Biden Masterfully Steals News Cycle From His Convicted Felon Opponent With Criminal Debate Performance
Yes, I’m still voting for Biden.
Joe Biden’s presidential debate performance Thursday night was worse than Apollo Creed’s fatal confrontation with Ivan Drago in Rocky IV. He went in overconfident and unprepared, and we all screamed with horror as a Russian asset left him twitching on the floor. He probably shouldn’t have entered the debate stage while dancing to “Living In America.”
But it’s no big deal, we’re told, because now debates don’t matter, just like bad polling. I’ve long argued that debates are a waste of time, an antiquated relic from a different political reality, but if you’re going to actually participate in one, it’s preferable that you don’t make yourself ridiculous in front of 51 million people.
"The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command."
I don’t think it’s wise to overreact to one horrible slack-jawed debate performance, but it’s equally unwise to not react at all, to just pretend there’s not a problem. I’ve worked on productions that still struggled on opening night. You didn’t replace the entire cast and burn the script, but we did make serious changes.
Instead, the Biden team has been on defense since Thursday’s disaster. They said he had a bad cold, as that excuses his dazed and confused performance rather than reinforcing the image of frailty. His fiercest supporters have accused his critics of ageism. However, ageism is assuming Biden can’t speak coherently or deliver in a clinch just because he’s 81. It’s not reasonable to justify Biden speaking incoherently or botching the debate because he’s 81.
The New York Times reports that “some attendees blamed Mr. Biden’s aides for the debacle, arguing they should have never agreed to the format or to such a late start time.” The debate started at 9 p.m. I don’t like leaving the house at that hour, but when it’s important, I make the effort. Someone on Biden’s team should’ve made sure the president got a disco nap prior to confronting Trump. His aides apparently told Axios that “between 10am to 4pm, Biden is dependably engaged — and many of his public events in front of cameras are held within those hours. Outside of that time range or while traveling abroad, Biden is more likely to have verbal miscues and become fatigued.” America doesn’t really operate within the same hours as a local pastry shop. It’s more Waffle House with nukes. During the 2008 primary, Hillary Clinton ran a “3 a.m. phone call” ad, suggesting that Barack Obama wasn’t ready for the sudden, tough decisions a president faces. There was a reason her ad didn’t ask, “Who do you want responding to a national emergency in the mid-afternoon?”
Democrats have pointed out that Obama himself bombed his first debate with Mitt Romney but still handily won re-election. However, Obama had never debated Romney before and would learn to take him seriously. Biden has debated Trump twice already and knows he’s a Gish-galloping liar. Besides, Obama was already winning and could afford to temporarily lose ground. Biden needed to change the race’s current dynamic. Instead, he has perhaps cemented a disturbing narrative.
Quentin Fulks, Biden’s deputy campaign, declared at an all-staff meeting, “Nothing fundamentally changed about this election [Thursday] night. We’re going to get punched. We’re going to punch back. We’re going to get up when we get punched.”
That seems like the Rocky III strategy where you let your opponent pummel you mercilessly until you feel the eye of the tiger. In reality, that just leads to brain damage, and Rocky didn’t punch himself in the face for 90 minutes.
Friday, during an afternoon campaign rally with scripted remarks, Biden acknowledged his poor showing as if he were trying to convince his wife to give him another chance and not board that plane to a job in another city.
“I know I’m not a young man,” he said. “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.” Don’t worry, he has a point: “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 up!”
Many of Biden’s favorite centrists and Never Trumpers have called for him to step down, and the Biden supporters who used to share their posts all the time on social media feel quite betrayed. They are even calling Tim Miller a secret MAGA Republican. Biden’s other deputy campaign manager Rob Flaherty responded in an email to supporters, “The bedwetting brigade is calling for Joe Biden to ‘drop out.’ That is the best possible way for Donald Trump to win and us to lose.”
Flaherty argued that “if [Biden] were to drop out, it would lead to weeks of chaos, internal foodfighting, and a bunch of candidates who limp into a brutal floor fight at the convention, all while Donald Trump has time to speak to American voters uncontested.”
It seems like Trump had plenty of time to speak “uncontested” at that train wreck debate. It was nice of Biden to keep him company on the stage, but it’s not as if he effectively countered his lies.
Seriously, Kamala Harris exists
Biden’s campaign invokes the 1968 Democratic convention and more recently the 2016 Democratic primary. However, the more relevant example is the primary Biden won in 2020. That did not devolve into “chaos, internal foodfighting, and a bunch of candidates who limp into a brutal floor fight at the convention.” Everyone was mostly unified around defeating Donald Trump. The candidate who personally hit Biden the hardest early on became his running mate.
Speaking of Kamala Harris, who can actually speak coherently about abortion, the vice president is the constitutional remedy for a situation where a sitting president is unable to perform his duties. It’s concerning to say the least that Biden’s campaign manager acts as if Harris isn’t a factor. Jimmy Kimmel joked that just because Alfred is too old to properly take care of the Bat Cave, you shouldn’t turn it over to the Joker. That binary choice seems reasonable until you realize Robin exists.
The Biden campaign’s nightmarish alternate scenario isn’t a defense of Biden on the merits. It’s as if my wife needed emergency surgery and the doctor’s hands are shaking and there’s whiskey on his breath. I reasonably demand another doctor, but I’m told they are all very far away or perhaps a woman of color from California. Sorry, there’s just no other option but Dr. Shaky Hands.
Worse, the Biden campaign shared a graphic that supposedly showed how badly other Democrats perform against Trump compared to Biden.
Harris does just as well as Biden, and she’s not actually running! She’s also not 81. Pete Buttigieg, Cory Booker, Gretchen Whitmer, Amy Klobuchar, Josh Shapiro, and J. B. Pritzker are arguably all polling better than Biden. Perhaps interpreting polling data is beyond the skill set of the crack team who prepped Biden for Thursday’s debate, so let me explain: Almost all the non-Biden Democrats have a greater number of “not sure” responses, which gives them a greater ceiling against Trump, a known quantity.
I’m not advocating that Democrats nominate someone other than Biden, but this graphic is truly sad and desperate. Biden is effectively tied with Democratic unknowns.
I have to keep repeating that I’m voting for Biden, but I do find it odd that certain Democrats insist that only Biden can beat Trump while also saying that they’d personally vote for a rotten cabbage instead of Trump. Harris is better than cabbage.
Why doesn’t the convicted felon drop out?
Democrats have complained that the media and assorted “bedwetters” should instead call for Trump to step down. Sure, Donald Trump is a convicted felon and an adjudicated rapist, who is charged with stealing classified documents and storing it in his tacky bathroom. He should drop out on general principle, but the convicted felon currently has half a chance of winning the election and making all his problems go away. He has no reason to drop out and it’s silly to think Republicans, a party of power-hungry sociopaths, would ask him to do so. They are flying high on the fascist skies.
People skittish about Biden are simply matching the stakes that Democrats themselves have raised. Don’t tell people that democracy itself could end if Trump wins and then accuse them of wetting the bed when they show legitimate concern that Biden might lose. Republicans can afford to be chill because Biden’s version of “Project 2025” is affordable health care and better roads.
Sunday, Sen. Chris Coons insisted that Biden’s “the only Democrat who can beat Donald Trump” — the convicted felon who most decent people hate. I personally doubt this and believe it’s an egocentric reading of what actually happened in 2020. This wasn’t 2008, when Obama inspired a movement. The majority of Americans in 2020 wanted to remove Trump from office and worked damn hard to achieve this.
There’s a great moment from The Flash TV series when the villainous Thinker has been defeated and cries, “How did you beat me?” The Flash looks around at his teammates and friends and says simply, “I didn’t. We did.”
A diverse, multicultural coalition helped Biden defeat Trump in 2020. We know this because he keeps saying so. During his victory speech, he specifically called out Black voters: “You’ve always had my back and I’ll always have yours.” He repeated these remarks recently at events when rallying the Black vote for his re-election. Why should we believe this same coalition, particularly Black women, wouldn’t also have Harris’s back, especially against Trump? The unspoken argument against Harris is that the Biden 2020 coalition included bigots not bold enough to just vote for Trump but who nonetheless sneer at the HBCU graduate. If Democrats are cynical enough to believe this, then why did the hell did they support Harris for VP? I don’t think we are in crisis mode yet, but the whole point is that if we were, Harris could step in seamlessly and carry the day.
Democrats claim that this election is ultimately about abortion rights and protecting vulnerable, marginalized groups from a second Trump term. I refuse to accept that the only person who can fight that battle is an old white man. That sort of paternalism masked as realism is insulting.
Realistically, Biden will remain the nominee unless something drastic occurs. I just hope someone at the White House has ordered multiple cases of Mountain Dew so the president can get back on his footing.
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Thank you, Stephen.
One of the most useful new words I learned last year is “misogynoir.” This country can’t handle the thought of a white woman (HRC) as president, let alone a Black woman — and, as usual, it wouldn’t matter how intelligent, experienced, and capable she may be. It’s no surprise whatsoever that a “Blame Jill Biden” theme has now emerged from the political chatterboxes, apparently for not revealing to America that Joe is old and suffers occasionally from the vicissitudes of old age. And she doesn’t even use an astrologer!
In 2003, Shirley Chisholm said, “I met far more discrimination being a woman than being black when I moved out into the political arena.” I feel like, we just need to keep ridin’ with Biden and get him across the finish line, heave a sigh of relief, and let the chips fall. Kamala Harris is indeed ready and willing to fill his shoes if need be, and those who don’t like that can fuck off.
Sorry if this is disjointed, I’m rather terrified beyond the capacity for rational thought, waiting for the SCOTUS immunity decision to drop.
>>“if [Biden] were to drop out, it would lead to weeks of chaos, internal foodfighting, and a bunch of candidates who limp into a brutal floor fight at the convention, all while Donald Trump has time to speak to American voters uncontested.”
The best way to prevent this actually happening... is for Democrats to not shiv each other.
Like, duh, how hard is it to NOT shiv your friends and coworkers? I somehow manage to not do this every single day of my life. WTF?