facebook one of those anti-media memes. I don’t recall the picture, but the text was “when did the Media become our enemy?”

They never did, but we’ve learned to easily label the news media as an it rather than a them, and to think of “it” as a singular, enemy force for writing or covering things we don’t like.

The media became our enemy when we decided that it was too hard to face hard truths. And we have a lot of hard truths that badly need facetime. We’re being led down multiple paths of disaster.

So here is my Juneteenth wish. May this holiday, that celebrates the news of freedom reaching the edges of the failed Confederacy not be too overshadowed by the insane rejection of reality that threatens to shackle our democracy once again. Let freedom be free. And the price of freedom is not just bought by soldiers who die in our wars, but also in the work of citizens who pay attention, discern facts, face hard truths and then vote.