The Biden-Trump Debate: The Agony Booth
W.J. Astore
In the Star Trek episode, "Mirror, Mirror," Captain Kirk and a few other crewmembers find themselves in a parallel universe on a more barbaric ship. On this imperial version of the Enterprise, disobedient or otherwise malperforming crew are punished, tortured really, in an "agony booth." And that's exactly how I felt last night watching the Biden-Trump debate. What did I do wrong to be put in this agony booth? Fortunately, I was able to escape after 75 minutes. The "full-duration" just may have killed me.
I watched the debate with my wife (agony loves company), and she had some of the best lines of the night. Here's a sampling:
Great, two old white guys again. It's blinking Biden versus bully-boy Trump.
Trump's just a horrible, badgering bully.
Biden's already muddled and is mixing up his numbers.
Trump never smiles, never laughs. Mean people suck.
Trump is steamrolling over everything.
Really, the less said about this "debate," the better. It was insult after insult, interruption after interruption, most of the insults and interruption coming from Trump. His followers, I assume, enjoy his bully-boy tactics, but they left me cold and made the "debate" unwatchable.
As usual, Trump played some of his greatest hits. Covid-19 is "the China plague" and is "China's fault." A vaccine is "weeks away" (with no mention of how many weeks. Five? Fifteen? Fifty?). He's going to make insulin for diabetics as cheap and available as water. Even that he was the one who brought back Big Ten college football.
Speaking of football, Trump earned many penalties in this debate. Taunting. Unsportsmanlike conduct. Delay of game. Unnecessary roughness. The list goes on. Next time, instead of a debate moderator, I suggest a team of NFL referees with whistles and plenty of penalty flags.
Media spokespeople and candidate spin rooms are most concerned about which candidate "won" or "lost" the debate. My sense is that Trump, in dominating the debate -- what a nasty man he is -- "won." And who lost? Anyone who was expecting a real debate.
Welcome to the agony booth that is politics in America.