Tory Shepherd: Wallace did his best at moderating, but it was a lost cause. Trump was trying to steamroll Biden
200,000 Americans are dead from COVID-19, wild fires and unrest rage, and all today’s debate offered was lies and shambolic reminders of the toxicity of US politics, writes Tory Shepherd.
Opinion
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There are many reasons to feel deeply sorry for the US. More than 200,000 people have died from COVID-19. Wildfires are still raging, civil unrest is still rampant, school shootings are still a thing.
And their politics is utterly toxic.
The first presidential debate of the 2020 election campaign was a shambolic clusterschmuck teeming with personal insults, lies and zero engagement.
Instead of fuelling this divisiveness, let’s look at what emerged from the debate that all reasonable people can agree on.
It was a hot mess
Ever been at the pub with a bickering couple? One talking over the other, drowning them out while bitching about their mother-in-law?
And the other, pretending it’s not happening, trying to ignore the incessant rant, hoping to make eye contact with others at the table.
Watching the debate was like that. For 90 minutes.
With no beer. Moderator Chris Wallace was the well-intentioned friend who was valiantly trying to intervene.
CNN anchor Jake Tapper was understated when he said of the debate: “That was a hot mess inside a dumpster fire inside a train wreck”.
Truth matters
We may be in a “post-truth” era, where hordes of people think that if they read something on the internet it must be true, where experts are derided for their expertise and conspiracy theories flourish (and that’s just among politicians).
But if we don’t have a common touchstone for what is true and false, we may as well put YouTube in charge of the world.
A live fact check by a team of New York Times reporters found Republican President Trump made false, misleading or exaggerated claims, or claims with no evidence, 32 times.
Democrat opponent Joe Biden bent the truth five times.
Trump’s supporters label anyone who criticises him or points out his lies as a sufferer of “Trump derangement syndrome”.
It’s another silencing technique that tacitly accepts that truth doesn’t matter.
Debates need rules
Wallace did his best at moderating, but it was a lost cause. Trump was trying to steamroller Biden, to rattle him by incessantly talking over him. Biden’s response was to chuckle, call him a “clown” or ask him to “shut up”.
The whole thing was worthless both because of the silly bickering, but also because neither committed to answering questions. Biden stuck to talking points, Trump stuck to his tweeting technique of shouting anything that popped into his head.
Policies were neither explained, interrogated, nor defended. Logical fallacies were made. We learned practically nothing about either candidate except to confirm that Trump is a bully and Biden struggles to cut through.
Climate change is a problem
Humans are wreaking havoc on the Earth, and we’re getting close to a point of no return. How will we keep the damage under control if the leader of the Free World won’t even admit there’s a problem?
Trump was asked again and again about the science, but preferred to blame the wildfires on forest management – dead leaves on the ground – and to blather about clean air.
White supremacists are bad
After Charlottesville, a rally for white supremacists and nationalists in which a counter-protester was mown down and killed, Trump said there were “fine people” on both sides.
He has defended Kyle Rittenhouse, a 17-year-old who shot two Black Lives Matter protesters dead.
And in the debate Trump insisted – wrongly, at least if you believe the FBI or any other authoritative source – that the violence was a left-wing problem.
He refused entirely to condemn white supremacists, saying only that the far-right group Proud Boys should stand down. But also stand by, which would have those Boys waving their swastikas in celebration.
Neither Trump, nor Biden, nor truth won in this debate. The debacle will only raise the fear that America itself is lost.