This Side of Fifty: The Presidential Debate

The long-awaited Presidential Debate last night was a disaster for the Biden Campaign. This debate was the first and, arguably the biggest and perhaps last chance, for Biden to put to rest the age and mental acuity question. All the of the talking heads and newspaper articles generally agree, the President did not do well in this regard.

Trump was Trump. He avoided giving answers to specific questions e.g. child care, social security, climate change, and if he will accept the results of the 2024 election. He pivoted on most of the questions he did not want to answer to further hammer home points on Biden’s inability to lead especially regarding immigration, the withdrawal from Afghanistan, and emphasizing that he his “ruining this country.” In comparison to Biden, Trump seemed did not look, act, or speak as old and infirm as Biden. He kept his poise for the most part.

Mental acuity is a huge factor, the elephant in the room factor, for the 2024 election.

If Trump and Biden are the candidates, which right now they look like they will be, I believe Trump will win.

I am not a fan of Trump. I do not believe he has the best interest of any of us and it is a pure power and ego thing with him. I suppose, the same may be said of most candidates running for that lofty office. I believe it is truer for Trump then the others. I believe he was and is a threat to democracy and will bid for a third term beginning the first day after he wins the election. If he doesn’t win the election… well, we all witnessed what happened in the 2020.

What Trump does well is defy ‘political correctness’ that as stifled and frustrated a large number of Americans for years. He defies it by bluntly saying what people are thinking and wish they could say. I believe people are devoted to him for this. He made a statement in the debate last night about something Biden had just said which was what all watching on TV were thinking: "I really don't know what he said at the end of that sentence, and I don't think he knows what he said either." I was certainly thinking the same.

While I voted for Biden last time, I will not vote for him this time, mostly due to last night’s debate. I am not happy with the job he has done but I was viewing him as having higher character than Trump and most importantly, zero threat to our democracy. Simply stated, we cannot have a President who cannot speak very well extemporaneously.

So, I am not voting for Biden, and I cannot vote for Trump. Where does that leave me? Robert Kennedy? No. The Libertarian candidate? Chase Oliver? An Account Executive? A salesman with no chance of winning? No. I could not cast vote for President this this year… but that is equally lame. I do live in a state where Biden will most likely win. So, I could not vote and feel like I was protesting the pathetic choices, knowing well that Trump would not carry the state. What a totally pathetic decision criterion.

What is really pathetic is that in the United States of America we have had three elections in a row where I, and I am guessing significant others, were voting for the least of two lame candidate, the least of two uninspiring candidates, the least of two pathetic candidate, or the least of two unacceptable candidates. I for one am tired of that. Why do we not have better candidates? I would sure like to vote FOR someone because I like them and what they stand for and the least bad of two candidates. Bill Burr might had a good view of this in on Jimmy Kimmel live on December 6, 2023: “I want somebody in their 40s, somebody that’s going to have to live with their decisions.”

During the Great Recession, I posted that the US was going to come out of the recession but we would not be the country we were before 2008. We would emerge more like a Eurpoean country but not the ones we admire (if we admire any today). Our last three presidential elections, and I counting this one as one of them, hammer that point home.

I know by posting this I will have friends on both sides ‘helping’ me to see the errors of my reasoning. If that happens, I am unlikely to respond. I am OK with agreeing to disagree. I am OK with debating. But these days, there is no debate. They all seem to end in diatribes and rifts in family and friendships… over what? These two boobs? Never.

This Just In: This is a heading I thought I would never use in a blog… but as I was preparing this post, this breaking news story just came in. Biden just had a rally in North Carolina and said the following per Yahoo/US News and said this:

WASHINGTON — Amid calls from some Democrats for him to bow out after a disastrous debate performance, a defiant President Joe Biden vowed Friday he will beat Donald Trump in the November election, making clear he has no plans to end his reelection campaign.

"I know I'm not a young man − to state the obvious," Biden said near the end of a campaign rally in Raleigh, North Carolina. "Folks, I don't walk as easy as I used to. I don't speak as smoothly as I used to. I don't debate as well as I used to. But I know what I do know: I know how to tell the truth.

"I know right from wrong. I know how to do this job. I know how to get things done. And I know, like millions of Americans know, when you get knocked down, you get back," Biden said, prompting loud applause from supporters.

Well… I agree with what he says, but I also believe he should turn it over to someone younger and hold his own bantering with Trump. The extreme right and left will vote for their candidate no matter who it is. The election will be decided by the candidate that lure the centrists. I think Biden's performance in the debate drove the undecided voters to Trump.

Comedy may be the only refuge in this election for me. Allow me to share some examples. First, I made this one.