A quick glance at the calendar reveals we are now inside of six months removed from the much talked about 2024 presidential election. Not many Americans realize that yes, we’re that close to the big dance… but half a year is still yet so far.
The relative nearness of Election Day also indicates that early and mail-in balloting will begin much sooner than that, nudging up the timeline for the respective presidential campaigns to get their messages out to an information-starved (not!) public. But at this late stage of the political horserace, every day counts, and the major party nominees themselves are already deep in contemplation as to whether they’d want to take part in the usually crucial presidential debates.
In most years, the subject would be fairly non-controversial, the notion of facing your opponent on the same platform almost perfunctory in today’s ultra-contentious political environment. Even the most heated of rivals – like Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in 2016 – assented to three one-on-one forums (plus one veep debate), the combativeness of which continues to be talked about.
Four years ago, in 2020, then-president Donald Trump opted to meet Democrat challenger senile Joe Biden three times, with one of the scheduled events postponed and then cancelled due to the ongoing COVID scare. There was also a memorable tussle between cackling Kamala Harris and Mike Pence that year, which the latter “won” going away. For those who were just being introduced to Kamala and her personality, what did you think? Did the term “moron” enter your spoken vocabulary that evening?
This year, now challenger Trump (the Republican nominee) wishes to go head-to-head with Biden again, but argues that the timetable for the programs should be moved up – and more debates added. Trump’s reasoning is solid. In an article titled “‘Unacceptable’: Trump Campaign Slams Commission’s Refusal to Hold Earlier Debates”, Caden Pearson reported at The Epoch Times recently:
“In a statement, former President Donald Trump’s campaign representatives Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles intensified criticism of the body that sponsors all general election presidential debates. Previously, they had requested debates to be held ‘much earlier’ than the commission’s planned first debate in mid-September. The Trump campaign repeated its argument that voters deserve to hear from both candidates before they begin casting their votes.
“’The Presidential Debate Commission’s schedule does not begin until after millions of Americans will have already cast their ballots. This is unacceptable, and by refusing to move up the debates, they are doing a grave disservice to the American public who deserve to hear from both candidates before voting begins,’ the statement read.
“The statement comes after the nonprofit commission told Fox News that it would stick with its debate schedule, which was released last November. Four debates are planned: three presidential and one vice presidential.”
Bored establishment media pundits were keen to point out that Trump didn’t agree to show up at any of the RNC’s “official” debates last year, so where does he get off in demanding that his Democrat opponent participate this time? Has Trump really forfeited his leg to stand on?
No way. Nobody cared about the GOP primary debates and the Democrat powers-that-be didn’t bother planning any for their side since they had an incumbent mounting a reelection run and there weren’t any viable pols wishing to test the sturdiness of senile Joe Biden’s command of his leftist forces.
But the general election is different. The “field” is narrowed down to (most likely) two legitimate contenders and the public’s interest in hearing what they each have to say is heightened by leaps and bounds. These two aren’t the warm-up band before the lead act enters the arena; they’re the big banana, the whole bag o’ marbles and the main draw all in one.
The primaries are gone and no one talks about them anymore even though there are still several states yet to vote (Note: Indiana’s primary was earlier this week). Trump leads in the general election polls and has the right to ask senile Joe to meet him anytime, anywhere, anyhow. The question is whether Trump is wise to call for it.
Is Trump unnecessarily creating an opening for senile Joe Biden to make up ground by insisting on early debates? After all, the customary political philosophy is the candidate in the lead doesn’t let up on an opponent when he’s down, and you certainly don’t make it easier for him or her to gain precious points by granting them two-plus hours of national media exposure stationed right opposite the frontrunner. Would you?
Trump’s thinking must be that he can easily handle ol’ broken-down Joe in a traditional debate setting, where the two candidates are positioned behind lecterns just a few feet across from each other. In the middle somewhere is a “moderator” who feeds them questions and attempts to keep order when the discussion inevitably devolves into a series of campaign bromides and accusations – and in the case of senile Joe, fantastical inaccuracies that can’t (or won’t) be fact-checked in real time.
Everyone in America now understands that Joe Biden is a big fat – and senile – blowhard who’s earned a reputation for inventing tall tales (my uncle was eaten by cannibals?) at a moment’s notice, a living AI machine who processes bits and pieces of real information and fashions them into some inane story that is digestible to the lowest common denominator of voters who aren’t well-informed to begin with.
To my recollection, Biden has been underestimated going in to practically every debate situation he’s been saddled with, consistently given short shrift because his reputation as an idiot precedes him everywhere he goes. For this reason, and this reason alone, the Delawarean dunce’s often given more credit than he deserves for simply showing up on time, dressing for the occasion, staying awake and responding to questions in a manner that sounds somewhat intelligible.
Again, senile Joe has had plenty of practice repeating this over the course of more than a half-century in the swamp, doing interviews, sniffing coiffures, fondling little children’s scalps and shoulders, whispering in ladies’ ears and doing whatever comes naturally to an ancient pervert who can’t contain his urges, even in front of the whole world.
He blubbers stupid stuff, too. Remember how senile Joe said “Antifa is just an idea” or, “Nobody has ever said that my son did anything wrong”? Yet he got away with it, mostly due to swamp “moderator” bias and incompetence. Facts are stubborn things – but they’re often unknown things, too.
Of course, in this day and age where somebody, somewhere, offers livestreamed fact-corrections, senile Joe’s every answer would be questioned and somewhat adjusted, but would the average “undecided” voter actually bother to tune-in to such alternative enhancements? Chances are the few voters this fall who are so disengaged from this year’s presidential race as to be “undecided” will be fitting in viewing the debates between cooking dinner or cleaning up the dog’s mess on the living room carpet. They won’t be perusing the fact-check sites and paying attention to them.
Or, even worse, they’ll be scanning their social media sites and listening to their LGBTQ-loving friends who bypass all of senile Joe’s lies in order to scrutinize and peck apart every one of Trump’s responses for exaggerations or hints of bias or “racism” or xenophobia in addition to asserting that Trump is “mean” and “intolerant” and “crooked” because he’s only in it for himself and his rich-guy fortune.
Apologies for being so cynical, but it’s hard to remain upbeat when one considers that this election, which will determine the fate of our republic, could possibly be settled by marginal-at-best voters who wouldn’t be bothered to go to their precinct to vote but might be goaded by a leftwing interest group into filling out a mail-in ballot. Or will simply answer the front door and hand over their semi-completed forms to a harvester with a twisted smile, nose ring and face tattoos.
Here's predicting that Trump is right about the debates being held too late to capture a lot of ballots that will already have been cast in the ways I just described. It is simple common sense for both parties’ campaigns to desire to move up the calendar to increase the relevancy of the meetings, unless, of course, they’d rather have people vote before the shows even take place.
That’s probably the case for senile Joe’s people. Democrats appear to be on edge every time their president dodders out in public, fearing he’ll say or do something entirely disqualifying. But Biden insists he won’t step down no matter what. So be it.
That being said, there’s no doubt that Trump is salient on this debate question, and that he stands to gain a lot more than he risks losing in poll standing by doing one-on-one candidate forums with senile Joe Biden.
First and foremost, when Trump is on his “game”, there’s no way Biden can “beat” him in a debate. Many people (myself included) talk about how Trump blew the first debate in 2020 (at the end of September) -- constantly interrupting, complaining to “moderator” Chris Wallace and generally acting unpresidential to the nth degree – but a well-disciplined Trump is hard to land a glove on. Why? Because Trump has the issues and real-world experience on his side.
All Biden has to offer is gritted teeth, nasty glares, angry expressions, shouts and threats – none of which would distract a national TV audience hungry to hear substance and demanding of policies and solutions rather than entreaties to “save democracy” and to “restore the soul of the nation.”
Senile Joe is all platitudes and bluster. A two-hour debate will bring his true self out. Not even a liar as skilled and practiced as Biden can fool everyone for a lengthy program. Senile Joe will slip up, Trump will call him on it and the establishment media analyzers will be forced to talk about the blunder.
Trump’s supreme confidence, experience with the media and thorough grasp of 2024’s issues will allow him to keep focus on this year’s campaign, and Joe Biden’s repetitive jabs about January 6th won’t mean much to Americans fed up with the nation’s economy, horrific border situation and “woke” erosion of culture. Trump was correct to call for more (and earlier) debates. Will he get them?
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