Posted on 09/30/2020 6:21:08 AM PDT by lasereye
President Trump came into Tuesday night’s debate trailing both nationally and in key battleground states. The debate gave him the largest audience of the campaign and provided him the first real opportunity to press his case against Joe Biden and shake up the race. Instead, it ended up as a blown opportunity.
Right out of the gate, Trump pursued an aggressive strategy of interrupting Biden, speaking over moderator Chris Wallace, and launching a flurry of attacks.
At first, one could perhaps see a method to his madness, as Biden seemed frustrated and rattled. At one point, an exasperated Biden snapped, “Shut up, man!”
As the debate wore on, however, the constant cross-talk and interruptions and arguments with Wallace overshadowed the debate. Nobody will remember any of the actual details of the debate. They will just remember it being a chaotic mess.
In all of his interruptions, Trump, despite his reputation for being a master at messaging over the TV medium, lost chances to damage Biden. He often set up attacks only to fall back into repeating phrases that didn’t communicate to outsiders what he was talking about.
Trump, if he had one goal, was to establish that Biden, despite his centrist image, would ultimately be beholden to the radical Left. However, he never clearly explained this point.
For example, when he said that Biden would usher in socialized medicine and lead 180 million people to lose health coverage, he didn’t offer details. Had he taken a breath, he may have been able to point out that Biden’s running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, explicitly said during the primary that she wanted to eliminate private coverage. Or, Trump could have explained how the purpose of Biden’s plan to add a government-run “public option” to Obamacare is to migrate to a socialized health insurance system over time. Instead, Trump just started shouting about socialism.
Biden, explaining his plan, falsely claimed that his public option was only limited to those poor enough to qualify for Medicaid. “Anyone who qualifies for Medicaid would automatically be enrolled in the public option,” Biden said. “The vast majority of the American people would still not be in that option.”
Yet Biden’s actual healthcare plan says the public option would be made available “whether you’re covered through your employer, buying your insurance on your own, or going without coverage altogether.” Rather than apply to a small number of people, in other words, the option could eventually replace every form of private insurance that exists.
Instead of explaining this to voters, Trump interrupted Biden with statements such as, “Joe, you agree with Bernie Sanders, who's far Left, on the manifesto we call it, that gives you socialized medicine.” But what sort of voter who is learning about Biden’s healthcare position knows what Trump was referring to?
Trump then interjected multiple times during Biden’s same answer with pointless political analysis. When Biden denied supporting socialized medicine, Trump replied with, “You just lost the Left” — a silly comment given that the whole point of this line of attack is to convey that Biden would be beholden to the Left if elected. Trump then said Biden got lucky in the primaries because “if Pocahontas would have left two days earlier, you would have lost every primary.” What does that sort of punditry, and potshot at the increasingly irrelevant Elizabeth Warren, do to advance the ball for Trump? And why was it so important to make this comment that it was worth interrupting Biden for?
There were other examples, such as on the Green New Deal and tax policy, on which Trump failed to land obvious blows because he was too busy interrupting with pointless cracks.
Another problem was that Trump’s constant barrage of interruptions threw a lifeline to Biden when it would have been better to step back and let Biden stumble over the answer.
Toward the end of the debate, Trump went down the rabbit hole of discussing mail voter fraud, Michael Flynn, the Logan Act, spying on his campaign, and so forth. While such issues may receive a “Thatta boy!” from the talk radio crowd, Trump already has the vote of those this will impress. The point of the debate was to win over undecided voters, or to convince those leaning toward Biden to give him a second look.
One could argue that the mess of the debate essentially made it a draw. Biden failed to land his planned blows on Trump on tax returns, the coronavirus, or the Atlantic story claiming based on anonymous sources that Trump referred to service members as “suckers” and “losers.”
But debates cannot be viewed in a vacuum. They must be viewed in the context of the broader campaign. And given that Trump is losing, he needed to show that Biden was too far left and too mentally unfit to be president. But Trump did not accomplish that. After months of attacks claiming Biden doesn’t even know that he’s alive, Biden exceeded that low standard by showing he could stand and debate for 90 minutes, remaining more or less composed in the face of Trump’s relentless attacks. The tie, thus, went to Biden.
If there are two more debates, something that has to be seen as uncertain after Tuesday’s debacle, Trump is going to have to change his strategy to make focused and substantive attacks on Biden. Because the status quo means that Trump likely loses the election.
I believe after that debate in 1984, were when you heard the first rumblings of people thinking that Reagan had something wrong with his memory. I don’t think at that time, there was anything wrong with him, but the Democrats jumped on it.
They say Reagan lost 7-10 points of his lead after that debate, although he was still ahead. But another debate like that, and who knows.
I hope Melania had a nice talk with him last night about what he could do better next time.
I’m sure tonight’s rally will be fun, as he’ll talk about what really happened. It will be Must See TV. Maybe that’s Trump’s idea, get more people interested in watching his rallies. While Joe stays in the basement.
Political scientist, Lindsay Rogers, coined the word pollster as a pejorative takeoff of the word huckster.
Why the News Is Not the Truth - Harvard Business Reviewhbr.org › 1995/05 ›
The news media and the government have created a charade that serves their own interests but misleads the public 24/7.
That's not Trump's fault though. Don't hate the playa, hate the game.
When Wallace asked Trump if he would condemn White Supremacy, Trump asked who Wallace was talking about several times.When Wallace didn’t give him a specific group, Trump said Proud Boys? If Trump had just said he condemns White Supremacy, the Dems would be saying, today, that Trump condemned the people from militia groups that showed up at the riots.
Like Dan Bongino said on Fox last night, this is a base turnout election. Trump spat out many one-line facts that we know about and understand the back story of, but that fence-sitters wouldn’t be able to comprehend even after watching a two hour documentary. Trump was reassuring us that he is aware of and on top of all of these issues - especially voter fraud - while simultaneously forcing Biden to alienate large swaths of his base by explicitly repudiating the Green New Deal, speaking positively about the police, and denying Antifa even exists.
The Democrats are one more lost election away from a massive Leftist defection - probably to the nascent BLM party Tucker Carlson identified a couple of months ago. At very least, the Pelosi/Schumer/Nadler faction is headed for permanent exile. Joe just gave all of them a big shove out the door, in a hopeless attempt to appeal to moderate Democrats who no longer exist.
I heard that Chris Christie played Biden in his debate prep. Did Trump give the same answers in the debate prep as last night? I tend to doubt it. But Christie or someone needs to "go over the film" with him, as they say in sports. Christie is actually a pretty effective debater. He had a memorable takedown of Rubio in 2016.
I concur. We’re dealing with the politics of personal destruction and it’s a war. A warrior is needed not a saint or a nice guy.
“I think Trump missed a great chance to tell America WHAT HE ACCOMPLISHED during this 4 years.”
Trump did that when Wallace asked him “Why should American’s vote for you?. Wallace then asked Joe the same question and Joe talked about Trump and didn’t say one reason why American’s should vote for him.
He really left alot on the table. He couldve bludgeoned Biden with facts...but decided to browbeat the guy with random misplaced one liners instead.
Back then, if I were old enough to vote, I would have voted for Carter for that alone.
And Tim Kaine looked ridiculous. I seriously think that debate is what tipped the scales in favor of Trump.
Just as I believe Pence will destroy Kamala.
Would you care to list Trump's lies from last night?
I think Biden’s behavior at the debate might have been a shot in the arm (ass?) for PDJT. When you’re President of the United States, and a crooked, addle-brained, pipsqueak tells you to “Shut up!” in front of the world ...
I don’t know, but it seems that Trump isn’t the type to let that go. I think that could have been a game changer for PDJT, and it’s a legitimate war from now on.
It's all BS, I don't need anyone in the MSM trying to tell me what I saw last night......
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