How do you describe the look on Donald Trump’s face last night?
From the moment he took the debate stage in Cleveland, he had that odd, yet strangely familiar affectation.
Pouting? Hurt? Annoyed at having to be there?
I guess you could call it Angry White Man, 2020.
From the moment he took the stage, Trump’s intent was clear: intimidation.
Every time Joe Biden spoke, Trump talked over him, mocked him, never letting him finish a sentence.
The most shocking moment – even for Trump – came toward the end.
Biden was defending the military, including his now deceased son, Beau.
“My son was not a ‘loser’ or a ‘sucker’,” Biden said (using the words that Trump had called veterans, according to several close to him).
Any other candidate would’ve quietly offered their condolences, and their thanks.
Not Donald Trump. He interrupted Biden to claim that his other son, Hunter, “was dishonorably discharged from the military for using drugs.”
(Do I have to tell you that that’s a lie?)
For some reason, I sometimes imagine myself as Joe Biden’s “handler.”
Don’t ask me where this delusion comes from.
The two things I find myself telling Joe (virtually) are:
Rise above it.
Be the adult in the room.
Joe’s one job is to paint a clear picture for Americans.
At every opportunity, he has to remind us that the current occupant of the White House is a toddler, one who doesn’t have the intellectual or the emotional capacity, nor the integrity to run our great country.
And more than ever, we need a mature, intelligent human being to save us from ourselves.
Joe accomplished the task of rising above it, for the most part, even as he was battered by Trump’s interruptions.
He responded to Trump’s childlike outbursts and outright lies with a bemused laugh, one that essentially said: “Can you believe this clown is President?”
His irritation finally betrayed him, after being interrupted one too many times.
“It’s hard to get anywhere with this clown,” he pleaded to moderator Chris Wallace, before catching himself. “Excuse me, this person.”
He didn’t need to make that correction – but he was trying to rise above it.
But Biden just wasn’t able to demonstrate that he was the adult in the room.
It would’ve been a Herculean task, given Trump’s constant stream of interruptions and insults – but that’s what was required to combat those.
Trump’s strategy – if you want to give him credit for something as complex as that – was to simply bully his opponent.
It resulted in both candidates talking over each other.
When moderator Chris Wallace tried to stop the bickering, he spoke sharply to Trump:
“Your team agreed to the rules of this debate. Why can’t you agree to follow the rules that your own team agreed to?”
Trump’s response was a shrug, with a coquettish half-roll of the eyes.
I was trying to recall where I’d seen that look before.
It was the face of a 5th grade bully, being told he can’t beat up the smaller, smarter kid in the class anymore.
I’ve seen that gesture too many times. It’s a gesture that says, “So what? Big deal. Rules are for other people – not me.”
It says, “Whatcha gonna do about it?”
After the opening segment, Wallace was shaking his head in exasperation, trying to restore order: “We have ended the segment. We are going to go on to the second segment.”
Biden was shaking his head, too. “That was really a productive segment, wasn’t it?” he said sarcastically.
It was too true. We didn’t learn a single thing about their policy from the entire segment.
We can wag our finger all we want at Chris Wallace.
But it really was up to Biden.
What we needed was for Biden – as the adult in the room – to stop the proceedings cold, right then and there, and say, “Enough.”
It was up to Biden to ask, “Do you want to continue this debate? If you do, we’re going to follow the rules that your team agreed to.
“If not, then this is over. And the American people will be the worse for it. Because you couldn’t honor your own commitments.
“Just like you haven’t honored any other commitments you’ve made to the American people.”
Joe just couldn’t do it. Between his shock, and his personable nature, he just couldn’t force himself to stop the charade.
I kept wishing Pete Buttigieg was on stage, so he could coldly stare Trump down, and put him in his place with a cool, calculated, “Excuse me, sir – which war did you serve in?”
Maybe Kamala Harris will do something similar when she debates Mike Pence – but it would’ve been nice to see her take down the head of the Republican party, with her sharp, prosecutorial style.
Perhaps she could tell Trump to stop the purposeful, race-baiting mispronunciation of her name (“Ka-MAH-la”) like a child taunting a character from another culture.
But Joe Biden is the hope of the Democratic Party. And he is a good man.
In his excellent Paste Magazine article “The Presidential Debates Are Bad For America,” Shane Ryan declares them past their point of uselessness.
While I’m still not cynical enough to share Shane’s sentiment, I did wonder if last night’s debacle actually influenced any undecided voters.
(Then I wondered how there could be any undecided voters left alive…)
With all the yelling and mocking last night, there was one moment that was entirely missing: the moment when a candidate, patiently listening to their opponent, reaches into their suit coat and pulls out a pen, in order to jot down responses to the things the opponent is saying.
That way, they can bring up those points – when it’s their turn to speak.
That’s what candidates do.
That’s why it takes intelligence to do this job, people. Because that’s how things work.
Because if you don’t, it turns into “a hot mess, inside a dumpster fire, inside a train-wreck” (as CNN’s Jake Tapper said).
Or more directly, a “shitshow” (as his colleague Dana Bash bluntly put it).
And if you don’t have those rules, you accomplish nothing in a debate.
And America loses.
And Donald Trump is alright with that.
Daddy Gibs 