President Trump’s belligerent debate performance in Cleveland seemed a self-defeating flop. But I’ve heard some people wonder whether his 90 minutes of interruptions effectively stoked the fighting spirit of his base, however unattractive it seemed to us scribblers. Well, perhaps.
As the Washington Examiner editorialized immediately after the debate, it was also surely an opportunity missed by an incumbent who needs to change the course of a campaign he is currently losing. By creating such confusion and cross-talk, rendering much of the evening incomprehensible, Trump concealed Joe Biden’s biggest weakness. His challenger could rarely get a word in edgewise and so was spared the embarrassment of stumbling incoherence and running out of things to say on national TV.
Biden’s first answer was weak and confused, and perhaps the initial 10 minutes of Trump stomping on him was effective. But then it became too much, and the president simply looked charmless, rude, and obstreperous. A fair-minded person would conclude that Biden didn’t have the chance to make his case, not that mental decline made him incapable of doing so.
That’s presumably why his supporters leaped to say the Cleveland shambles should prompt Biden to duck out of the two remaining scheduled debates. They know there’s a chance that, at the next opportunity, Trump will give “Sleepy Joe” enough time and space to get lost.
Before that, we’ll see Vice President Pence face Biden’s running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, in Salt Lake City, Utah, Oct. 7. The contrast between their styles is greater than that between their bosses. Trump and Biden, at their best, are both bruisers with natural and calculated blue-collar appeal. But Pence is an emollient and restrained smooth talker, whereas Harris has the slashing, withering debate style of a prosecutor. Look for her to be aggressive whilst trying to avoid seeming mean or angry, and for him to deploy quizzical looks and calm retorts to suggest that his antagonist’s arguments are coming out of extreme left field.
While Trump is scrambling to save his presidency, there’s one issue on which he’s likely to have his way easily. That’s the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. Our cover headline, “What’s Not to Like?,” captures the fact that there’s no chink visible in her armor. Ilya Shapiro profiles a candidate who is excellent in both jurisprudence and character, who thus makes the Left’s grimaces look as absurd as they are cynical.
Mark Mills eviscerates the Democrats’ green crusade against fossil fuels, exposing its fantastic and ruinous costs and its deleterious impact on national security. In the second of a series of congressional profiles that we’ll run for the rest of the year, we interview Rep. Dan Crenshaw, the swashbuckling Texan emerging as a party leader of the future.
In Life & Arts, Peter Tonguette reviews A Rainy Day in New York, which reveals Woody Allen in top form again, Eric Felten ponders the downest of downtime, as in taking a COVID nap, and Forester McClatchey explores Fernando Pessoa, a poet who invented 72 other writers and poets.
