Trump argued vigorously in the first debate between himself and presidential hopeful Joe Biden.
Chris Wallace was meant to be there to moderate the debate but spent most of his time trying to moderate the president. Wallace deemed Trump’s interruptions to be far more egregious than Biden’s.
The world media has written the debate off as a “total disaster” and a “national embarrassment.” What they expected to witness in the current, divisive cultural climate is anybody’s guess, but when one candidate exhibits the enfeebling symptoms of dementia and the other is known for his aggressive, combative style, it was always going to be a rough night for Joe.
As a moderator, Wallace failed spectacularly. He played nurse-maiden to Biden’s obvious fragility while simultaneously trying to keep Trump’s gladiatorial style in check, which didn’t work. This came off as heavily biased in Biden’s favour and totally skewed the debate. In essence, it forced Trump to have to debate two people, instead of just one – and no self-respecting alpha male is going to take that partisan carry-on from a beta male referee. Instead, Trump dominated both men to re-balance the show toward some semblance of equity.
A debate is meant to be a battle of ideas. Witty interjections, verbal slams and wordy jousts are properly part of that picture. Telling your opponent to “Shut-up man,” as Biden did, is not.
But the bar had been set so low for Biden in deference to his frail condition that Oscar the Grouch would’ve made a more worthy opponent if allowed out of his trash-can. Wallace kept rescuing him – and that was unconscionable. Biden is competing to become nothing less than the leader of the Free World – if he’s not up to it, and he clearly isn’t, then Wallace owes the viewers the chance to let that be made obvious in debate, not handle Biden with kid-gloves and openly compete with the president on the Democrats’ behalf.
A classic case in point was Wallace’s very loaded question to Trump about his administration directing federal agencies to end “racial sensitivity training.”
The actual directive is to end the pernicious curriculums in government institutions which teach Critical Race Theory – and those who don’t agree with the theory are always slammed as blatant “racists” for the crime of their dissent.
Trump embarked on his answer to Wallace’s question and declared that Critical Race Theory is a “radical revolution taking place in our military, in our schools and all over the place.” Wallace then interrupted Trump in the middle of his answer, demanding to know “What is radical about racial sensitivity training, sir?” (As if he doesn’t know.) Trump continued with his answer and included this point, “We have to go back to our core values. They were teaching people that our country is a horrible place, a racist place and they were teaching people to hate our country.”
Biden made a noise indicating that he was about to interrupt, so Wallace gave him the floor. Biden said, “Nobody’s doing that – he’s the racist!” Smouldering, Trump muttered, “You don’t know…” and Wallace then barked at Trump, “Let him finish.”
Unbelievable. Wallace should’ve pulled Biden up on the fact that his comment was a cheap, disgusting, racial slur against the president – exactly the sort of filthy smear that has come to typify Critical Race Theory.
In that one segment of questioning alone, Trump had to give an answer to a dishonestly framed question, then be interrupted by Wallace who starts to debate him, before being smeared as a racist by Biden – and to top it off, the president had to tolerate Wallace demanding that he remain quiet so his opponent could keep smearing him as a racist. Somehow in Wallace’s mind, this all passed as good moderation. It wasn’t. It was heavily biased nonsense which happened throughout the entire evening.
Early in the debate, not able to cope with Trump’s interruptions over the question of would Democrats pack the court (which Biden refused to answer and Wallace didn’t press him on), Biden blurted out “Will you shut-up man,” then whined that “this was so unpresidential.”
Biden went on to call Trump “a clown”, “a racist”, “the worst president in the history of the country,” etc… and at no point did Wallace even attempt to chide Biden for this appalling conduct, yet he constantly rebuked the president for interrupting the Fragile One.
Since May of this year, the terrorist group ANTIFA, along with Black Lives Matter, have burned buildings, police precincts, churches, cars and businesses while physically beating and even killing not only Trump supporters, but also cops and anyone else who happens to get in their way.
Democrat leadership has failed to be vocal in condemning this violence, insisting on their support of “peaceful protests” which they know full well were anything but peaceful.
Understanding all this, Wallace pointed out to the president that he was was critical of Biden for not condemning ANTIFA and other left-wing extremist groups, then asked him, “Are you willing to condemn white supremacist and militia groups and say that they need to stand down and not add to the violence in these cities as we saw in Kenosha and Portland?”
Trump answered, “Sure I’m willing to do that, but almost everything I see is from the left-wing, not the right-wing…” Wallace interrupted him mid-sentence and began to debate him, again, saying “If you’re willing to do it, then do it sir.” Trump paused, asking for a specific group’s name, so Proud Boys was mentioned. Trump then said, “Sure, Proud Boys, stand back and stand by! But I tell you what, someone has to do something about the Left because this is not a right-wing problem.”
Biden interrupted, with Wallace’s sanction, and said, “ANTIFA is an idea not an organisation.” Trump mocked, “You gotta be kidding! When you’re hit in the head with a bat that is not an idea!” Biden continued bleating about what the FBI Director called ANTIFA before Wallace interrupted them both saying, “Gentlemen, we’re done sirs, moving on to the next topic.”
That was all the time that Wallace allowed for a problem as monumental as the shocking, current mob-violence rampaging through American cities where thousands of people have had their businesses smashed to pieces after barely surviving Covid lockdowns. It is a problem that is going to get much worse after the November election, not matter who wins.
Frankly, if the police can’t do their job for fear of retributions in this cop-hating climate, if the National Guard is not called in by Democrat governors, if the military refuses to participate in putting down mob-violence on the left, then armed citizens and groups like Proud Boys may be the only way that innocent citizens can actually be protected. The second amendment still holds. These violent left-wing groups have been wheeling out guillotines at their “peaceful” protests. That should make everybody shudder.
Much more needed to be robustly debated on this topic, but neither Biden, nor Wallace, were up for it.
Trump won that debate, no contest. It was a debate between three men: a passionate and verbally combative president, Oscar the Grouch with dementia and a moderator who was far too biased and out of his depth to moderate a proper debate during a time when the most powerful country on Earth is threatening to unravel.
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