The Non-Great Debate Debacle

“Are you going to watch the debate?” Yes, I replied, I feel I have to. It’s probably going to be a big deal. But I have such trepidation about it, even dread. I don’t think it will go well. It’s just a premonition, or intuition, or paranoia, or something.

Two minutes in, it was basically over. Joe Biden should have called in sick, sick or not. He was terrible, shockingly so, given that he’d given an extended and articulate “state of the nation” not long before, one that seemed to have shut up the endless accusations from many sides that he was just too old. And then, on Thursday eve, he fumbled right out of the gate and kept doing so, looking lost and blowing his many chances to score some points. His flashes of energy and cogency towards the end mostly served to show how weak he’d otherwise been. And thus the immediately aghast speculation about what to do, how to replace him with another candidate and who that might be. Unlike too many other observers, I don’t pretend to know about that. The smoke-filled rooms are buzzing away right now, and we’ll see soon enough.

Regarding Biden’s cognitive state, medical writers speculated that cold medications, were to blame, or “sundowner syndrome,” the common drop in cognitive capability that can affect elderly folks late in the day. Or both. Or something worse. In any event, by the weekend, The Atlantic, long a staunch defender, called it “The End of the Biden Era.” Likewise The New Yorker. The New York Times editorial board collectively called for him to step down. So, basically, did even the hallowed GOP mouthpiece the Wall Street Journal - which quickly tore Trump’s falsehoods apart - and their veteran communist Peggy Noonan, a Reaganite Pulitzer preacher whose old school ramblings range from the fuddy-duddy to the undeniably perceptive, especially when she “triggers” her paper’s core readership of angry old men by pointing out Trump is a disaster for decency, let alone democracy. She called the debate the most important one in the nation’s history, and not in a reassuring way.

All this wouldn’t be so fraught if the stakes weren’t so high. The ex-President is a spectre we by now know all too well: A serial fraudster whose bogus foundation and university were shuttered for fraud, whose family business has been likewise fined, who has so many legal cases against him that spends millions of dollars annually on lawyers, who has been accused of the sexual assaults he was caught on tape boasting about and has been successfully held accountable for more than one, who attempted to overturn his firing by American voters by lying about it endlessly, rebuffed by courts at every turn, who fomented a riot at the nation’s capital for that purpose, who had far more scandals and convictions among his cronies than anyone ever, who is opposed by more former colleagues and underlings than any ex-president ever, who is the first convicted felon to ever - one could go on and on but one unifying aspect of all his transgressions and failures is this: They are true, and he denies and lies about them all, every one. 

And thus in the debate, his outright relentless falsehoods were relentless, obvious, shameless, and wholly expected.  It’s what he does.  It’s a technique, a kind of public gaslighting. Star Boston University historian Heather Cox Richardson quickly pointed out that he always uses the “Gish Gallop”, which the Urban Dictionary describes thus: “The Gish Gallop is a tactic in which one person purposefully gives as many incorrect or falsely-quoted statistics as possible in a very short time frame. This forces the opponent to waste speaking time taking down endless strawmen and lies created by their opponent, and is usually a sign that the utilizer is arguing in bad faith. The Gish Gallop is a tactic commonly used when you have no shame or care for facts and just want to win” (Eugenie Scott, who coined the term, was an anthropologist who first applied it to creationists and kindly named it after one of them).

Sound familiar? It should by now. Lying is so ubiquitous for Donald Trump one can assume that whatever he says about anything, the opposite is likely true. The one mystery is how much of his own words he actually believes. Since his aides and others have consistently reported he studies or understands little about most issues, it would be charitable to say he’s just ignorant, thus not really lying.  But in fact it’s likely a combination of both, other than his highly questionable Christianity, adopted for votes, which has led some true Christians to suspect he’s some form of the Biblical antichrist.  He’ll gladly sell you an expensive Bible though.

So, while the “cringe” debate rolled on, devolving even further into two old guys arguing about their golf prowess, I scribbled notes, furiously noting distortions and lies, until my single sheet of paper was filled on both sides only halfway through. Then I read many of the fact-checking reports soon published, which have been notably consistent: They do note that Biden “exaggerated” on some issues and “needed context” on others. But regarding Trump, his claims judged “false” were rampant.  

The issues touched upon, besides golf, were the economy including inflation, deficits, abortion, Covid, immigration, crime, the environment, veterans, foreign affairs and wars, the January 6 insurrection, the 2020 election, felonies, endorsements, social security and Medicare, taxes, and the 2020 election. There might have been more, but it was bafflingly bizarre to watch. My intention was to comment factually on each, but, given both Trump’s Gish Gallop and whatever was afflicting Biden, that became pointless. Suffice it to say that on the issues I’m most informed on, Trump was so far from truth it would have been shocking had we all not already had years of his “technique.” The big question left is how at this point anyone could actually believe him, or put their faith in him to make things better for them. But that’s another essay, or book: For now, look up “cult.”  Members of the Trumpian cult sometimes call those who criticize him victims of “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” or TDS, but it’s more accurately Truth Demanding Syndrome - not that such efforts work on cultists.

Trump recently slipped up in an accidentally candid moment and told a rally “I don’t care about you, I just want your vote.” As with veterans, POWs, and war dead, he thinks his own supporters are “suckers and losers.” This amazingly revealing quip is borne out by his actions. His two signature “accomplishments” while in office were a tax cut for those who don’t need it, and a Supreme Court that is steadily dismantling anything that benefits the average American. The rest was failure, other than financially for him, his family, and transactional “friends.” His fabled “wall” was an ineffectual grift, his response to Covid a worldwide embarrassment, his insults to veterans and POWs would make my own veteran GOP stalwart dad want to strangle him, his court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade has actually resulted in more and later abortions, much hassle and suffering for women, disruptions in medical care and education, his lies about crime by both “illegals” and others blatantly disprovable, his dodging of truth regarding his past and future elections and January 6 pathetically transparent, his accusations of Biden’s criminality belied by GOP investigations coming up with nothing damning, and… but sorry, I was going to refrain from a true list. The truly curious can easily look up actual expert opinion on any Trumpian topic - healthcare, the environment, foreign affairs, you name it - and see that the most relevant professional organizations and associations judge him very badly. Latest example: Moody’s, the most respected nonpartisan economic and financial modeling and forecasting organization, just projected Trump’s planned economic policies would result in severe inflation and even a recession by 2025. They call that a disaster. Trump and his wealthy cronies and supporters would of course be just fine though, at least if they stay out of prison.

In the debate, Trump called Biden a “Manchurian candidate”, and I thought, after wondering if he even knew what that might mean, that Trump’s actually more demented than Biden will ever be, whatever happens, but he makes it look somewhat  “normal.”  And thus the choice - between a rapidly aging but decent and accomplished if surely flawed president and an evil felon surrounded by many more of the same who is a front man, at least partly unwittingly, for a neofascist Christian nationalist takeover. Those who doubt the latter are advised to watch the new documentary “Bad Faith,”narrated by Ken Burns’ longtime narrator of choice Peter Coyote, who calls it the most important project he’s yet voiced. It’s also terrifying.

Why should we care? I’ve always been fairly apolitical by nature, other than when drawn into policy work by my careers in the health and environmental fields. And I gave up on harboring high hopes about politicians themselves long ago. But it seems clear that now more than ever, there are countless lives at stake, both now and in the future. I’m getting up there in years and won’t be around for the worst of what many of the best and brightest say is coming our way. I don’t have kids of my own, having already become too cynical about the future decades ago. But I know lots of young people and even love some of them, and some of them are even having babies now. And I’ve seen too much avoidable suffering in my work and otherwise, and love the natural world on this planet too. And I was brought up to despise hypocrisy and greed and lying and faked religiosity and cruelty - all undeniable aspects of Trump in both word and deed.  

Some otherwise smart people say there’s no difference between the two dominant parties and candidates but that’s just facile nonsense. The “third party” candidates we get offered are non-starters, without a chance even if the game weren’t rigged (nobody with any scientific training and sense feels JFK Jr. is anything but a nut, which, again, is at least a bit better than a liar). Could we do better, have better options? Of course. But until something fundamental, sweeping, and unexpected transpires - a “revolution”? - we must do the best with the cards we’re dealt. And what we likely will still have is a sad choice.

My last point might be the most salient: As powerful as a President might be, it’s the people around him or her that matter most, for better or worse. And the fact is that Biden has many true experts among the inevitable cadre of self-serving political operatives, while Trump has favored, with jobs, contracts, pardons and power, an unprecedented “swamp” of corrupt, grifting, even neofascist reprobates. Those who have told alarming and/or disgusting truths about him are purged and banished, but the truths remain. At this point, both Biden and Trump are basically front guys for bigger powers that be or would be, the difference being that many of Biden’s policies and accomplishments actually benefit many Americans. And where they don’t, here or in, say, Gaza, Trump would be even worse. Each voter can take their pick, holding your breath or drinking heavily or whatever gets one through, and support at least some good. If the humans and other creatures of the near and far future had a voice, we’d soon banish from public life and never hear of Donald Trump again - other than in endless, pathetic legal court proceedings reports. I join all the scientists, economists, environmentalists, human rights advocates, and, we’ll, just plain decent people who strongly think Americans should endorse that spectacle.