Anyone who watched the debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump last night must have found it very difficult to feel optimistic about the future ahead. It was expected that the confrontation would focus on which of the two candidates showed the worst conditions to lead the world’s leading power. The answer seems clear. It is time to choose between a Biden with an evident physical and argumentative weakness and an undaunted Trump who shamelessly displays lies, insults and demagoguery.
Lying as a norm. The work of fact-checking companies detected more than 30 lies, manipulations or misrepresentations by Donald Trump. And he only spoke for 41 minutes. Some time ago, it became clear that lying openly does not often lead to any punishment on the part of many citizens. Even journalists and analysts tend to prioritize formal aspects and tone over the real content of what is said. Trump imposed his gestural strength and the forcefulness of his speech in the debate. However, he chained a complete exercise of imposture, impudence and lack of dignity.
An unequal battleTrump spoke without pausing, without answering the questions put to him, he moved his hands firmly, he emphasized his statements intensely and he gesticulated noticeably when the microphone was off. Biden was much less expressive, with a very limited communicative capacity supported by barely a thread of voice. His usual gesture of listening was limited to showing surprise or displeasure. Little more. At no time can it be said that Trump was in any special difficulties, not even when he had to deal with such delicate issues as his role in the incidents at the Capitol, his problems with the justice system or his very weak position on abortion.
Immigration, above all. Trump focused throughout the night on proclaiming that the United States has become “a third world nation” whose main problem stems from the uncontrolled invasion of more than 18 million dangerous immigrants from prisons and mental hospitals who steal jobs from blacks and Hispanics, murder innocent people, rape women, cause an increase in drug addiction and live in luxury hotels. He always referred to Biden as the culprit of having caused the country’s decline: “What this man has done is criminal.” Immigration, economic deterioration and Biden’s inability to stop the armed conflicts that are leading the world to a Third World War were the axes of his speech.
Biden on the defensive. The Democratic leader tried to defend himself, without any forcefulness, from the permanent offensive of his opponent. He tried to alternate enumerating the achievements of his government with an absolute disqualification of his rival, of whom he went so far as to say that he had “the morals of a stray cat.” On more than a dozen occasions he accused Trump of lying and lacking the slightest rigor: “I have never heard so much nonsense in my life,” he repeated several times. The current president tried to insistently, although without excessive passion, claim the contrast between his time in government and what he suffered under the previous administration.
The rules helped Trump. Regarding the peculiar format introduced in the debate, it can be concluded that it helped Trump to cushion a good part of his usual aggressive verbal and gestural excesses. The fact that interruptions were not allowed and the moments of reply were very limited made it possible for him not to put on his traditional spectacle of bravado and thuggery. As some members of his team of advisors had established days ago, the key was for Trump not to appear as a “raging asshole.”
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Age question. Throughout the debate, it was impossible not to focus attention on the physical condition of the two candidates. The difference is evident despite the fact that only three years actually separate them. In his career, Joe Biden never had a powerful voice or a vigorous tone in his way of communicating. With 81 years behind him, the lack of strength has been accentuated with the passage of time. At various points in the debate, the moderators even had to encourage him to complete the time he had available when he ran out of speech in the middle of some interventions. In a somewhat surreal moment, he even challenged Trump to beat him at golf.
a convicted criminal. The most delicate crucial issue that Trump had to face was his recent conviction in the case that linked him to a porn actress. When the issue came up, Biden referred to the Republican leader as a “convicted felon.” The former president shook it off with a simple response: “I didn’t do anything wrong.” And he went on the attack when he recalled the status of a “convicted criminal” of Biden’s son and even threatened that, when he wins the elections, it will be Biden himself who will be tried and condemned for his management as ruler.
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