October 1, 2020
The first, and possibly last, Presidential Debate between Trump and Biden went off the rails early and never recovered. Trump set the tone by interrupting, ignoring whose turn it was, and talking over everyone, but Biden quickly adapted to the free-for-all format and mostly gave as good as he got. The Moderator, Fox News’ Chris Wallace prefaced with a hopeful intro about having a good, clean fight blah blah, gentlemen, but he was soon in the scrum himself shouting to be heard over the other two in a futile attempt to impose order. It had the feel of watching a couple of drunks down the end of the bar and wondering would they duke it out or get ejected from the premises.
The highlights, as these things go, were foreordained to be zingers, gotchas, or fails by debate tradition, and since policy and ideology made only passing appearances, the plan held. At one point an exasperated Biden directed a zinger at the hectoring Trump by demanding to know,“Will you shut up, man?”
CHRIS WALLACE:…So my question to you is, you have refused in the past to talk about it, are you willing to tell the American tonight whether or not you will support either ending the filibuster or packing the court?
JOE BIDEN: Whatever position I take on that, that’ll become the issue. The issue is the American people should speak. You should go out and vote. You’re voting now. Vote and let your Senators know strongly how you feel.
DONALD TRUMP: Are you going to pack the court?
JOE BIDEN: Vote now.
DONALD TRUMP: Are you going to pack the court?
JOE BIDEN: Make sure you, in fact, let people know, your Senators.
DONALD TRUMP: He doesn’t want to answer the question.
JOE BIDEN: I’m not going to answer the question.
DONALD TRUMP: Why wouldn’t you answer that question? You want to put a lot of new Supreme Court Justices. Radical left.
JOE BIDEN: Will you shut up, man?
DONALD TRUMP: Listen, who is on your list, Joe? Who’s on your list?
CHRIS WALLACE: Gentlemen, I think we’ve ended this.
Around the world viewers hearts must have sank with the realization that another whole hour remained. Those who hung in were treated to the second, and only other, debate highlight when Trump was questioned about Rightwing vigilante violence. It was an easy “Do you condemn (this universally condemned thing)/Of course I condemn (this universally condemned thing)” setup but he either missed his cue or forgot his line and instead it went like this:
CHRIS WALLACE: You have repeatedly criticized the vice president for not specifically calling out Antifa and other left wing extremist groups. But are you willing tonight to condemn white supremacists and militia group and to say that they need to stand down and not add to the violence in a number of these cities as we saw in Kenosha and as we’ve seen in Portland.
DONALD TRUMP: Sure, I’m willing to do that.
CHRIS WALLACE: Are you prepared specifically to do it.
DONALD TRUMP: I would say almost everything I see is from the left wing not from the right wing.
CHRIS WALLACE: But what are you saying?
DONALD TRUMP: I’m willing to do anything. I want to see peace.
CHRIS WALLACE: Well, do it, sir.
JOE BIDEN: Say it, do it say it.
DONALD TRUMP: What do you want to call them? Give me a name, give me a name, go ahead who do you want me to condemn.
CHRIS WALLACE: White supremacist and white militia.
DONALD TRUMP: Okay, boys stand back and stand by. But I’ll tell you what somebody’s got to do something about Antifa and the left because this is not a right wing problem this is a left wing.
JOE BIDEN: He’s own FBI Director said unlike white supremacist, Antifa is an idea not an organization-
DONALD TRUMP: Oh you got to be kidding me.
JOE BIDEN: … not a militia. That’s what his FBI Director said.
DONALD TRUMP: Well, then you know what, he’s wrong.
CHRIS WALLACE: We’re done, sir. Moving onto the next… [crosstalk]
DONALD TRUMP: Antifa is bad.
JOE BIDEN: Every body in your administration tells you the true, it’s a bad idea. You have no idea about anything.
DONALD TRUMP: You know what, Antifa is a dangerous radical group.
CHRIS WALLACE: All right, gentlemen we’re now moving onto the Trump-Biden record.
By the next morning, the Commission on Presidential Debates was saying
Always hoping to be helpful, the Gazette has a suggestion for the Commission’s changes. Why not go to a Jeopardy style format with categories for American History, Economics, Government, Geography, and so on? Each topic column would have answers to questions in order of increasing difficulty (‘answer in question form, please!) and assigned corresponding monetary values.
Because modern Presidential campaigns are awash in massive contributions, the traditional Jeopardy sums will all have 3 zeros added, so $800 would be $800,000 and so on. The game winner’s loot would go to a charity of his or her choice, to the Proud Boys for Trump and to Antifa for Biden, for example. Not only would this provide a familiar, orderly and proven popular format, it would add a much needed element of objectivity to the question of who won.
It would have the added benefit of educating voter viewers on the featured subject matter and demonstrate the degree of subject mastery by each Presidential hopeful. For example, if a candidate doesn’t know “what is the Judicial Branch?” is the question to “The one that isn’t the Legislative or Executive,” voters might assess that candidate too stupid to be President.
All we learned about the two fellows onstage this week was they like to interrupt each other.