OPINION: Trump's Ignorance and Malice, Biden's Squandered Opportunity

The single most important task for each of us is ensuring American democracy prevails in 2024. That means that we must fight like hell to defeat Donald Trump in November. On Thursday night, Joe Biden failed to take advantage of an opportunity to demonstrate his vigor. But even as the President stumbled, Trump showcased disaster.

Joe Biden has been an honorable and capable public servant for many decades. During the debate he spent his allotted time discussing the successful policies that have been implemented under his administration, although not in a particularly clear manner.

Donald Trump, on the other hand, spent the debate spewing lie after lie, demonizing immigrants and spreading the fear and hate on which his popularity relies. He proudly took credit for overturning Roe v. Wade, refused to accept the 2024 election results, and referred to the January 6 insurrectionists as “patriots”. All of these statements emphasize what we already knew: Donald Trump is a narcissistic wannabe authoritarian who would happily destroy our democracy and strip you of your rights if it meant more power for himself.

Although the debate format and CNN’s lack of fact-checking did Biden no favors, Trump’s ludicrous statements and unpopular extremist positions left the door open for strong attacks against him.

Unfortunately, the President was not up to the task. Biden’s campaign team has stated he was dealing with a cold, but whatever the case may be, he must get to work immediately convincing the American people of his vitality.

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Biden is infinitely more capable and decent than Trump, but many viewers of the debate do not have the policy knowledge to determine when Trump was lying, and it was incumbent upon Biden to set the record straight.

Frankly, I’m disappointed in the President’s team for preparing him for the wrong debate. Biden would have thoroughly dismantled Trump in a genuine policy discussion, but the debate prep should have accounted for the inevitable devolution into the low-level brawl we witnessed.

While Biden answered the moderators’ questions with thoughtful responses and context, his slow hard-to-understand speech pattern ended up overshadowing the impressive substance of his words.

Imagine how much stronger Biden would have looked if he started every answer by saying "Everything that racist, America-hating, 34-time convicted, sexual predator just said is a lie. Here’s the truth…"

There are those arguing that President Biden should step aside to allow a younger candidate to challenge Trump. Personally, I’m not ready to abandon the man who has been one of the strongest Presidents of my lifetime because of one weak debate performance.

We always knew this would be a challenge, and I fully believe he can and will defeat Donald Trump. I will do everything in my power to make sure that he, and other Democrats up and down the ballot, send MAGA where it belongs this November.

Reprinted from the author’s blog Why It Matters. See the original here.

The views expressed in this opinion article are the author’s and not necessarily those of Kyiv Post.