To get a sense of just how uncomfortable witnessing the first general election debate is about to be, simply look at both Joe Biden and liberals in the media calling President Trump a bully.
Asked earlier this month about his preparation for the debate coming on Tuesday, the Democratic nominee said, “I think I know how to handle bullies.”
Atlantic magazine ran a piece Thursday under the headline, “How to Win a Debate With a Bully.”
The New York Times on Friday ran not just one but two op-eds calling Trump the b-word.
The national media, in its infinite stupidity, have never understood the word “bully” because they’ve always taken for granted that they’re the ones who bully. They’re the ones who got to use their platforms, airtime, and influence (waning as it is) to mock, belittle, and condescend.
The smart set at the New York Times and MSNBC had a ball dumping on Republicans in the 2012 primaries. And once Mitt Romney became the party nominee, it was open season on him, too. Recall what a laugh it was that he said, “Wawas,” with an “s” at the end. Remember how funny it was to Melissa Harris-Perry and her guest panel that Romney’s family photo featured a black grandchild?
Then-President Barack Obama and Vice President Biden had to do nothing but relax while the real bullies in the media did the work for them.
Calling Trump a bully doesn’t work because, while he is president, he’s still just one man up against the monolithic media, the entire Democratic Party, and all of the entertainment industry.
What does Trump have? Outside of his millions of supporters — how much cultural cache does a middle-aged truck driver in Pennsylvania really have, anyway? — he has nothing. It’s not Trump who has the outsized power in this fight. It’s Biden.
The attempt to set Biden up as an underdog going into the debate is nothing outside of sad. As if he didn’t look frail enough, we’re now supposed to view him as a guy who overcame his stutter and is about to take on the final boss with nothing more than a wooden shield.
Seriously, New York Times liberal Timothy Egan wrote Friday that Biden’s trouble as a child with a stutter is his “superpower.”
Everything that liberals are saying Biden should do in the debate is yet more indication that viewers should get ready to wince for the duration of the event.
A New York Times op-ed by psychiatrist Richard Friedman offered this: “Mr. Trump, faced with a pandemic and an economic downturn, tells Americans what a great job he’s done. In response, Mr. Biden should smile and say with a bit of laugh: ‘And just where have you been living? South Korea? Or Fiji? You cannot be in the United States — except maybe on the golf course.'”
Got ’em!
Peter Wehner in the Atlantic said every time Trump tells a “lie,” Biden should say, “Donald, we’re at the 66th floor again.”
If that doesn’t sound like a sick burn, then you must not know the story of how the president used to tell people he lived on the 66th floor of Trump Tower in New York, though the building doesn’t actually go that high. Man, oh man, don’t you feel the heat that punch packs now?
It makes me want to crawl into a hole and wait for it to be over. Best of luck to Biden. Based on what his own hype men in the media are saying ahead of Tuesday’s debate, he’s going to need it.
