I did not indulge in any of the Dem debates. Instead, I watched clips on YouTube. I didn't really miss anything. I did however decide I was going to watch this Trump-Biden debate because I wanted to observe firsthand. What follows is what I would think a person who is not aligned with any party and who is undecided on a candidate. I believe these persons will be who will swing the election either way (assuming we don't have mass fraud, which is not a given). I will break this down into two parts: Appearance and Information. That is, How did the candidates come across if I were that hypothetical voter and then go into the [mis]information (talking points) was presented.
Appearances
As far as I'm concerned Joe Biden won the debate, hands down. I don't even think it was close. Anyone who reads this blog regularly knows I'm not a Biden fan so you should take this commentary seriously. Going into this "debate" Biden had been characterized in right-leaning media as in serious mental decline, who would fold under pressure from Trump and either go off on one of his characteristic gaffes or get angry and attack Trump in a "horse face..." manner. It was also assumed he'd get lost in his train of thought.
None of that happened. Whatever you think of Biden's actual policy positions, he did not show himself to be out of control of his faculties. That performance severely damaged the perception of the doddering old man just trying to make it to election day. He might be an old man just trying to hang on, but he came off as in control of himself.
Trump on the other hand come off as someone who was off his meds and not able to control his mouth. There were a few times I said out loud that Trump should shut the F up. It was clear that his strategy was to try to get Biden angry and to get him to gaffe. That strategy failed. Seriously failed. Any voter who is concerned about appearances and "acting presidential" will simply be turned off by that behavior. Believe me, there are a LOT of undecided voters out there for whom that is an important factor.
There are those saying that it was Trump vs Biden-Wallace. That may be true but that excuses nothing. It's been nearly 4 years (five if you include the campaign). That's like Obama complaining about lack of manufacturing jobs on Bush. At some point you accept you're on the hot seat.
Trump had better hope that there are more debates where he can change his behavior because if he continues to act like that on camera, he's losing the election (which he may be doing anyway).
So yes, Biden won because he rose above expectations. Don't send me hate mail over this.
Information
There were a few notable points in the "debate" that shows how much the leftist narrative has captured the mainstream media. Example was the "very fine people" lie that Chris Wallace trotted out without mentioning that the quote has been misrepresented by Biden (among others). We've already exposed that lie so we're not covering that again.
Trump is an inarticulate person and a very bad debater. If he was a good debater he would have asked Mr. Wallace to point out where he included Nazis and White Supremacists in his "fine people" comment. His people should have a page on their website with the video clip and he should have referenced it.
Also, he should have been able to challenge both Wallace and Biden as to whether persons who are opposed to destroying or removing artifacts for historical and educational reasons are bad people or are Nazis. And force Biden to declare large swaths of the American public as Nazis. He should have pointed out that he predicted that George Washington among others would be next and that such things HAVE happened. That would have played very well to undecided voters.
The next piece of misinformation was the response to the Wuhan virus. Trump should have pointed out that the worst cases were in NYS where Gov Cuomo sent sick people into nursing homes which contributed to the largest death counts in the country and that CUOMO was rewarded with a speaking gig at the DNC convention.
He did mention the wall of democrats who called him a xenophobe for banning travel from China so that's good on him. I'm not sure that the message got across with all the cross-talk.
On the topic of masks, I've laid out plenty of evidence that they do not work (short of N95). It is unfortunate that science has become so politicized that rational discussions cannot be had. Dr. Fauci said on 60 minutes that they don't work and then turned around and said they do. The Surgeon General admitted that they mislead the public on the matter in order to prevent a run on N95 masks. There's a lot of blame to go around for the piss poor handling of the situation and it doesn't begin and end at Trump.
The point about H1N1 by Trump got lost in the mix so I think a lot of people missed that. There were a lot of deaths from that virus. Early on Joe Biden had made comments about not taking planes and the like. Obama essentially told joe to get on message and STFU and he did. We did not shut down the economy or anything like that, and about 60k people died. Most importantly, after the deaths waned, like what is currently going on, testing revealed high levels of cases that panicked the experts but did not lead to the widespread fear-mongering that we have now. Again, I don't think this is known by much of the public (the media kept a lid on that) and so is unlikely to sway any undecided and unaffiliated voter who is not the kind to research these things.
"Best for Black Folks". Firstly, if I were some other [current] minority group in America I'd be annoyed at all the talk about African-Americans as if the rest of the minorities don't exist. That said, as a black person I'm annoyed that the discussion went straight to crime and prison. Look, most of us aren't involved in any crime whatsoever. Not at all. So personally I don't like the Black=crime thing. Yes, black people commit wildly disproportionate amounts of violent crime. But as far as I'm concerned I want to be talked to about economics and education.
That said, I don't find the attack on Biden on the crime bill to be persuasive. The reason is that back then a lot of black leaders were talking the same way. Crack and the crime around it was REALLY BAD. Fact is that these laws saved a lot of black lives by getting the criminal element off the streets. if you were a black kid in the 80s, particularly male, you may well owe the fact that you're alive to the heavy legal tactics deployed.
The mention of Breonna Taylor was a tactic to smear Trump. I posted a round table discussion by lawyers (whom are left liberal-moderate) on the topic. Breonna was not some innocent victim of injustice. She was involved in the drug game and we know what can happen when you're involved in the drug game. It's unfortunate it happened but not going to bat for her.
Then we have the Climate Change thing. I've posted a number of things on the subject. The climate is always changing. Humans have an impact that we really cannot measure because we, humans, have been on the planet an extremely short period of time relative to the age of the earth. This isn't the space for a full on climate discussion but the Climate Complex is a huge money scheme that should be resisted. And mind you there is a difference between pollution and so-called human caused climate change. I don't think any rational person would object to less pollution even if they question climate change policy.
Lastly I want to discuss the smearing of ordinary Americans engaging in self-defense and defense of others as Nazi's and White Supremacists. Over the past couple of months we have seen democratic "law enforcement" agents abuse their power and arrest and charge persons who have been demonstrably defending themselves against roving mobs of Anti-fa and Anti-fa aligned groups as well as criminals who see an opportunity. Kyle Rittenhouse did nothing wrong and he is NOT a white supremacist. We all know when Wallace said Kenosha that he was smearing Kyle. Kyle has a right to bear arms, as we all do. Kyle took it upon himself to defend the property of persons in Kenosha. Kyle was attacked. We have the video. He shot in self-defense. He is as far as I'm concerned a political prisoner. Shame on Wallace for smearing Kyle.
It was telling that Wallace could not name a single "white supremacist" organization that have been involved in the violence anywhere in the US since May. Why? Because there are none. Right-leaning people who have come out with their weapons to defend property are not white supremacists and shame on Wallace for smearing such persons. The violence of the last months is a left-wing phenomenon that has been aided and abetted by the media and DNC members high and low. Left-wing goons have been beating on people since 2016.
2016.
Anyone paying attention knows this.
If Trump was a better debater he would have asked if David Dorn was a white supremacist when he was gunned down while defending a shop and died on a Facebook live stream.
So to close I want to re-iterate. Biden won the debates strictly in terms of appearance. He had a low bar to meet and it was more than met. This isn't an endorsement of his policy positions. If you think Trump won on that front because he "took it to Biden", then you're likely not undecided and already in the Trump camp. You're not deciding the election though and that's the point.