3 Takeaways From the First Presidential Debate
If you happen to be one of the lucky one’s who didn’t waste an hour and a half of your life last night watching 2 seemingly lost geriatric patients arguing about which of them was the bigger douche bag on live television, well don’t worry, we here at Loud News Net got you covered. Chances are you had better things to do like share a joint with a loved one or contemplate the meaning of your existence, while I got incredibly baked in preparation of what was sure to be a shit show. And while this first Donald Trump vs. Joe Biden debate was pretty much everything you would imagine it to be, there were a few things that are worth mentioning and taking note of as we inch closer and closer to election day. So here are 3 takeaways from the first presidential debate in case you might have missed the train wreck.
3. Chris Wallace is an OG
The moderator for last night’s CNN hosted debate was Chris Wallace of Fox News. For anyone unfamiliar with Wallace the idea of a Fox News anchor hosting might make you cry out in horror, but Wallace is actually an experienced debate moderator and I would argue the last hope for sanity that the Fox News primetime lineup has left. It almost seems a bit trollish on the part of CNN to choose him as host because Wallace has been the only Fox host willing to challenge the president on multiple occasions as opposed to giving him his complete and utter loyalty as he has come to expect.
In stellar fashion, Wallace handled Trump like the true OG that he is. It was absolutely no surprise that Trump avoided questions, was always on the attack and tried to bully himself into Biden’s speaking time, but Wallace did everything in his power to point it out and attempt to shut it down. But above everything, Wallace did his utmost best to remain as impartial as possible, calling out both candidates for speaking out of turn or dodged questions and always attempted to divert the responses back to policy positions instead of the personal attacks that seemed to be all the rage that night.
2. Donald Trump is Shook
I’m sure plenty of people in his cult-like base would disagree with me but… Trump did an awful job last night during the presidential debate. He sure as hell wasn’t presidential and I’m not even sure he understands how to debate exactly. It has to be said that I think both candidates are terrible speakers, and while I recognize that has not always been the case for both of them, it’s a CLEAR representation of their age and possible cognitive decline. But Trump’s speech and rhetoric has an extra characteristic – fear. His inability to look anyone in the eye as he told a ridiculous amount of obvious lies and the mental gymnastics he attempted to do to avoid saying one thing while arguably supporting something worst was mind numbing. I imagine he thinks the whole talking in the middle of Biden’s time or talking shit to the moderator makes him look “tough”, but it really just made him seem childish and petty.
And as he avoids actually talking about things of substance, such as his plan for health care after he “destroys” the Affordable Care Act or his plans on actually dealing with COVID, he comes off as a leader that is and has been cracking under the pressure. He was so insistent on dropping these popular far right conspiratorial terms and concepts that he literally sounded like a soap box preacher wearing a tin foil hat, ranting and raving at passerby’s on the streets.
And dear god, the lies. Above anything else, that is the one thing everyone has just come to expect of Trump and it’s really disturbing, and last night he gave a torrent of lies like it was his day job. But while he was attempting the bring the ruckus like Wu-Tang, he should have been protecting his neck, because Joe Biden ain’t nothing to F with.
1. Joe Biden Stole the Night
I have to begin by saying that I’m not a big Joe Biden fan. Like many democrats and left leaning voters, I just don’t find myself that excited at the idea of a Biden presidency. So imagine my surprise by the end of the night when I found myself thinking that Joe Biden did a damn good job…. for Joe Biden.
Throughout the presidential debate I found myself on the edge of my seat hoping that he wouldn’t take the bate and sink down to Trump’s level of dirty politics. I felt that if Biden simply stuck to explaining his policy positions and what he could do for the American people while Trump slung insults at him and loosely pushed conspiracy theories, Biden would absolutely come out on top, and he actually did just that. There were a few times where he gave in a bit, but damn, what do you expect him to do? I’m sure he felt like he was up there debating Honey Booboo instead of a grown ass man, and that couldn’t have been easy to deal with.
So his resistance to interrupt even at a comparable frequency to Trump made him look really good. And he also tried not to follow Trump in going low. Biden came up with numbers and facts, and while he didn’t sell me on policy positions per se, I did get the sense that he came prepared and had a concrete understanding of certain issues. He also demonstrated that he has evolved on certain issues and is at the very least beginning to surround himself with people that may be smarter than him that can push him to evolve further.
Joe Biden’s absolutely strongest moment of the night was when Trump went as low as he could possibly go – he made the claim that Joe’s son Hunter Biden was dishonorably discharged from the military because of a cocaine habit. Instead of debating the semantics or denying as we come to expect politicians to do, Joe Biden opened up, looked at the camera and said, “my son, like a lot of people you know at home, had a drug problem. He’s overtaken it. He’s fixed it. He’s worked on it, and I’m proud of him. I’m proud of my son.”
That, in my personal opinion, was easily one of the most captivating moments I’ve seen in American politics in a long time. He opened up for a brief moment in what I felt was a positive and off the cuff way. It felt honest and heartfelt, and for the first time in forever, I trusted him. He did something that isn’t done enough which is humanizing the conversation on drug addiction. And as a powerful, wealthy and influential white man, that is rarely, if ever, done by people in his position. If only Biden was as sharp as he used to be in debating, he really could have drove the point home and did something truly unprecedented but necessary.
Overall, my idea that both candidates suck still stands, but… but during this presidential debate I was thoroughly impressed by Joe Biden. He maintained his cool and handled things pretty well while Trump simply maintained his ‘what I wouldn’t do to be a dictator’ thing. If any ‘on the fence’ voters (seriously, who the hell are these people?) tuned in, I believe Biden did a good job of demonstrating that 4 more years of unhinged idiot opposite him on the debate stage is simply unacceptable.
