The Debate Debacle

Watching tonight’s Biden-Trump presidential debate gave cause for despair. Attentive viewers could rationally conclude that the United States is finished as a democracy, if not as a nation.

On display were two old men. One mouthed a torrent of lies and inaccurate superlatives, mostly about himself. The other had trouble expressing a coherent thought. When he did manage a bit of substance—with few exceptions—his words were anything but punchy: they aped a bureaucrat’s soon-to-be-filed-and-forgotten report.

The “winner” was clearly Donald Trump. For ninety minutes, he managed to conceal his apparently increasing derangement under a canopy of self-flattering lies. At one point, the debate degenerated into two old men arguing like six year olds over who’s the better golfer. True to form, Trump never committed to accept the election’s results if he loses.

The media didn’t help at all. Lies and exaggerations flowed like water, without “fact-checking” and without objection. My rough estimate was about five very two minutes, in a 90-minute debate, or some 225 lies in all. The moderators’ failure to intervene—except to cut off unauthorized overtime—reflected the “bothsideserism” that has turned our national media into unwitting accomplices of national catastrophe.

At the end of PBS’ post-debate analysis, its Republican analyst opined that there will never be another debate. I hope so. Not only did Joe Biden look and sound like a loser; he did so for all the wrong reasons, which have nothing to do with governing the country. You might as well give the two candidates maces and lances and put them in a jousting arena, as if they were aging knights of old.

Did this utter debacle move the needle? I doubt it. People like me, who would sooner emigrate than live under Trump as president again, have no alternative but to wait and hope. Members of the Demagogue’s cult would hardly be shaken by their guru’s every appearance of winning. In our scatterbrained nation of minute-by-minute “news” and speculation, this late-June catastrophe will be unlikely to have any effect in November.

In this bizarre election, only two things matter. First, Joe Biden has to live long enough to be inaugurated if he wins. Second, the Dems have to get out the vote in all the battleground states—and in any others made shaky by this debacle—as never before.

Dems can’t do that with overpriced media ads pushing thirty-second second video clips on a population already saturated with propaganda and lies, let alone one in which most voters have already made up their minds. When pols push those ads, only Big Media win. So, as I learned from a recent op-ed, do political consultants and “operatives,” who actually get commissions on their ad buys. (Don’t get me started on universal corruption.)

Dems can only win the old-fashioned way: Getting Out the Vote (GOTV) with face-to-face contacts with reluctant and undecided voters.

That’s why, last November, I decided to cancel all my donations to parties, candidates and my usual charities. Instead, I’m giving all that money in monthly contributions to the following GOTV organizations, which I make through the secure progressive donation site Act Blue: (1) Black Voters Matter Action PAC; (2) Fair Fight Action (Stacey Abrams’ old organization); (3) New Georgia Project (a spin-off of (2)); (4) Coalition for the Peoples’ Agenda; (5) Democracy for America (DFA); (6) Democratic National Committee; (7) Progressive Turnout Project; (8) VPP; (9) Mijente (Hispanic GOTV organization); (10) Florida Rights Restoration Coalition (FRRC) Action Fund (which seeks to restore ex-felons’ voting rights); (11) Swing Left; and (12) Advance the Electorate PAC.

If any reader knows any other GOTV organization worth adding to this list, please list it in a comment, along with the states and/or regions in which it primarily operates.

Our mass media have destroyed our public sphere for profit, especially social media. They will hardly be our salvation. The only way to save our democracy and our nation now is for us to organize the way Stacey Abrams did in Georgia before the 2020 election, and to Get Out the Vote by promoting person-to-person contact with people who care (even if they are paid a subsistence salary). If you doubt whether Abrams’ methods work, just ask Senators Ossoff and Warnock.


For brief descriptions of and links to recent posts, click here. For an inverse-chronological list with links to all posts after January 23, 2017, click here. For a subject-matter index to posts before that date, click here.

Permalink to this post