Be Afraid, Very Afraid

An article by Ian Kilbride, published on 4 July 2024.

US presidential debates don’t win elections, but they can lose them. President Biden lost his on 27 June 2024. The greater loser was the American voting public who were presented with the choice of an old man versus a conman running their country for the next four years. Since their introduction in 1960, the US presidential election debates have provided some memorable images and one-liners. Richard Nixon’s sweaty upper lip and uncomfortable shifty eyes while debating the eloquent, dapper and TV savvy John F Kennedy. Film star turned politician Ronald Reagan making fun of his own age and his “there you go again” put down to the hapless Jimmy Carter. And of course, Trump’s threat to Hilary Clinton that, “You’d be in prison” if he were President.

But the June 27 Biden-Trump ‘debate’ was on an altogether different scale. The great British political philosopher Thomas Hobbes characterised life as “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short”, for Biden the debate was all of these, though not short enough. In fact, it was 90 minutes too long. Through a combination of hubris and suicidal political bad judgment, Biden and his team initiated the debate, hoping to tilt the odds heavily in their favour. They were. Trump had just been convicted of a felony, was under investigation on federal charges and had not yet been endorsed by the Republican Party convention. The Biden team was on safe ground with CNN, no live audience, two ‘ad’ (read comfort) breaks, and a full week to prepare at Camp David. He had the power of incumbency, the liberal media and the staged format all on his side. Biden was also facing an opponent not best known for his command of English, coherent thought, poise and entirely unfamiliar with the truth.

Yet, despite the odds stacked so heavily in his favour (and this was as good as it gets), Biden was exposed as the physically and mentally ailing, incoherent, frail, facsimile of the political titan he once was. Absent the teleprompter to keep him, his delivery and indeed his thoughts on message, Biden not only failed to articulate clearly some of the key successes of what has been on merit a decent administration, his brain freezes delivered the opposite. Most notably, in his most visible and painful meltdown, Biden claimed his administration had “finally beaten Medicare”. This is tantamount to a British Prime Minister declaring the government had destroyed the National Health System. Indeed, like the objectives of South Africa’s NHI, affordable health care was the keystone policy of the Obama administration and Biden claimed to have killed it. At the human level, one felt for the man. Of course, this is not what he meant to say, but he said it and as the President of the United States, all confidence was lost.

So, what of his opponent? Though Biden was his own worst enemy, Trump was poor. Though slightly more constrained than when attempting to intimidate Hilary Clinton in their infamous debates, ‘The Donald’ was bombastic, narcissistic, nasty, and delusional. Exposing the Biden administration’s weaknesses on illegal immigration and perceived weakness on foreign policy, Trump constantly repeated his toxic mantra that Biden was “The worst President in the history of the United States.” This was followed by the repetition his well-worn trope of lies and outrageous claims. Trump made 30 false claims during the debate, which amounts to one every three minutes. Tellingly, Biden countered none of them. The incumbent missed thirty opportunities to score a goal against a weak opponent and yet didn’t even have a shot at goal.

Most chillingly, Trump had to be prompted three times to state whether he would accept the outcome of the November 2024 election if he lost. While Trump is now the clear favourite, it is clear that he would never formally or personally accept defeat. This alone makes him uniquely unqualified to be President.

Notably, US markets shrugged off Biden’s performance and in fact stock-index futures, the dollar and other assets rose overnight. The market is now simply pricing in a Trump victory in November.

So, where to from here? Though a Republican Party symbol, the ‘elephant’ in the room is if and when Biden will step down (or is it aside?) to allow a potentially winning presidential candidate to emerge before the Democratic Party Convention on August 19. With Biden losing the support of powerful media houses such as CNN, MSNBC and the New York Times, Jill Biden is rapidly emerging as her husband’s national cheer leader. Lampooned by conservative media as the Lady Macbeth of the piece, the current White House of Cards is collapsing into a political tragedy, with serious national and international consequences.

The Democrats only have one shot at the White House in November – ditch Biden now and replace him with a candidate up to the monumental challenge of defeating a lying, unethical, vacuous, convicted felon and making America Great Again.