Unpacking the "Debate"

What the candidates actually said.

Atlanta, GA

June 30, 2024

Yesterday we commented on what “everyone was talking about.” Today, let’s unpack what the candidates actually said.

It’s not easy. Both suitcases are loaded with dirty laundry, clumps of frayed fabric tossed at random. The wrinkles are indelible, the stench unbearable, and stains contaminate the entire country.

But let’s hold our nose, extend our arm, and do what we can to clean up the mess.

Litanies of Lies

The official “analysis” is predictable in its uniformity. The media can’t deny Biden’s debacle. But they all assert he “won on the substance”, while Trump lied all night. A better assessment is both lied and nobody won. Especially us.

Trump told lots of them, and said several stupid things. Many had nothing to do with whatever was asked. Politically, many of his redirects were probably wise. But that doesn’t mean they were accurate.

The Donald is intrinsically incapable of not exaggerating (or making up) his accomplishments and denigrating anything his adversaries ever did. As is often the case, much of what he said was flat-out false.

But Biden had his own litany of lies, most of which were outright whoppers. With few exceptions, little of what either guy said was true.

That’s no surprise. Deception is what politicians do. It’s basically part of the job description. Biden has been in this occupation as long as anyone. And you don’t last that long without being good at it.

Not that he’s always been deft in his deceit.

He had to drop out of the 1988 presidential race when caught lying about his plagiarism. He said he graduated at the top half of his class when he languished near the bottom. He once claimed he was arrested fighting for civil rights. Just last year, he said he was at Ground Zero the day after 9/11. The list is long, and goes back decades.

Immediately after the debate, many pundits “fact-checked” Trump while Biden’s fabrications went mostly unchallenged. A casual observer may have assumed there none.

But they were bountiful. Most have been frequently refuted, so I won’t belabor that here. Let’s simply recount a few.

In his opening remarks, Biden repeated the idiotic assertion that Trump recommended Americans inject bleach as a treatment for covid. He didn’t.

He repeated a few times that Trump said neo-Nazis were among “good people on both sides” in Charlottesville and that dead doughboys were “suckers and losers.” The first has repeatedly proven to be taken maliciously out of context (indeed, in his statement Trump condemned neo-Nazis). The second is patently ridiculous, with no proof it was ever said.

Biden naturally trotted out the dumb war propaganda, saying Putin said he wants to reconstitute the Soviet Union, and implied Russia would invade Poland if it won in the Ukraine. There’s no evidence for either claim.

Biden said the border had fewer crossings than when his predecessor was in office, and a couple times that Border Patrol endorsed him…which the Border Patrol Union almost immediately denied.

Other obvious falsehoods were that he’s the “only president in a while to not have any troops dying anywhere in the world”, that billionaires pay only 8.2% in taxes, and that unemployment was 15% and inflation 9% when he entered office.

By most common government yardsticks, unemployment was only 6% and inflation a bit over 1% when Joe Biden was propped on the throne.

Hot Air

But like a local drunk who occasionally collapses on the right lawn, Biden sometimes stumbled into the truth.

He said recent inflation was Trump’s fault, and that Trump compiled more debt than any president in history. The second assertion is undeniable (so far).

As to inflation, Biden also has a point. It was under Trump that the kindling was laid and the match lit. Biden simply kept piling more logs to feed the flames.

In his administration’s asinine effort to quarantine the country, Trump pressured Congress to give billions of dollars directly to millions of Americans. With the admirable exception of Thomas Massie (whom Trump publicly blasted at the time) and three others, every congressman eagerly agreed.

This lunacy was only possible by counterfeiting the currency, which the Fed did as never before. While government lockdowns and restrictions strangled manufacturing and slowed shipping, supplies of goods dwindled as consumer cash balances soared.

Within a year, like a wicker basket under a hot air balloon, prices went with them. With his own boondoggle bills, Biden has helped float them higher ever since. But it was Donald Trump who released the rope that got them off the ground.

Uncontained “Exaggerations”

Aside from a few zingers, Trump was terrible in this debate. It just didn’t matter, because his playing partner went out of bounds off the first tee and never made it back to the course.

Trump may have been more disciplined than usual, but he mostly rambled while saying little of substance. There was little basis for any of his assertions.

As always, his “exaggerations” couldn’t be contained. This isn’t news. Question marks and qualifiers have never been part of his bombastic brand.

During his presidency, everything was the “greatest”, “things were “never better”, and “everyone” says so. From a guy who’s spent his career affixing his name to whatever he can, we’ve come to expect this type of talk. It can sometimes be funny, but is frequently stupid, and often wrong.

As on taxes, immigration, or states rights, he occasionally uttered a sentence that made some sense, but then followed it with three that contradicted what we thought he’d said.

He’s like the know-it-all at a bar (or, some might say, the one who writes these essays), spouting certainties without any understanding. But other patrons love him, because he ridicules those who cause the problems that drive them to drink.

At His Worst

During his successful 2016 campaign, Trump was at is best when denouncing the wars. Now, the wars are where he’s at his worst.

Rather than advocating ending them, he just says we need better ways to fight and fund them…and that they wouldn’t have happened had he been president.

While he was correct to say Russia didn’t invade or annex any of the Ukraine while he was in office, it’s ridiculous to assume Putin wouldn’t have done so if he were.

Russia went into the Ukraine because U.S. agents and artillery were already there. Granted, those incursions started at least a decade before Trump entered office, as did the antagonistic offers to bring Russia’s neighbor into NATO.

But the shenanigans continued while he was there, and he didn’t stop it. Indeed, he shipped more weapons to that fluid frontier. Putin could only be provoked so long. At some point, he was bound to push back.

When he did had nothing to do with who was president. After two decades dealing with the US, as he told Tucker Carlson, he’d learned that the American “commander-in-chief” didn’t matter.

Donald Trump being in office isn’t what made him resist, and Joe Biden succeeding him isn’t what prompted him to proceed. Putin realizes the real power is behind (and above) the president, and that those who wield it are infesting the Ukraine.

Trump was right to criticize the absurd sums of money wasted on this worthless war, yet his support was instrumental pushing the latest $61B “support package” thru Congress. Rather than insist the U.S. stop pouring money down this rathole, he insists other NATO countries pay more.

World on Fire

The “debate” about Gaza was at least as preposterous. Despite Trump’s assertive assurances, Hamas cares even less than Putin who the president is. If anything, from their perspective, the more bellicose the better.

October 7 initially garnered global sympathy for Israel. But their disproportionate response turned world opinion ardently against them (which, as Hamas has said, was their intent).

And aside from being morally abhorrent, massacring thousands of innocents won’t achieve the (stated) goal of eliminating Hamas. But it will further alienate Israel and inspire more insurgents, many of whom will resent the country that arms their enemy.

Yet as he blames his successor for setting the world on fire, Trump wants to supply Israel more blowtorches to help burn it down. While he insists the US border be closed, he’d motivate more vindictive young men to want to cross it.

Trump accused Biden of leading us to World War III. That warning is amply warranted. But then he makes it sound like his primary complaint is that the wrong guy is leading the charge.

Biden’s brain may be slipping away, but both men have lost their minds.

JD