How do you guys feel about this so far?
Personally, words fail me. The West's last remaining superpower and what does the onlooking world get presented with? The spectacle of two septuagenarians doing nothing but yelling insults at each other for hours on end, as they scrabble, scratch, bite and claw for purely self-interested control of the swill trough. Honestly, comparing it to some bitter grade school playground squabble is to be crashingly unfair to grade schoolers.
If I were a US citizen, I honestly don't know this morning if my overriding emotion would be depression or embarrassment at that utterly unedifying, unseemly and frankly pathetic spectacle. In fact, even as a non-US citizen, I still feel that way. And you've got two more to go...
The question that cannot fail to asked are thus:-
- Is this honestly the best that the US can do?
Is this honestly the image that the US wants to portray to the rest of the world?
Do you guys honestly feel national pride this morning?
It now seems confirmed without doubt that those on high in both Pub and Dem High Command have decided that all the US electorate is capable of digesting is shockingly low-brow and cretinously simplistic conflict-driven "entertainment" TV. And in support of that claim, last night's "debate" just about came up to Jerry Springer standards. What disdain and contempt both sides must hold US voters in... just give 'em bread and circuses, eh?The Wall Street Journal wrote:A Depressing Debate Spectacle
Pro wrestlers are more presidential than either man Tuesday night.
By The Editorial Board. Updated Sept. 30, 2020 12:45 am ET
No one expected a Lincoln-Douglas debate, but did it have to be a World Wrestling Entertainment bout? Which may be unfair to the wrestlers, who are more presidential than either Donald Trump or Joe Biden sounded in their first debate Tuesday night.
The event was a spectacle of insults, interruptions, endless cross-talk, exaggerations and flat-out lies even by the lying standards of current U.S. politics. Our guess is that millions of Americans turned away after 30 minutes, and we would have turned away too if we didn't do this for a living.
Mr. Trump no doubt wanted to project strength and rattle Mr. Biden, but he did so by interrupting him so much that he wouldn't let Mr. Biden talk long enough even to make a mistake. The President bounced from subject to subject so frequently that it was hard to figure out what he hoped to say beyond that Joe Biden is controlled by the Democratic left. Even when moderator Chris Wallace asked a question that played to the strengths of his record--such as on the economy--Mr. Trump couldn't stick to the theme without leaping to attack Mr. Biden.
The former Vice President wasn't much better, interrupting nearly as much. And for the candidate who says he wants to bring people together, he was ready with his own name-calling. He called Mr. Trump a "racist," a "clown," and told him to "shut up, man." He spun out falsehoods as fast as the President, notably in asserting that 100 million people would be vulnerable to losing their health insurance due to pre-existing conditions. The Obama Administration set up a special fund for pre-existing conditions in the transition to ObamaCare, and the takers were only in the thousands. Mr. Trump didn't know enough to be able to rebut him.
No one won this fiasco, but Mr. Biden did succeed in passing the test of appearing coherent for 90 minutes. Mr. Trump had done him the favor of calling his mental capacity into question for months, so expectations were low. Mr. Biden passed that bar, albeit in highly scripted fashion.
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Speaking of which, I'll leave the last word to Steven Sondheim.
And where are the clowns?
Quick, send in the clowns!
...
Don't bother, they're already here.