Wednesday, September 30, 2020

anarchy: last night's presidential debate

I felt when I turned in last night that today's blog post would be private Facebook Messenger chat with my gypsy van dweller friend featured in the last two posts at this blog. The chat began during last night's presidential debate. However, my dreams last night were not kind to my using that chat in today's blog post. In fact, the dreams left me feeling I had missed the entire point of watching the debate last night. 

It is a lie to call it a debate. It is a lie to say I liked watching it. It is a lie to say I wanted to keep watching it. In fact, I started playing chess online, but left the debate on, even as I kept chatting with my friend on Facebook Messenger.

I told my friend numerous times that the moderator, Mike Wallace, a FOX anchor, lost control of the debate. 

Perhaps that was a good thing, for it allowed the viewing audience to see both candidates through whatever lenses the audience wore. However, I ran for public office 10 times in Key West and the Florida Keys, and I know what campaign forum and debate moderators can do to control the candidates and help provide what the viewing audience are entitled.

I told my friend that the point was reached during the debate that Wallace should have caused the mic of the candidate not having the floor to be turned off, so that the candidate with the floor could say what he wanted to say without interruption from the candidate not having the floor. 

Had that been done, President Trump's mic would have been turned off a whole lot more than former Vice President Biden's mic would have been turned off. 

I told my friend that Trump railed about law and order, and Biden refused to say, after being asked point blank by Trump if he supported law and order, while Trump refused to say he was against White Supremacists. 

I told my friend that Trump has no respect for the rules to which he and his campaign staff had agreed for the debate, particularly, not interrupting the other candidate when the other candidate had the floor. 

I told my friend that Trump's constant interrupting of Biden, even while being repeatedly asked by Wallace to stop doing it, showed how Trump really feels about law and order. It showed Trump is an anarchist. It showed how he will behave if he does not win in November.

I read several articles online this morning about the debacle, which I doubt changed one Republican, MAGA or Democrat mind, left undecideds undecided, and left me feeling once again that I am a disenfranchised voter 

There was talk in some of the articles of the next two debates being cancelled, even though Biden was reported as saying he will do the next two debates.

Here's my suggestion, if the next two debates happen. Give the moderator a kill switch for both candidates' mics, and the moderator agrees beforehand to immediately kill the mic of a candidate who interrupts another candidate - zero tolerance. If the moderator does not do that, the debate is immediately stopped by the network - zero tolerance.

Last night, Trump repeatedly said he paid millions of dollars in income taxes for the years he was reported to have paid $750 or nothing in income taxes. Neither candidate offered any intelligent or reassuring plan for dealing with the coronavirus. Perhaps those two topics, and Trump's Russia and Saudi Arabia connections, and Biden and his son's Ukraine and China connections, should be the topics of the next debate, and any wandering off topic be met by the kill switch.

sloanbashinsky@yahoo.com


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