Debate recap

 Wow folks, what a ride. That was the biggest shit show I have seen since..... I don't know when. Quick take from my brother-in-law who called me immediately after. "It was like watching two babies that needed pacifiers." Alright, now my attempt to recap and determine a winner. Quick disclaimer, I'm not doing any deep diving fact checking and I am also trying to guess how the debate affects the general public, not me personally or my beliefs.

The first topic was supposedly the Supreme Court. I say supposedly because neither participant could stay on topic. First question was why should the Supreme Court nomination be done before/after the election. Trump went first and did a good job touting his nominee and stating that he was President and this was his job because the people elected him and the Senate. Biden started weakly here by countering with the argument that the people elect the President and the President then selects the nominee. I understand the point he was trying to make, but he came across as reinforcing Trump's argument. He also focused on decisions the court would make as opposed to why the nomination should wait. Trump didn't do himself any favors by referencing the Garland nomination without explaining why the situation was different. Joe came out strong stating "I am the Democratic Party" and proceeded to blame Trump for the pandemic. This theme continued throughout the debate. Trump also established an early theme by attacking Biden's record at the VA in regards to healthcare. This would also come up throughout the night. The next "topic" was healthcare. At this point, the debate really started to go off the rails and never recovered. Both candidates were interrupting each other and the moderator consistently and there was very little substance going forward. On healthcare, Trump hammered home lower drug prices, open markets, and abolishing the individual mandate. Biden countered with saying Trump had no plan without presenting his plan. This is the only area that I feel there was a clear winner. Biden definitely failed to score any points and fell into the "orange man bad" narrative without presenting an alternative. The next question was directed at Biden in regards to packing the Supreme Court. He dodged the question repeatedly and also told Trump to shut up at one point. I'm not sure how this will play overall. I can see people thinking it was not becoming a presidential candidate and others thinking it was good Biden showed some spine. Next, after more yelling and the moderator repeatedly asking both candidates to move on, the discussion moved to Coronavirus. Biden opened and attacked Trump on the recordings of him downplaying the virus to avoid panic. He also had a good line about Trump should spend less time in bunkers and sandtraps and more time at the White House. Trump replied with blaming China and touting his early decision to stop travel from China. Trump also questioned Biden's knowledge of the death counts in foreign countries, saying Biden did not know the real counts. Trump then proceeded to criticize unfair coverage from the media, saying they are biased against him and refuse to report anything positive his administration has done. Biden responded by blaming Trump for shutting down the economy and not doing enough to stop coronavirus. This is where Biden seemed to be contradicting himself somewhat. He seemed to be implying that Trump shouldn't of shut down to stop coronavirus and saying that Trump didn't do enough to stop coronavirus at the same time. I don't feel that this is going to make a big difference overall because it was probably lost in the interrupting, yelling, and talking over that occurred throughout the debate. Next, Trump was asked why he contradicts his own experts. Trump frankly stated he did not agree with them 100% of the time and cited several instances that he did agree with them on. The debate then devolved into an argument over semantics of statements made by various people and became another shouting match. Trump did manage to attack Biden on forgetting where he went to college and also landed a one liner, "There's nothing smart about you, Joe." At this point in the debate, I did not feel there was any clear winner on any topic with the exception of the healthcare discussion mentioned earlier. The discussion then moved to.... who am I kidding? It doesn't matter what the next topic was, there was very little semblance of order and nothing that resembled a debate the rest of the night. I'm going to move on to the summary.

Summary

-Trump hammered Biden all night on law and order and his refusal to stand up to radical elements within the Democratic Party and did it very effectively.

-Biden was very aggressive and called Trump clown and racist and also told him to shut up at one point.

-Trump scored some points by saying Biden was holding small campaign events because no one wanted to come.

-Biden stated emphatically that he was against defunding the police and wanted to provide more funding to the police.

-Biden blamed the tax cuts that Trump passed as the reason that Trump didn't have to pay taxes before he was President. 

-Trump attacked Joe Biden in regards to Hunter Biden's dealings in Russia, Ukraine, and China. Joe Biden's defense was that it was all discredited. I am going to take a shallow dive into fact checking here. Trump only cited things in regards to Hunter that were included in the report from the Senate Intelligence Committee as proven facts. Joe Biden claiming it was all a lie and made up made him look weak.

Anaylsis

There were no winners here. I'm watching some post coverage here and they are saying polls are coming back Trump 60 Biden 30. I don't believe them. Neither candidate looked good. Trump was constantly interrupting both Biden and the moderator and would not be quiet. Biden appeared somewhat petty and often contradicted himself. The good? Trump did a good job staying away from exaggeration and sticking to facts and opinions that could not be disproven. He also did a good job of countering several points made by Biden.  Biden did a better job of knowing when to keep his mouth shut and had some great moments. Biden made a point of looking into the camera and appealing to the American people at times. If he would of adopted this approach throughout the debate this might be a very different blog. Overall, no one won, except the viewers playing the Hard Factor drinking game. 

Stay safe everyone, get out and vote, and have a great day as we enjoy this shit show for 4 more weeks, give or take.