I'll take an old man over a conman any day of the week

I watched the debate in horror, like millions of moderates.  Here was a slick conman with a national bullhorn- sans fact checking- next to a decent man who tells the truth but can’t get his words out.  

Even Republicans know Trump’s performance was a firehose of lies, but after the fact fact-checking is just background noise, irrelevant to all but political junkies. (We know who we are.) His base also knows Trump is a serial liar, which they consider a feature, not a bug. Whattaya do with that?

The sad reality is that facts vs. lies and the grave geopolitical risks facing us have now been upstaged by Biden’s pauses, weak voice and halting delivery, all of which seemed to confirm supporters’ fears about his age. Biden’s style, rather than the substance delivered by either man, dominates all the headlines.

Why o why didn’t Biden open with, ‘folks, I have a cold, bear with me, my voice is rough, but we’ll get through it…’? Instead, his voice gravelly and barely audible, he bumbled, even though most facts were on his side. 

The whole cringe fest was a Fox News fantasy come to life. I cried for my country, popped an Ambien, and went to bed. 

I realize, at this point, pundits are just echoing each other. No one really knows what the fallout will be, or how the undecideds felt about the debate. I have some shred of hope that Americans are smart enough to cut through the slick lies vs. bumbling truth and consider what both men actually said. But honestly, MAGA exists because about 30% of us want a show more than sound governance; violence and retribution are sexier than policy Every. Single. Time. 

Also, morons get juiced by hate, which stimulates the brain like an opioid. Hate is the brain’s most powerful motivator- right up there with fear- which means hate-filled people vote in higher numbers than complacent moderates. This, very simply, is why the stupidest 20% of the U.S. has been able to impose minority rule, aligned with the morbidly rich seeking to avoid regulations and taxes. (Darwin suggests we get real serious about real education, real fast.) 

A silver lining?

Maybe, since SCOTUS just gutted the administrative state, stripping the federal government of most of its power to fight climate change, we’ll see violence from the left this time. The absurdity of letting morons like Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch substitute their personal, lay opinions for those of trained experts is worse than partisan-- it’s suicidal. (Thomas recently shot down the AFT’s expert opinion that bump stocks keep firing the trigger like a machine gun, while Gorsuch confused an air pollutant with nitrous oxide—ie, laughing gas-- when gutting protections for the environment.) 

Even peaceful leftists will get violent when their lives are threatened. Since the Court has also ruled that it's ok to storm federal buildings, maybe climate activists will take a clue from the J6 mob. (Not advocating violence, just opining on its likelihood, which I learned from Fox News. Maybe when MAGA idiots clamoring for civil war finally get a taste of blood they’ll retract their claws. But veep candidate  JD Vance told us most of them are on crack or drunk, so they’re probably itching for entertainment, what’s a few bodies? I’m just saying their mental vacuums need to be filled with something, and Trump rallies, Fox and stoning their neighbors can only fill so many hours.

The gaslighting got upstaged, but it was masterclass

Biden, far more forceful at a North Carolina rally right after debate, freely admits he stumbled. “I don’t debate as well as I used to,” he said, but “I know right from wrong.”

And that’s the thing: what he’s done in office in three and a half years should count far, far more than a bad 90 minute performance. As Vice President Kamala Harris said in her post-debate interview, “I got the point that you're making about a one and a half hour debate tonight. I'm talking about three and a half years of performance in work that has been historic...”

And she’s right: if this is a contest on the merits, on substance, Biden wins hands down. 

When Trump said Hamas attacked Israel and Putin attacked Ukraine because Biden is weak, I worried, because low information voters won’t think it through. No one needs any spin; Putin himself  has said his invasion goes back to the 17^th century, Peter the Great, and his personal power-lust for restoring the Soviet Empire. 

The complexities of the Israel-Hamas war are even deeper. They far exceed Trump’s cranial capacity, going back decades, marginally beginning with Hitler’s atrocities. Israel’s history exceeds most voters’ attention spans, including mine. Biden has walked a tightrope, empathizing with suffering on both Israeli and Palestinian sides. He has forcefully denounced and criticized Netanyahu’s cruelty, and immediately denounced the naked brutality of Hamas. No one alive could do a better job navigating Israel’s scorching complexity. 

Suffering Palestinians deserve all the aid, support and compassion they are getting-- far more-- students on the left are right in that regard.  But where they’re wrong is in failing to understand that if Biden cut off support to Israel, Trump would collect billions of dollars in PAC donations overnight and storm back into power, and few people would ever hear or care about Palestinian suffering again.

 Trump’s mendacity is unprecedented in US presidential history, and the damage he has caused already will linger for decades. His offenses are too numerous to list, including ending abortion, adding $8 trillion to the deficit, robbing the poor for tax cuts to billionaires, selling the climate to big oil, blah blah blah.  It’s redundant already.

Military generals and  experts who worked with Trump are warning us

Biden is running for re-election not to stay out of prison or engage in retribution, but to save America from Trump and his army of sycophants addicted to power. They are dangerous. Now is not the time to start over, but to armor up.

During his awful debate performance, Biden managed to reference— albeit far too softly-- that in a national survey conducted by the University of Houston and Coastal Carolina University, peer-reviewed academic and social science researchers, along with qualified historians and political scientists rated Trump the worst president in the history of the United States. Ever. According to America’s historians. Don’t trust your own instincts after the debate? Let that sink in. 

Not enough?  Consider that Trump’s closest military and domestic advisors have warned us how dangerous it would be to return him to power.  While most Trump toadies are too afraid of Trump to speak out, these are statements made on the record by Trump advisors, as CNN reported:

1. His vice president, Mike Pence: “The American people deserve to know that President Trump asked me to put him over my oath to the Constitution. … Anyone who puts himself over the Constitution should never be president of the United States.” 

2. His second attorney general, Bill Barr: “Someone who engaged in that kind of bullying about a process that is fundamental to our system and to our self-government shouldn’t be anywhere near the Oval Office.”

3. His first secretary of defense, James Mattis: “Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people – does not even pretend to try. Instead he tries to divide us.”

4. His second secretary of defense, Mark Esper: “I think he’s unfit for office. … He puts himself before country. His actions are all about him and not about the country. And then, of course, I believe he has integrity and character issues as well.”

5. His chairman of the joint chiefs, retired Gen. Mark Milley: “We don’t take an oath to a wannabe dictator. We take an oath to the Constitution and we take an oath to the idea that is America – and we’re willing to die to protect it.”

6. His first secretary of state, Rex Tillerson: “(Trump’s) understanding of global events, his understanding of global history, his understanding of US history was really limited. It’s really hard to have a conversation with someone who doesn’t even understand the concept for why we’re talking about this.”

Dozens of other professionals who worked alongside Trump until they realized what he really was have issued similarly dire warnings.

I’ll close with Robert DeNiro’s words because I really can’t top them. Here’s what he just wrote in a post-debate  email:  

Over the years, I’ve played my share of vicious, low-life characters. I’ve spent a lot of time studying bad men. I’ve examined their characteristics, their mannerisms, and the utter banality of their cruelty. Donald Trump is a wannabe tough guy with no morals or ethics who will do whatever he can to obtain power. As an actor, I could never play him. There’s not a shred of humanity to hang on to. I strongly support Joe Biden. He’s a lifelong public servant with great personal integrity. I trust him completely to run the country. He puts you first. Trump cares only about himself.

Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25 year litigator specializing in 1st and 14th Amendment defense. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.