Pence's Fly Won Last Night's Debate

 

I know, I know... Pence didn't bring the fly to the debate. It's not like it's his pet or something. In fact, the only fly he gets excited about is Nick Ayers', when it's unzipped.

This morning, when Biden was asked what he plans to do about Trump's on-again-off-again debate threats, he told reporters that "We don’t know what the president’s going to do. He changes his mind every second." But Biden wasn't just talking about how the drugs have deranged him to the point where he can't decide if he's willing to debate or when. And he wasn't just talking about the DC open secret that Trump plans to fire FBI director Christopher Wray, who he hired but who, in Trump's warped mind, failed the loyalty test. Trump called Wray "disappointing," and is furious that Wray hasn't done more to investigate "voter fraud," after Wray said there is no evidence of any coordinated fraud ahead of the election. "He doesn’t see the voting ballots as a problem." (Maybe Wray to bother with Trump's voter fraud fantasies because he was too busy arresting half a dozen Trump supporters who plotted the kidnapping of the Michigan governor Trump has repeatedly and viciously denounced.)

No, what I think was really on Biden's mind was Trump's flip-flop on his psychotic order 2 days ago that his GOP allies in Congress cease negotiating with the Democrats to craft a pandemic relief package. He tried a little typical Trumpish gaslighting to coverup the drug-induced fatal error. "Well I shut down talks two days ago because they weren’t working out. Now they are starting to work out, we’re starting to have some very productive talks." Oh? How were they starting to work out if the Republicans had ended the discussions. That white flag you see going up, isn't from Pelosi. In fact, Señor Trumpanzee add that he thinks Pelosi "wants it to happen, because it’s so good for our country, we really need it."

Meanwhile, in the midst of all this, Pink Eye Pence shows up at the debate with a herpetic lip, loses-- according to every poll, but not according to Señor T-- to a pathetically mediocre Kamala Harris, and then disappears off the radar, cancelling all events and zeroing out his schedule (without admitting he tested positive). Trump also refuses to allow the results of his tests to be seen by the public. Also-- if Pence doesn't have conjunctivitis in his left eye, who punched him? Mother? Was she pissed off because he has herpes again?

I'm disappointed that David Frum won't tell us who punched out Pence, because all he wants to write about is The Fly.

We saw a vice president with a pale face, his mouth cankered by a cold sore, his eyes pink. He looked unwell, which evoked the pandemic that has gripped America-- a pandemic through which the Trump White House has modeled the most irresponsible and unsafe behavior. That irresponsible and unsafe behavior has sickened the president and the first lady, forced the Joint Chiefs of Staff into quarantine, and spread infection though the West Wing. This White House is notorious for non-transparency and untruthfulness. The president evaded a COVID-19 test before the September 29 debate in Cleveland-- a date by which he very probably knew he was infected and infectious. Everybody watching tonight’s debate had to wonder: What’s going on with the vice president? At one point, Pence was at least the titular head of the White House COVID-19 response. He defied safety protocols too. He notably refused to wear a mask on a visit to the Mayo Clinic in April, despite the hospital’s clear rule that he must.

We saw a vice president who had internalized the Trump White House’s culture of disrespect, and especially disrespect to women. He talked over Kamala Harris and the moderator, Susan Page; he ignored the rules of the debate to which he agreed. At the core of the Trump political project is the reassertion of dominance over the historically dominated by the historically dominant. That reassertion of dominance was Pence’s supreme project at this debate too. Pence did not imitate his boss’s manic and undisciplined-- and ultimately catastrophically unsuccessful-- style of dominance. Instead, he brought to this debate the more measured and controlled disdain of a man who had considered the matter carefully-- and decided that the woman in front of him had no right to control him and that the woman to his right did not deserve to be onstage with him. With the sound on, you heard Page trying and failing to summon Pence to order with a repeated, “Mr. Vice President, Mr. Vice President.” With the sound off, you saw Harris-- a vice-presidential nominee, a U.S. senator, a former attorney general of the largest state in the nation-- obliged to smile and smile in an effort to assert herself without seeming… well, you know, without seeming something that might offend somebody. Pence never worried about offending anybody. And he did not feel the need to smile when asserting himself.

We saw a weird moment when a fly landed on Pence’s snow-white hair-- and the vice president did not react at all. No doubt, it’s a conundrum, what to do in such a situation. If Pence had shooed the fly and the fly had refused to shoo, that would have been bad. So he did nothing. And that doing nothing somehow in one powerful visual moment concentrated everything. It symbolized the whole Pence vice presidency, the determined, willful refusal to acknowledge the most blaring and glaring negative realities. Through all of the scandals and the crimes and the disasters of the past four years, Mike Pence was the man who pretended not to notice. And now there was a fly on his head, and he pretended not to notice that too.

Midnight Meme Of The Day!

 

by Noah

I laugh and shake my head ruefully everytime I hear people say that the way to avoid another "presidential" shitshow debate is to simply cut Mr. Howling Monkey's mic when he goes over his allotted time. As if that would stop him!

A childish mental case like Trump would just take cutting his mic as a challenge. He would immediately just raise the decibel level of his screaming gibberish and I have no doubt that he'd come prepared with the pockets of his baggy, oversized suit full of things to start throwing at the moderator and Joe Biden. If there was a table, he'd try to jump up on it, fail, fall, tip over the table and be rolling around, bellowing his nonsense from the floor. Would anybody be shocked if, after that, he went full-on apeman, reached in his pants, and started hurling his shit around the room? He'd even toss it at the camera. There it would be. Splat! Trump's shit on the TV screens of every tuned in viewer in the world. That's his statement to us all and it's his party's statement to us all. "Fuck you, America! You get shit! Here! We rub it right in your face! Fuck you America!" Hey, they are who they are. That's a reason why they support their howling monkey.

The epilogue, of course, is that all of that scene is merely a depiction of the end result of decades of nearly all American voters simply not paying attention and/or being too damn stupid. They, also, are what they are. I wrote something similar during the Nixon years and it's only gotten worse. Nixon & Agnew or Trump & Pence? You decide. I already have. You asked for it. You got it, the worst screaming proud boy shit-gibbon of a president of all.

Trump Lost the Debate-- But Biden Did Not Win It

 

The Challengers by Nancy Ohanian

Establishment conservative Democrats fear-- and in many cases, loathe-- the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party. Bill Clinton did all he could do-- which was a lot-- to bury the idea that the Democrats are a working class party. The party has been going downhill as a worthwhile vehicle for legitimate working class aspirations ever since, although it has certainly become a super-charged vehicle for the career aspirations of politicians themselves. The debate on Tuesday made me nauseous. Trump was Trump-- the worst excuse for a president in history by far and without comparison. But it was Biden's pandering to conservatives on healthcare that made me turn off the debate and go watch the 2013 Netflix crime thriller The Blacklist. In the morning, I watched the whole putrid debate.

Every poll I've seen-- and I've looked for them-- had Trump losing. The latest one-- from Morning Consult-- shows that when viewers were asked which candidate performed better, Biden was chosen by 50% and Trump by just 34%. (16% weren't sure). Among independent votes, 46% picked Biden and just 28% picked Donald.

Pelosi is right when she urges Biden to quit while he's "ahead" and not do any more debates. Sooner or later, someone will make it clear to Trump that if he just shuts his face and lets Biden talk, Biden will screw up and give Trump a chance to actually win some voters over. Right now, this election is just about how horrible Trump is. Trump is probably being told to back off and let voters see how horrible Biden is. Because, take it from someone who has been following his career closely since the 70's, he is.

Yesterday, Ron Brownstein took to twitter to put into words what made so many Democrats queasy about Biden's performance. Many Democrats don't understand just how conservative Biden is-- and right to the core of who he is. They assume because he has a "D" next to his name, he hold values associated with the Democratic Party. He never has and he still doesn't.

So here's Brownstein in paragraph form (and minus the twitterisms): "Trump's belligerent and dangerous behavior obscured how poorly Biden performed for much of the debate," he wrote. "On health care he totally misrepresented his own position-making it sound worse than it is. His lead on health fell dramatically in Stan Greenberg's focus groups of debate watchers." OK... and what exactly does Brownstein mean by "worse," which goes to the heart of why many were sickened by Biden and why he fell in the esteem of the Democrats and independents in the focus groups. Sorry for throwing in my two cents-- back to Brownstein:

Sure it was tough with Trump hectoring, but Biden not only failed to explain his plans to build on the Affordable Care Act but said his public option is "only for those people who are so poor they qualify for Medicaid they can get that free in most States." No it's not. It's available for everyone including those who pay too much for employer provided care. His website: "Whether you’re covered through your employer, buying your insurance on your own, or going without coverage altogether, the Biden Plan will give you the choice to purchase a public health insurance option." [This was the moment I went to watch Netflix.]

He would automatically enroll those eligible for Medicaid in GOP states that won't expand it, but importantly he makes this available to everyone. Again, tough with Trump hectoring, but Biden never mentioned any of his plan's elements that aid the middle-class. These include much higher subsidies for people buying on exchanges and allowing Medicare to negotiate with drug companies for lower prices and forcing all drug companies who want to participate in Medicare to limit price increases to inflation.

Again: extenuating circumstances, but pretty astonishing that as Trump names a Justice who could overturn the Affordable Care Act, Biden portrays his biggest health initiative as something solely for poor-exactly the messaging Democrats have been trying to escape from the first day Obama unveiled the ACA.

Bottom line: in the Stan Greenberg dial groups, Biden's advantage over Trump dropped during the debate more on health care than any other issue, with a very big decline among non-college white women: precisely the group that were Democrats' most important target on pre-existing conditions in 2018.

Trump's ominous and erratic behavior, his open incitement and encouragement of white nationalists, his summons for violence and intimidation on Election Day, all justifiably overshadowed Biden's performance. But apart from Climate Change, Biden didn't effectively explain any of his plans. Focus group women re-contacted by Sarah Longwell reinforce[d this: they were] horrified by Trump but few were impressed by Biden. He's clearly ahead and any day that doesn't change the dynamic is good for him. But no one should pretend he performed well enough to resolve the doubts voters hold about him.

Anything is better than Trump. I had hoped we would have someone as great as Trump has been horrible, instead of just someone terrible but not as terrible. Corporate America gets its way again! Which reminds me... the new poll from YouGov for The Economist asked Biden voters if they are voting for him or against Trump. 54% said they are voting against Trump and just 44% are voting for Biden. This is especially pronounced among young voters (between 18 and 29) only 26% of whom are for Biden-- while a whopping 73% are motivated to vote because of their animus towards Trump. I hope Biden remembers that when he "wins" the mammoth landslide Donald is going to lose next month.

Last Night Was Hard To Watch For Normal Americans-- But A Great Night For The Neo-Nazi Proud Boys

 

Trump/Biden Debate by Nancy Ohanian

Trump was a national embarrassment. That's what you get when you practice debating with Rudy Giuliani. And Biden was, at best... a weak foil. Instant polls and focus groups, though, showed Trump decisively losing the first-- and hopefully-- last debate of 2020. Republican focus group-meister asked his panel of 15 swing state undecided voters, "You just saw 90 minutes; how can you still be undecided?" 11 are still undecided; 4 are voting for Biden and two made up their lizard-minds to vote for Trump. One of the Biden converts described the debate as "trying to win an argument with a crackhead." Trump didn't grow his support. Politico:

Despite their indecisiveness, most described Trump in a negative light, including one of the participants who was leaning toward voting for the president. The voters characterized Trump as “unhinged,” “arrogant,” “forceful," a “bully,” “chaotic” and “un-American.”

When asked to describe Biden they offered: “better than expected,” “politician,” “compassion,” “coherent,” and a “nice guy lacking vision.”

John Harris termed the whole mess as an epic moment of national shame, "a new low in presidential politics," and "an embarrassment for the ages" that caused many viewers "at frequent intervals... [to] lower the sound, wince and look away." Maybe that's what Trump wanted, although I doubt it. He thinks he won. No one else does though. "Trump," wrote Harris, "plainly arrived to shred the official debate rules, and shed any pretense of decorum. At numerous points, his honking interruptions blared without interruption. So did his putdowns, including mocking Biden’s performance in college 56 years ago-- “You graduated either the lowest or almost the lowest in your class,” before adding, “There’s nothing smart about you, Joe.” He also brought up Hunter Biden’s drug problems and inaccurately said he received a dishonorable discharge from the Navy." Biden's best moments were when he called Trump a "clown."

Writing for the New Republic, Walter Shapiro noted that Donald's unhinged performance is a sign he knows he's losing. He concluded his column by writing that watching caused him to grieve for American democracy. "And I am frightened by the specter of two more presidential debates as moderators insist on playing by rules of civil discourse in the face of Trump the Termagant." NBC's Jonathan Allen agreed with Shapiro that Trump's performance was a sign that he fears Biden and knows he's losing. "In the end," he wrote, "what voters saw was a president who was deeply fearful of the result of a fair election determined on the actual positions and records of the two candidates. And yet, his desire to dominate the debate stage-- to talk over both his opponent and the moderator, Chris Wallace-- made it more likely that the race will be a referendum on him than a choice between him and Biden." BINGO! A referendum on Trump is exactly what's brewing... which is why as unsatisfactory a candidate as Joe Biden is going to win in a landslide and why Republicans are going to lose control of the Senate and lose dozens of House seats.





In her Washington Post OpEd, Karen Tumulty noted that "the nightmare that played out Tuesday evening on a debate stage in Cleveland served at least one useful purpose. It encapsulated, in a single 98-minute span, the entire presidency of Donald... All of the impulses that drive Trump were unleashed: The lying. The rage. The bluster. The incoherence. It is hard to imagine that anyone but the most obdurate of partisans could have watched the spectacle and thought, Gee, wouldn’t it be great to have four more years of this?"

Joe Biden spoke for the rest of us when he at one point blurted out: “Will you shut up, man? This is so unpresidential.”

Granted, this was not Biden’s finest hour either. He failed to achieve the most fundamental mission for a challenger, which is to present a vision of the alternate direction in which he would take the country.

Then again, it is hard to blame the former vice president, who had assumed that he was showing up for a debate, not a shipwreck. For the most part, Biden retained his composure. He in no way resembled the doddering and feeble old man that Trump and his compatriots have sought to portray him as.

Biden also resisted Trump’s efforts to align him with the more liberal members of his party and positions that fall to the left of where most Americans are on issues such as health care. “I am the Democratic Party right now," Biden said. "The platform of the Democratic Party is what I, in fact, approved of.”

Trump lied his way through the debate but did anyone expect he even knew how to do otherwise? Lying is what he does-- always; it comes as naturally as it does to Lindsey Graham when someone asks him if he's gay. I love the response Mike Reese, sheriff of Multnomah County (Portland, Oregon) gave after Trump lied about being endorsed by him:

Even after his catastrophic performance last night, Donald is going through with his super-spreader events in Green Bay and La Crosse, Wisconsin on Saturday, two cities where coronavirus cases are surging... Trump’s rallies, which are known for their size and lack of social distancing, will be held in two cities with some of the highest rates of coronavirus infections in the country. La Crosse has the second-highest rate of infection...and Green Bay has the sixth-highest number of cases per capita. Coronavirus cases around the state are skyrocketing and hospitalizations are at a record high. As of Monday, every county in the state has high virus activity, according to the state Department of Health Services. The Green Bay area, especially, is seeing high numbers of coronavirus patients in their health care centers. At Bellin Hospital in Green Bay, coronavirus patients occupy three-quarters of the hospital's intensive care unit beds and two-thirds of medical unit beds-- roughly double the number from two weeks ago. Last week, the Bellin Hospital emergency room was so overwhelmed that hospital workers had to tend to patients on gurneys in the hallway. Meanwhile, 150 Bellin Hospital employees are quarantining at home."

Reporting for the Washington Post on Trump's plans to kill more Cheeseheads, Lena Sun noted that during the debate, "Trump defended his events as opportunities for his supporters to gather to hear him and claimed that there has been 'no negative effect' from his rallies, even though health officials in Tulsa said a spike in covid-19 cases was 'likely' sparked by an indoor Trump gathering in June." [Herman Cain started trending on Twitter.] Señor T, lying again, said "he was 'okay with masks' but falsely claimed that scientists are divided over their value. Health experts have said mask-wearing, hand-washing, social distancing and being careful about crowds currently make up the best defense against the virus. Biden, by contrast, said Trump has been 'totally irresponsible' in the way he has handled social distancing and masks, and in holding large rallies. 'Basically he has been a fool on this,' Biden said of Trump."

“If you could get the crowds, you would have done the same thing,” the president responded. “But you can’t. Nobody can.”

In addition to the White House task force’s guidance, local concern has been growing in Wisconsin about Trump’s planned events, which are scheduled for outdoor airplane hangars without universal mask mandates. Gov. Tony Evers (D) said Tuesday in a news briefing that Trump should either cancel the events or require mask-wearing by everyone who attends.

“This virus is real, and it is devastating our communities, and it will continue to do so until we all get on the same team,” Evers said in a press call about the recent spike in the state’s cases.

He told Wisconsin residents that wearing a mask is not a substitute for social distancing or staying at home, and he asked them to cancel family barbecues, play dates or dinner parties, and make all large gatherings virtual.

Ryan Westergaard, the state’s chief medical officer, said Tuesday that Wisconsin is “in a crisis right now,” given the rate of community spread.

While Biden has made a point of keeping his events small and attendees distant from one another, Trump has largely dismissed the recommendations of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention against holding mass gatherings during the pandemic.

The president has crisscrossed the country to hold rallies, mostly in outdoor spaces but sometimes indoors, where mask-wearing is optional. At the events, he regularly mocks virus mitigation efforts, like social distancing, as little more than political ploys by Democratic state leaders bent on punishing him.

“We don’t call these ‘rallies’ anymore, because in Dem states like where you have a governor who’s a Democrat, you’re not allowed to go to church and not allowed to go to a restaurant. You’re not allowed to go to your friend’s house. You can’t move from your house unless you’re related to the governor,” he said at a rally in Newport News, Virginia, on Friday.

“You can’t do anything, unless of course it’s a peaceful protest. Okay?” he continued. “So what we do is we call these peaceful protests, and we’re getting big crowds.”

For Biden, the only good outcome is that watching Trump act like last night that certainly got Democrats-- and perhaps others-- reaching for their wallets. His campaign and that of other Democrats-- had huge fundraising booms during and after the debate. ActBlue brought in around $8 million between 9 and 11, almost half of which went to Biden. I asked Twitter followers to consider contributing $5 to their favorite Democratic congressional candidates here every time Trump lied. Please consider doing that today by clicking on the Blue America 2020 congressional thermometer on the right.

David Frum asserted in his Atlantic column that Donald was a dead duck before he set foot on the stage. He explained that Trumpanzee "arrived at the first debate with a theory and a plan. The theory was that American voters crave dominance, no matter how belligerent or offensive. The plan was to hector, interrupt, and insult in hope of establishing that dominance. His theory was wrong and his plan was counter-productive."

Trump walked onto that stage in Cleveland seven or eight points behind, because the traditional Republican advantage among upper-income and educated voters has dwindled; because non-college-educated white women have turned against him; because he is losing older voters to his mishandling of COVID-19; because the groups he needs to be demobilized—African Americans, the young—are up-mobilized. On the present trajectory, nearly 150 million votes are likely to be cast in 2020. If Trump wins 43 percent of them and Joe Biden 50 percent, not even the Electoral College can convert that negative margin into a second Trump term.

He needed to do something to change that reality.

Instead, he talked to Facebook conspiracists, to the angriest of ultra-Republican partisans, and to violent white supremacists. He urged the Proud Boys to 'stand by' because 'somebody’s got to do something' about 'antifa and the left.' He refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power in the (likely) event that he loses. He threatened months and months of chaos if the election does not go his way.

Trump yelled, threatened, interrupted-- and changed nothing. All he did was confirm the horror and revulsion of the large American majority that has already begun to cast its ballots against him.

Correction, Trump did one thing. On the Cleveland stage, Trump communicated that he will seize any opportunity to disrupt the vote, and resist the outcome. He communicated more forcefully than ever that the only security the country has for a constitutional future is that Biden win by the largest possible margin.

...Who and what Trump is, could not have been more vividly displayed in all the psychological reality. Debate one was not Donald Trump versus Joe Biden, or red versus blue. It was zookeepers versus poop-throwing primates.

Biden may be faded from what he was: perhaps less crisp, less sharp, less fast. But when Biden spoke, he spoke to and about America. Trump spoke only about his wounded ego. Biden communicated: I care about you. Trump communicated: I hate everybody. Biden succeeded in putting his most important messages on record: your healthcare, your job, your right to equal respect regardless of race or creed-- all against Trump’s disregard and disrespect. Trump may have imagined he projected himself as strong. The whole world witnessed instead the destructive rage of a bully confronting impending defeat. Trump disgraced the presidency on that stage. He may just have delivered the self-incapacitating wound that pushes the country toward self-salvation.