Trump v Biden Round 2: a fitting end to four years of American chaos

It began well. The President showed up. There had been some thought that Donald Trump might skip the event, but here he was, ready to play by new rules designed to curtail his bad behaviour. Yet if he arrived prepared to have his speech muted by the debate moderator, it was also clear that he was not going to be muted in his appearance. This was Trump projecting the hyper-virility of the past couple of weeks; his usual orange hue now nudging up the colour chart into the autumnal browns, making his straw hair look more unreal, his pink lips more pronounced every time he pouted through his enforced silences.

He was also on his best behaviour, initially at least, and did himself some credit. With the Perspex shield removed from between the two candidates after Dr Anthony Fauci agreed that their negative tests made it redundant, the spectacle resembled nearly every other presidential debate since the first in 1960. The host was NBC News’ Kristen Welker who Trump had already softened up with a series of tweets attacking her for bias. But this sepia-tinted Trump appeared respectful. He started by engaging in the polite policy ping-pong.

Biden, in turn, was Biden: as moderate as ever and with a mission to produce the fewest headlines. With twelve days to go and his poll lead looking healthy, he did not need to catch the eye. He could leave it to Trump to kick up leaves like an excited, if not slightly demented, Red Setter.

They began with Covid-19 and the first thing to notice was that there was an initial weakness in Trump’s voice. Suddenly his strength seemed less evident. Biden answered, placing the blame at Trump’s feet. It was straightforward politics, but the wisdom of the new rules was the takeaway.

Suddenly we had points of view being articulated on both sides. Trump emphasised the speed of the vaccine, available “within weeks”, despite the scepticism of his own experts. Biden warns about a “dark winter”. Trump denies it and tries to peg Biden with mismanagement of Swine Flu. Trump emphasises the 99% of people who recover from Covid. Biden responds with the first and best zinger of the night. “He says people are learning to live with it. People are learning to die with it.” 

It carries on in the same fashion. Trump’s self-control is working to his advantage and Biden is playing it safe. Each candidate speaks to their base and few will have been converted by arguments we’ve heard a hundred times by now. Trump lacks empathy, certainly, but composure directly translates into strength, which has always been his chief selling point. If Trump had behaved like this from the start of his re-election campaign, he might not have been in the hole he’s currently in. 

And then he accuses Anthony Fauci of being a Democrat…

It was like that bit in every vampire movie where a gust of wind from an open window moves a curtain. It’s the trembling glass of water in Jurassic Park. It is the twitch that develops in Clint Eastwood’s eye the moment before you know he’s going to break somebody’s jaw.

Trump’s good behaviour lasted for as long as it took him to accuse America’s chief immunologist of being politically motivated. That when the evening started to unravel. 

The second topic was election integrity and Biden promised that anybody interfering will “pay a price because they’re affecting our sovereignty.” Trump accuses Biden of corruption, taking “three and a half million dollars” from “the mayor of Moscow.” But this is just the start of it. First Debate Trump is back, scooping up mud on an industrial scale before launching it at his opponent. The problem for Joe Biden and the Democrats is that he can’t respond to all of it, so, in the end, he responds to too little of it. 

“You have to clean it up and talk to the American people,” warns Trump. Biden’s response is earnest but weak. “I have not taken a penny from any foreign source in my life,” he says and immediately turns to Trump’s tax returns and asks: “What are you hiding?”

The strategy is naïve. This is how Trump scores points, by pulling his opponent into the dirt so everybody ends up looking corrupt. The better strategy is one that Biden employs next, highlighting the nature of Trump’s game. He’s effective when he looks into the camera and asks the American people to compare the two of them and judge each by their character. The “you know me and you know him” approach is a good one given the howl of crazy accusations coming from his opponent.

By this point, Trump’s rhetoric was savage. He spoke rapidly and nearly everything he said was unproven or disproved, even by his own FBI and CIA. It soon became clear that Kristen Welker cannot control him. She certainly did nothing to refute him in the way it appears Lesley Stahl did in the 60 Minutes interview to be broadcast on Sunday.

Yet that’s not the half of it. Trump was bullying the host again. Welker was later praised by network anchors for her composure and for “winning the night” but it’s no more than kindness towards a colleague given an impossible task. She could not shut the President down. Trump, meanwhile, had forgotten the rules; forgotten, too, the sensible advice he’d been given about controlling his manic tirades. There were certainly fewer interruptions but this quickly became the night of the interminable “ten more seconds” as Welker continually offered (or was bullied into offering) Trump the last word.

Meanwhile, Trump’s every rushed clause contained a new accusation. He claimed that Biden lives too well, owns houses everywhere, that his brother took money from Iraq, that the Biden’s are taking money from China, Ukraine, Russia… Then there’s the laptop, more about China, and some crazy stuff about selling pillows that nobody could quite understand.

Biden tried his best to turn down the volume and offered an ordinary take on foreign policy. On China, he claimed that he’d make China “play by the international rules” and blamed Trump for being friends with “thugs” whilst “poking” America’s friends. Yet none of this matters. The CNN fact checker appeared on Twitter to note that Trump was being even more economical with the truth than in the first debate.

On healthcare and the Supreme Court, he claimed “Obamacare is no good” and explained that he wants to terminate it and replace it with a “much better healthcare”, “a brand new beautiful healthcare”. He has promised this for four years, of course, and it’s still unclear what he means by it. Biden offers “Bidencare”, which is “Obamacare with a public option”, reiterating his moderate credentials by pointing out that this is why won the nomination. “I support private insurance,” he offered, perhaps naively, however, if he thinks people will walk away from the debate remembering a single policy.

On immigration, Trump denied separating children at the border. He instead blamed the “coyotes” who, he says, bring in the children alone. Biden said the children were with parents. It “violates every notion of who we are as a nation.”

And then we had what was perhaps Trump’s biggest gaffe of the night. In talking about immigration, he stated that only immigrants with the “lowest IQ” turn up for their interviews. For a politician seeking to broaden his appeal among immigrant communities, it was an unmistakeable blunder. It’s also unlikely to impress the suburban women voters who remain the key to his re-election. Trump’s lack of empathy was showing. He is so obsessed with himself that he seems incapable of realising how often he insults his audience. “I am the least racist person in this room” he claimed repeatedly, effectively telling everybody in the room that they are racist to some degree.

It was in the middle of this rant, in which Trump claimed to be only second to Abraham Lincoln in terms of race relations, that Joe Biden audibly groaned “Oh God”. The moment sums up the entire evening and, perhaps, expresses something that many Americans are now feeling about this election.

Biden tried hard to prove himself up to the task of standing up to the President but POTUS 45 refuses to be constrained by logic, facts, or even common decency. His is an unstoppable force powered by ego, id, or something that even Freud would struggle to define. Biden – looking human in scale – was reduced to grinning, laughing, rolling his eyes, and other theatrics that will have played well among his supporters and that ultimately is key.

If you wanted proof that Trump is a bully, you had it. If you wanted to see how hesitant Biden can be, you had it. If you wanted to see Trump as a strong man, the evidence was here. If you wanted to prove to yourself that Biden offers a more empathetic form of presidency, then you had your proof. Nothing changed. Convictions were only hardened.