For weeks, Biden supporters have feared that their champion would come undone after being forced out of Joe’s Wilmington basement for a solid hour and a half. Trump supporters, anxious as polling much less variable than against a candidate as loathed as Hillary Clinton, wondered how their incumbent president would defend his record.
The biggest loser of the debate between the 74-year-old President Trump and the nearly 78-year-old Joe Biden (who if elected, would enter office older than Ronald Reagan was on his last day in office), was not a party or a politician. It was us, a nation overwhelmingly composed of non-Boomers realizing an unencumbered system placed us at the crossroad not just of a plutocracy but of a geriatric dichotomy.
For all of her awfulness, Clinton was a villain worthy of Trump. Just like the narcissistic business charlatan, the former first lady was happy to make a quick buck off of whatever organization wanted to pay for a performance, and something about the 2016 spat between the two felt utterly deserved, a race between two of the most grifting and dishonest comic book villains in public consciousness. Four years later, a Trump much more faced with the human costs of his job has been challenged not by one of the most distrusted politicians in recent memory, but by Biden, a man viewed as honest and likable by most and as thoroughly beloved by his own party.
And yet, the first of three general election presidential debates felt like so much more of a wild insult of American intelligence than those between a less worn down Trump and a maniacal Clinton.
Trump couldn’t stop interrupting Fox News debate moderator Chris Wallace, coming off as desperate, as though he were claiming, “No, you’re the puppet” to Biden for all 90 minutes of the debate. Biden managed to hold it together enough to not confirm the Trump team conspiracy theories that he’s fueled by Ritalin and an earpiece, and that is about the kindest credence I can offer his campaign. Here is professional polling expert Frank Luntz, who conducted a live focus group of the garbage heap of a night:
This debate has actually convinced some undecided voters to not vote at all.
I’ve never seen a debate cause this reaction. #Debates2020
— Frank Luntz (@FrankLuntz) September 30, 2020
For years, people have complained about elections that come down to just two candidates that each had significant issues. In hindsight, the buttoned-up presidential elections of yore are nothing compared to the geriatric battle between a dude who spent most of his wonder years feeling women up at clubs until TV remade him into a caricature of a brilliant businessman versus a career swamp monster who may have a heart of gold but absolutely has a penchant for bombing random civilians so long as it’s politically expedient.
Tuesday’s debate was an insult to American history. The question is how we let the system gift us with the political equivalent of Weekend At Bernie’s in the first place.
