“Now THAT was a debate performance! Woo-hoo! WOO-HOO! Hoot, hoot! Give us more! Give us more!”
If your household was anything like mine last Thursday night, you might’ve heard similar sounds bouncing off the walls of the confined space. Aside from being absolutely flabbergasted by how badly incumbent president senile Joe Biden performed in the program he allegedly practiced a week or more for to try and hone some semblance of a credible showing, we also noted how calm and collected yet forceful that Donald Trump himself acted throughout the 90 minutes.
In terms of performance art, Trump did just about everything myself and many politics watchers had advised him to do. Thanks to CNN’s “no interruption” microphone cut-off policy, the former president didn’t have much opportunity to knock Biden off-course while the senile old dolt rambled and bumbled his way to what most people on both sides of the aisle described as the worst debate participation ever. EVER. How bad was it? Even MSNBC’s ultra-Trump-hater honk Joy Reid described senile Joe’s visible crumbling as a catastrophe.
But despite the jubilation at Biden’s foibles -- and delight for Trump behaving himself -- a good many conservatives were left feeling unsatisfied by how much substantive material and solid retorts Trump left in his proverbial quiver of verbal slings and arrows that he could’ve deployed to finish the job on the badly vacillating senile Joe, possibly leaving the old coot’s handlers with little choice but to take him straight to the nearest and cheesiest of elder care facilities.
Trump merited an “A” to an “A+” for his debate demeanor. But for content? That’s a different matter. For his part, Trump wasn’t happy that he wasn’t offered sufficient credit for how well he thought he did. In an article titled “Trump claims his ‘fantastic’ performance should’ve dwarfed fervor over shaky Biden”, Alex Miller reported at The Washington Times last weekend:
“Former President Donald Trump isn’t happy with the attention that President Biden has received for his poor debate performance... Mr. Trump contended … that the spotlight should’ve been on him after the spectacle.
“’As I walked off the stage on Thursday night, at the end of the highly anticipated ‘Debate,’ anchors, political reporters and all screamed that I had had the greatest debate performance in the long and storied history of Presidential Debates,’ Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social. ‘They all said, effectively, ‘Trump was fantastic!’’ He continued, ‘This theme was universal, even at CNN & MSDNC, but by Friday evening it was all about the poor performance of Crooked Joe, and not so much about how well I did. Oh well, that’s the way it is but, importantly, the result is the same!!!’
“The former president didn’t walk away unscathed from the debate either, with critics contending he uttered numerous falsehoods.”
Yes, it’s true. As I perused the usual Facebook posts from liberal “friends” and acquaintances who I no longer communicate much with but still enjoy monitoring their social media blabbering with keen interest to ascertain what the truly ignorant and unenlightened thinks these days, I noted how upset they were. Not with senile Joe Biden’s horrific lack of wherewithal as their president, but by Trump’s supposedly cavalcade of “lies” in their estimation.
Huh? I watched the same program, right? It was full of what could be called “Trump-isms” – namely standard boasts of having “the greatest” this and “best ever” that – but Trump’s simple exaggerations contained at least some connection to reality. Senile Joe Biden’s mumbling and heinous distortions were the real lies. But liberals can’t be counted on to own-up to their side of the argument.
As Trump said on Truth Social, “that’s just the way it is,” but the current state of political division doesn’t lend much hope to a reconciliation this year or any time after unless Democrats force themselves to take accountability for what they’ve done to the country. That, and perhaps inject themselves with candor serum.
But make no mistake, Trump wasn’t perfect last week. As previously stated, he was good – but he could’ve done better. One particularly tuned-in casual observer friend of mine pointed out a number of ways the former president and 2024 Republican nominee-to-be could’ve earned the debate praise he was seeking by:
First, watching Trump and Biden repeat “you’re the worst president in the history of our country” was like listening to two third graders in the schoolyard.
Next, Trump also falls into the trap of “fact-checking” establishment media idiots tallying “false statements” when he easily could avoid the accusations altogether by prefacing many of his claims with “in my opinion” or “it’s my belief” or “it seems to me”. The fact-checkers would lose their reasons for being – and Democrats would be compelled to turn the glares on themselves.
“In my opinion, he is the worst president in the history of this country and I think a LOT of people are of that same view.” Third, Trump could’ve suggested, “It’s my belief that the Founding Fathers – if they could ever conceive of the issue of abortion in the first place – would’ve wanted it decided by the states. Indeed, that’s what the Supreme Court decided about Roe, isn’t it? Because “abortion” wasn’t expressly stated in the Constitution, Roe v. Wade was bad law when it was decided and the matter should’ve gone to the individual states to determine for themselves.
Fourth, Democrats are always bemoaning about paying “fair shares.” Trump should’ve said, “Well, I believed then and believe now that our NATO allies should pay their fair share. And the president cannot unilaterally pull out of a treaty that’s been approved by Congress, so that scaremongering is false and you know it.”
Additionally, Trump could’ve added, “Yes, I pulled us out of the Paris environmental Accords because it was a bad deal for America. Same as the Iran Nuclear deal. Because they weren’t true treaties approved by Congress. They were voluntary agreements because there weren’t enough votes to pass the people’s representatives in Congress and for good reason.”
Fifth, regarding Biden’s phony claims of establishment deep state elites backing his awful policies, Trump could’ve said, “You say that you have dozens of Nobel Laureates that support your economic policy and candidacy. Are they going to be as accurate as that list of 51 intelligence analysts who said Hunter’s laptop was Russian disinformation?
“Speaking of which, are you prepared, tonight, to say that what you told the American public four years ago was wrong, and, would you like to apologize to me for that mistake?”
Sixth, regarding Jan 6, Trump could’ve/should’ve explained, “That day was the last day when such challenges are possible. On numerous occasions, people in your Party rose up to challenge the vote count during past elections that they didn’t like. They did it after the 2000 election. They did it in 2005. They did it again after my election of 2016 when scores of Democrats and celebrities disputed the election results and publicly proclaimed that they wouldn’t recognize Republican winners, would leave the country to live elsewhere (which most never did).”
Trump could’ve went on, “Lately your administration has been going on about deceptive editing and cheap fake videos putting you in a bad light. The so-called bipartisan Jan 6 House investigation never showed my direction to the rally attendees – that was to ‘peacefully and patriotically walk down to the capital and let your voice be heard.’ Why was that?
“The same for the debunked story of the Charlottesville protest. Seen in context, at that moment, I was clearly referring to the original two groups of local residents, who were debating the future of a local Civil War statue in their community. But instead, that misleading ‘many fine people on both sides’ trope was used constantly against me and was rarely if ever corrected or described as ‘falsely claimed.’
“To use your own words, Joe, it was another cheap fake done to something I never said. Just here tonight, you tried, once again, to use a term to scare people for what I predicted would be the outcome of an ill-conceived economic policy. You know that’s wrong but you continue to use it. Even the news media don’t use that anymore, but many tried to until people saw for themselves and it hurt their credibility.
Lastly, Trump would’ve made a point by arguing, “If you want to point to that debacle of retreat from Afghanistan as a foreign policy success – then be my guest. Americans watched the chaos unfold, and they watched your apologists describe how everything was going just fine. We all saw the desperate Afghanis dangling off of landing gear of cargo planes, crushing crowds BEGGING to escape, and the BILLIONS of dollars’ worth of military hardware you left behind.
“We haven’t seen tragedy since evacuating Vietnam rooftops, as I started the process of withdrawal that you maintained when you were Vice President, but I didn’t leave anyone behind. I didn’t get any of our troops killed at the airport gate, and I didn’t mistakenly blow up a family to act tough. My administration kept us out of new entanglements. My administration was responsible for the Abraham Peace Accords.”
--It’s only natural for people who’d just gone through a traumatic experience to assess and reassess how they’d “performed” when the lights and cameras were on and the enemies/moderators were reading and reiterating their subjects. In the moment, Trump must have surmised that he was doing fabulously because senile Joe, the legendary political debater who’d never lost an election, was butchering his own reelection chances so brutally.
But, as my casual observer friend pointed out to me, Trump’s responses could’ve been that much more effective by delving deeper into the details and organizing his answers more succinctly. If truth is on Trump’s side, which it clearly is, there’s a case to be made in every circumstance. Trump did great last Thursday, but it could’ve been that much better.
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