In 2016, the presidential election turned into a referendum against Hillary Clinton. In 2020, it might just become one against Donald Trump — that is, if the Democratic Party lets it.
Joe Biden had all but locked up the Democratic nomination prior to Sunday’s debate, but given the former vice president’s increasing penchant for gaffes and rhetorical fumbles, the two-person stage offered him the opportunity to undermine the case for his candidacy. Biden avoided this pitfall, in no small part due to Bernie Sanders.
Virtue-signaling about picking a female vice president aside, Biden gave his best debate performance yet. Given the chance to actually speak for an hour, he rose to the occasion, rightly slamming Sanders for his dictatorial sycophancy and socialist fantasies. China became the central antagonist of the debate, with Bernie rising to its defense and Biden excoriating it.
Initially focused on the coronavirus, the two sparred over China’s culpability. Whereas Sanders hedged on whether China deserved what he called “recrimination,” Biden exhibited moral leadership, committing to “consequences” against the regime. Whereas Sanders waxed poetic about socializing the economy to solve climate change, Biden reiterated his realism on the matter and emphasized the need to hold disproportionate polluters such as China to account. Whereas Sanders repeated the lie that the Chinese Communist Party pulled people out of poverty rather than put them there, Biden blasted the regime for its specific offenses and refused to grant it any credence.
In short, whereas Sanders sounded like a doped-up college professor flirting with Mao and Marx, Biden sounded, to conservatives and liberals alike, like a leader willing to combat our greatest global threat head-on. It may be too little, too late for him to win over Republicans, but there’s no question as to who came off looking presidential on Sunday.
And thus, Biden accomplishes what Hillary Clinton could not: He is a likable enough liberal Democrat who seems competent enough to make Trump look like the riskier bet at the ballot box. No doubt, Trump still has the massive advantage of incumbency, but last night, Biden refused to take Bernie’s bait and instead used the socialist Vermonter’s China sycophancy against him. That’s a positive sign for Democrats, and a dangerous one for Trump.
