Pence Attempts to Overtake Debate Rules, but Harris Drives Home the Democratic Message

By Michelle Naranjo

The debate between Vice President Pence and Senator Harris in Salt Lake City was distinctive for many reasons. Both are the running mates to the oldest presidential candidates in history. Separated by protective plastic panels designed to provide a COVID-safe distance, Harris, and Pence remained seated, instead of standing per the usual.

But these contrasts were the least notable aspects of Utah. 

What became clear is that the traditional debate format voters have long expected has dissolved into a spectacle and proved itself outdated. Sure, this disruptive format has been coming for several election cycles now, but the structure in which candidates respect the debate rules while making their political distinctions clear has dissolved into a chaotic rumble.

A friend wondered pre-debate if we would see the politician-side of Harris or the fighter version. 

What we got was a well-prepared, self-assured candidate who wasn’t about to allow her opponent to walk over her words, dismiss her professional record, or steal her appointed speaking times. And, while she brought her politician side to the dais, she also began with a statement that was an apparent slight to Pence, the czar of COVID-19, without being a direct, personal attack.

Harris set the fighting words tone in her response to moderator Susan Page’s opening question about the Trump administration’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic. She declared it ”the greatest failure of any presidential administration in the history of our country.” 

What followed was Pence never directly answering any of Page’s remaining questions. Instead, he repeatedly spoke over both Harris and the moderator. Would this have been Candidate Pence speaking for any other election and not one led by Trump, he might have been perceived as extremely inconsiderate and even dishonest. But Pence’s slights failed to faze the former prosecutor, who drove home the Biden/Harris platform of raising up all Americans. She confidently topped off her arguments with the expert voice of a woman acclimated to facing male authority that talks over and steals her air time. 

It is 2020. Racism, women’s rights, the economy, and the ever-present pandemic are at the forefront of this presidential election. Harris showed what led Biden to choose her as a running mate who can speak with confidence to all of these issues -- and even have a plan to address them.

Pence brought a fly. 

Naranjo is a freelance writer based in rural Pennsylvania.

Please address your comments to editors@thehustings.news

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Veep Debate Marks Brief Return to 2020-Style Normalcy

By Charles Dervarics

After a chaotic face-off last week between President Trump and Democrat Joe Biden, Wednesday night’s debate between the vice presidential nominees offered a brief return to normalcy – at least as normal as it gets in 2020.

Despite major disagreements, Vice President Mike Pence and Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., debated civilly (for the most part) and delivered effective talking points on everything from COVID-19 to China and the Supreme Court. Not that it was exactly like debates of old: Plexiglas separated the candidates due to health concerns after positive COVID tests for the president and others at the White House. The night also was historic with the participation of Harris, the first woman of color on a major party presidential ticket.

But as the nation prepares to choose between the oldest presidential nominees in history, both Pence and Harris offered some depth on issues in what could be a preview of the 2024 campaign.

The debate began with a focus on COVID-19, as Pence claimed the administration had undertaken the “greatest national mobilization since World War II” while Harris charged that the White House was not truthful with the American people. On a vaccine, she added, “If Donald Trump tells us to take it, I’m not taking it.”

But the issue didn’t crowd out other topics, and both clearly had messages for swing state voters. Pence criticized the Green New Deal and accused Democrats of wanting to halt fracking. Harris talked up Biden’s plans for jobs and economic revival, including more support for education and manufacturing.

Pence sidestepped some questions – including the future of the Affordable Care Act – and Harris would not answer if Democrats plan to expand the Supreme Court if the Senate approves the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett. Look for more intensive media queries on those topics this month.

Both also routinely pushed the boundaries of time limits set by moderator Susan Page of USA Today – Pence seemed to be the worst offender there – although Page kept the debate from going off the rails. 

As someone who covered the first debate with a woman running for vice president – George H.W. Bush vs. Geraldine Ferraro in 1984 – the differences between that night and last night were stark. In 1984, the first question to Ferraro was how she could compare herself to Bush, a congressman, ambassador, and CIA Director before becoming Ronald Reagan’s VP. Ferraro later chided Bush for taking a condescending tone and near the end, the male moderator joked with Bush about the World Series. All of that was very 1984, and a far cry from what transpired last night. 

Trump and Biden are up next on the debate calendar, scheduled for a Town Hall-style meeting Oct. 15, but it’s not clear at press time if the event will take place. The Commission on Presidential Debates has announced plans to make it a virtual event, and President Trump said Oct. 8 he does not plan to participate under that format.

Charles Dervarics is a writer and policy analyst in Alexandria, Va.

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Coastal Elitist Harris Brings Democratic Party’s Radical Shift to the Veep Debate

By Henry Payne

In these strange times, the 2020 Vice Presidential Debate was fittingly strange theater.

There were ridiculous, plexiglass stage props. No questions from the moderator about riots that have toppled statues of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. There was a fly. 

But study the script of Sen. Kamala Harris, and history will record a Democratic ticket representing the most radical Party shift in 50 years. Life-long government apparatchiks, Biden/Harris represent the Elite vs. Main Street divide at the heart of today’s politics.

Harris checks the demographic boxes for the Democratic coalition but, most importantly, she hails from California. The Democratic Party’s biggest electoral treasure, California is the epicenter of Democratic ideology and Hollywood fundraising. It betrays – with Biden’s Northeastern roots – a coastal Party with a continent of red states in between.

It was not always so. At the end of the 20th century, Democratic leadership was geographically diverse – Gephardt of Missouri, Michigan’s Dingell, Clinton from Arkansas, Bradley of New Jersey, Nebraska’s Bob Kerrey – and rooted in the working class. 

The coastal Party of Sanders-Pelosi-Schumer-Harris-Biden is very different. It takes its policy prescriptions from Democratic-Socialist Europe – Paris Climate Accords, Medicare for All, Green New Deal.

Trump/Pence was a direct reaction to this elitist takeover. 

For all of carnival barker Trump’s lack of decorum, he is a businessman who fundamentally gets Main Street – thus his populist base in working-class neighborhoods of Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin. He chose Pence, a heartland governor, as his running mate. 

Harris’ (which GovTrack.us rates “the most liberal member of the Senate”) debate talking points, by contrast, put her a long drive from Main Street.

She echoed Black Lives Matter, a radical group that wants societal change as unpopular as the forced busing policies that tore America apart 50 years ago – policies Harris still cheers.

I covered the Black Lives Matter riots in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014, which did enormous harm to black lives. Protestors burned businesses and jobs to the ground. Six years later, Ferguson still hasn’t recovered. 

Now Chicago, New York, Kenosha, Wisconsin and other cities have seen crime and violence skyrocket. Victims of homicide in Chicago, for example – mostly Black – are up 50 percent due to diminished policing and COVID shutdowns that Biden/Harris threaten to reinstate.

Solutions for vulnerable communities (including in my Detroit backyard) – charter schools, police protection – are under assault by Harris’s Party.

As are manufacturing jobs. Harris claimed global warming an “existential threat” despite all evidence to the contrary – most obviously healthy Great Lakes levels that Democrats just a decade ago were scared would dry up due to melting snow pack. 

Shouldn’t she have been preparing for the existential threat of global viruses?

Harris supports a California-inspired national mandate forcing U.S. automakers to make only climate-fighting electric cars. Similar European mandates pushed Volkswagen to cut 7,000 jobs last year as it faced high EV costs.

That is tragic theater.

Henry Payne is The Detroit News auto columnist, radio host, nationally syndicated editorial cartoonist with Andrews McMeel, and National Review contributor. He was inside The Beltway for 13 years before escaping to Motown.

Please address your comments to editors@thehustings.news

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On Attack Ads

By Stephen Macaulay

  1. Talk to any producer of a local morning TV news program and you’ll learn that fires get significant attention because people watch. It doesn’t matter if it is an abandoned warehouse the ownership of which is unknown that is in the middle of nothing so that there isn’t any potential for collateral damage: People watch.

2. Attack ads are like warehouse fires. Or in this election cycle, dumpster fires.

People watch.

3. A political attack ad is like a caricature. In creating a caricature, the artist exaggerates a salient feature. It is something that stands out but taken to the nth degree.

Arguably, if the exaggeration is a foundational element of an attack ad, then most of what could be considered “attack ads” (or “negative ads”) by the Lincoln Project or any other organization targeting the Trump administration aren’t.

That’s simply because what would seem to be a grotesquerie is a reality.

There are 210,195 Americans dead from COVID-19. That we know of.

There are 7,459,101 infected with the disease.

There are millions of Americans unemployed. According to the latest from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics:

“In September, the number of unemployed persons who were jobless less than 5 weeks increased by 271,000 to 2.6 million. The number of persons jobless 5 to 14 weeks decreased by 402,000 to 2.7 million, and the number of persons jobless 15 to 26 weeks fell by 1.6 million to 4.9 million. The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) increased by 781,000 to 2.4 million.”

It is now thought that a large percentage of them are going to be permanently unemployed.

No caricature. No exaggeration. That’s how it is.

4. Let’s be clear.

Trump didn’t cause the virus. 

Let’s also be clear on this: He didn’t do everything he could to protect and preserve the people of the United States of America.

If wearing masks could, so scientists and doctors and public health experts the world over insist, save lives (according to Vin Gupta, MD, MPA, MSc, is an Affiliate Assistant Professor of Health Metrics Sciences at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington, on MTP Daily September 18, if people in the U.S. started wearing masks that day, as many as 200,000 lives could be saved by December 1; he also said that there is “convincing evidence” that had there been a two-week earlier shutdown of the economy and mask country-wide mask wearing there could have been an estimated 70% of lives saved), then shouldn’t Team Trump have been wearing masks 24-7 and making sure the American people saw them doing so?

5. When Trump returned from Walter Reed National Military Center to the White House and did the dramatic mask removal that was an attack ad on the health and wellbeing of all Americans.

Hugely grotesque.

People watch. People die.

Macaulay is a cultural commentator based in Detroit.

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Negative Ads Remain Off-Limits for the Biden Campaign Since Trump’s Coronavirus Diagnosis

By Todd Lassa

It was less than a week--believe it or don’t--before Wednesday night’s debate in Salt Lake City between vice presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Mike Pence when the following happened:

President Trump revealed he had tested positive for the coronavirus, was flown to Walter Reed Medical Center for treatment, took an unannounced ride on Sunday to wave to a crowd of his followers outside the Bethesda, Md. hospital, and flew back to the White House Monday to dramatically remove his mask and tell America, “don’t be afraid of it – you’re gonna beat it.”

For that extended weekend, at least, the Biden campaign announced it would pull all negative advertising against the incumbent president while Trump was suffering from Covid-19. The Lincoln Project, a group of “never-Trumper” conservative Republicans who have been campaigning against the president’s re-election, issued a statement that said the group will not pull its advertising, including a widely played television commercial called “Mourning in America” and more recently released the commercial, "Covita," a parody of "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" from the Broadway hit musical, "Evita."

As of this writing, the Biden campaign has not announced when, or if, it will re-instate any commercials or ads attacking or criticizing President Trump. 

After a shoutfest of a first presidential debate Sept. 30, heavily criticized by both Democrats and Republicans, Donald J. Trump and Joe Biden are scheduled to reunite for a town hall-style debate that will take questions from voters in the audience, next week in Ann Arbor, Mich. The town hall debate remains on the Commission for Presidential Debates’ schedule. It is to be held just 10 days after Trump’s release from Walter Reed. 

While some Biden supporters will argue that pulling negative ads is something no one would ever expect from the Trump re-election campaign, some Trump supporters will argue that the Biden campaign’s pledge was a political stunt, that “liberal media” will make up for the Democratic presidential candidate’s graciousness anyway. What do our liberal and conservative pundits think? The answers are on this page, in the column to the left and the column to the right.

Please address your comments to editors@thehustings.news

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On Discretion and Negative Political Advertising

By Bryan Williams

“Discretion is the better part of valor.”  We’ve all heard this line from Shakespeare, and it would appear that Joe Biden put this into practice last week when he pledged to halt all negative campaign ads because of President Trump and the first lady’s COVID-19 infections. I’m sure many people thought, “Oh wow, how nice. This is what we need in today’s coarsened politicking.”  But Falstaff, the Shakespearean character who uttered the famous idiom, was himself a man totally without honor and valor. The definition of valor is, “Great courage in the face of danger, especially in battle.” 

Is Biden’s move courageous or self-serving? Easy answer there. This is politics. This is the race to be the most powerful person on the planet. His move is as self-serving as the soft serve machine at a Sizzler steakhouse. He was hoping this move would get him the slim slice of voters who are still undecided in this race.

While Biden’s campaign may have stopped its negative ads, other Super PACs and organizations did not. Especially the Lincoln Project, a group of “Never Trumpers,” that pledged to double-down on their hatred of Trump and keep the fire of negative ads burning. When I looked up background on the Lincoln Project, I recognized only two people on its long list of founders and “senior advisors”; George Conway (recently departed White House counselor 

Kellyanne’s husband), and Michael Steele. In other words, a cadre of Falstaffs. Negative political ads are not a show of courage or valor.

Then there is President Trump, a man who doesn’t seem to know what discretion is. Upon returning to the White House, he said to the camera, “Don’t let it (COVID-19) dominate you, don’t be afraid of it! You’re going to beat it!”  That says courage to me.

Williams is a mental health professional in California and was a Republican party official working in local, state and federal politics from 2005-19.

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View from the Left: Talk with a Biden Supporter in Rural Pennsylvania

Jennifer Clark, of Meyersdale, Penn., did not vote in the 2016 presidential election, but now supports former Vice President Joe Biden. 

“It’s more so anti-Trump,” Clark says of her favored candidate. “Anti the man. I as I’ve gotten older, I can very much see both sides. For years I was a huge listener of right-wing talk radio. It drove my deceased husband crazy. I really believe that I’m pretty well-informed on both sides. I’m not a slave to MSNBC. I used to watch Fox News.

“Some key core values of the Republican party I don’t jell with. Those deep-seated abortion things. The Supreme Court is terrifying me right now.” Meyersdale voters are more concerned about economic issues than abortion, Clark believes.

“Even before he was elected,” Clark was troubled about “the way he talks about women. I’ve been through some of that. The way a white rich man in power thinks he can speak that way to anybody.”

Clark is “a little bit concerned” about Biden’s age. “I respect what he’s saying, what he stands for. But when Kamala got on board, I was really like, yes, this could be a positive change.”

She doesn’t believe Hilary Clinton “was the way to go” in 2016. Clark considers Kamala Harris sufficiently center-left “to bring people together,” and was encouraged to find a substantial number of members on a Facebook group page for Democratic women in Somerset County, where Meyersdale is located.

“I love talking politics to people who are like, Trumpsters,” she says, adding,“I’ve heard so many crazy conspiracy theories” about the coronavirus pandemic, and the president’s response. “Even the mask-wearing, and it makes me so mad because my kids go to school.”

Clark’s 15-year-old daughter returned to school Sep. 1, and often argues politics. She and her classmates must wear masks at school, but Clark often runs into her fellow parents, who do not.

Clark fears what the post-pandemic economy would be under Trump. “What are you going to do about that, Mr. Trump?” she says, noting that most Meyersdale residents do not play the stock market. She feels it’s time for Meyersdale voters still connected to the stagnant coal economy to find new lines of work.

President Obama and Vice President Biden “jumpstarted” the economy, Clark believes, “and (Trump) just comes along riding on the shirttails of that.”

Please address your comments to editors@thehustings.news

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Talking to Trump and Biden Supporters in Small-Town Pennsylvania

By Todd Lassa

MEYERSDALE, Penn. -- “Make American Great Again,” “Keep America Great,” “Trump Digs Coal” and “Pro-Life, Pro-Trump” signs prevail in and near this small town in Southern Somerset County, just north of the Maryland border in the important swing-state. It is conceivable that some of these signs have been up since before November 2016.

Just after Labor Day weekend, campaign signs for Joe Biden began to appear on lawns in this one-time coal town of about 2,000 residents. Driving on the Mason-Dixon Highway leading into town, we spotted a Biden sign on a lawn just north of a lawn featuring a Trump sign. Could The Hustings, in the interest of civil discourse, talk two neighbors into a socially distanced friendly discussion together?

Not this time. A widow who lives at the Trump-signed home says she put up the sign for her late husband, a much more fervent supporter of the president, and she doesn’t like to talk politics. Neither does her Biden-supporting neighbor, who says she has two signs in case the first one is stolen.

In Meyersdale, The Hustings found a Trump supporter on her front porch on Main Street, in front of her large Trump campaign sign, on a street where at least half of homes feature pro-Trump banners. After striking out with the single Main Street home with a Biden sign, we found a Biden supporter a couple of blocks away who says she loves to talk politics.

Our Trump supporter is Terri Walker, a retired employee of the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Walker voted for President Trump in 2016 and says that while she grew up in a Democratic household (which she says still prevails in Meyersdale), registered as a Republican about 30 years ago due to her support for President Ronald Reagan.

Our Biden supporter is Jennifer Clark, a costume designer who returns to her job in Maryland October 15 when the Cumberland Theater reopens. Clark is recently widowed. Her husband voted for Hilary Clinton in 2016, though she sat out that presidential election, after voting for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012. She has a 15-year-old daughter and 10-year-old son.

The Hustings spoke to Walker and Clark just prior to the first presidential debate. Their comments, in the right and left columns, respectively, are edited for clarity and length. 

Please address your comments to editors@thehustings.news

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View from the Right: Talk with a Trump Supporter in Rural Pennsylvania

Terri Walker of Meyersdale, Penn., switched parties because of her admiration for President Reagan, and became a Republican about 30 years ago. She is a fervent Trump supporter.

“I voted for him in the last election. I’ll vote for him in this election. He does what he says he’s going to do. I believe that he truly is a person who has America in their best interests.”

“They’ve been trying to get rid of him for two years,” she adds, referring to the House Democrat’s impeachment. 

“He’s a down-to-Earth man. I don’t think anybody could have stood through that witch-hunt in the Mueller thing. Trump has produced so many jobs in this country. I went through the Reagan years and I didn’t think things could have gotten any better.”

Walker credits President Trump with taking early action on the coronavirus pandemic: “He (instituted) the travel ban. Because of his quick action, I think more infected people would have flown in and infected our country.” She also supports Trump’s strict immigration policy, saying she has no problem with anyone who immigrates legally.

She speaks out against protests in numerous cities and suburbs around the country that were raised the profile of Black Lives Matter and were sparked by police shooting in Minneapolis of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man. Trump has tried “again and again” to maintain law and order, Walker said, expressing disdain for Democratic-run cities and states. 

When contradicted on her claim that Biden wants to “defund” police departments, Walker replies; “Yes, he does.”

Arguably the greatest divide in the U.S. electorate is between pro-life and pro-choice voters. While Walker downplayed the issue for herself and said there should be allowances in the case of rape or when the mother’s health is endangered, she said “it should not be used for birth-control.”

What if Trump does not win re-election Nov. 3? Does Walker think the president will concede?

“The only way he’s going to lose the election is with those mail-in ballots. Because they’ll either get lost or get tampered with. I think people should go to the polls, and vote.”

Please address your comments to editors@thehustings.news

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No Time to Cheer: But Let’s Be Serious

By Stephen Macaulay

Let’s not engage in schadenfreude. If Donald Trump has COVID-19, that is a bad thing.

If your mail carrier has COVID-19, that is a bad thing.

If your minister or sister or coworker or son or dentist or. . . .  A bad thing.

Now there is the report that Donald Trump has tested positive for the virus, just like more than 34 million people on the planet.

He is president, but he is a man. As the old saw has it, he ties his shoes like the rest of us.

Let’s take a 19-year-old who went to Florida for Spring Break and who behaved like any (un)reasonable 19-year-old would during Spring Break. Hey, nineteen.

Yes, somebody warned them, experts told them to keep distance, and they told them to mask up.

Yes, they did none of those things.

Back at home in Wisconsin, the symptoms develop. And Auntie Sue and Uncle Bob get sick, too. 

Maybe it’s not death.  Diarrhea. Pneumonia. A lack of taste. An attenuated heart.

The beer-bonging, hookah-hitting 19-year-old was on Spring Break. That is entirely understandable. Ill-conceived. But what would you otherwise expect?

Donald Trump has the best doctors and scientists in the world.

In his own words, Donald Trump stated to Bob Woodward on tapes—tapes not made secretly, but with full knowledge and agreement—that he knows how virulent the virus is. Bad. Very bad.

Yet he has proven himself to scoff at the advice and has proposed all manner of bizarre therapeutics. Has stood in front of crowds of largely unmasked people whose shout-propelled aerosols undoubtedly made their way to the stage.

I hope that Donald Trump and his family and those surrounding him don’t have anything untoward happen to them.

But let’s keep one thing in mind: He is an educated, 74-year-old man with the best doctors in the world, the best scientists in the world, whom he has chosen to ignore.

He is not 19.

What does that say about his judgment?

Macaulay is a cultural commentator based in Detroit.

Please address your comments to editors@thehustings.news

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Trump ‘Doing Very Well’ After Transfer to Walter Reed for Coronavirus

By Todd Lassa

President Trump told the White House physician he was ready to leave Walter Reed National Military Medical Center Saturday before noon, less than 24 hours before he was transferred there on Marine One after testing positive for the coronavirus.

“This morning, the president is doing very well,” Dr. Sean P. Conley said in a press conference Saturday morning. He said Trump was not given supplemental oxygen “today,” and when pressed said there was no supplemental oxygen Friday or Thursday before the president tweeted his diagnosis and that of First Lady Melania Trump. 

The president’s treatment included antiviral medication remdesivir and eight grams of an experimental monoclonal antibody.

Conley would not definitively say that Trump has received no supplemental oxygen at all. The president had a mild cough, nasal congestion, and fatigue when transported to Walter Reed, and a fever from Thursday into Friday, “which are now improving,” the physician said.

But the treatment timeline Conley outlined indicates Trump tested positive as early as Wednesday, the day after the debate.

The next seven to 10 days will be critical to prevent an inflammatory flare up of the coronavirus, Conley said, but he declined to estimate how long President Trump would remain at Walter Reed. The first lady was not hospitalized because her symptoms from the virus were not critical, the doctor said.

Former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee who debated Trump from a distance on a stage with a small, distanced audience has tested negative, as has his wife, Jill. Mike Pence and his wife, Karen, have also tested negative. 

It must be noted that staffers, aides, and members of Biden’s team who were in contact with the president must be tested again for the coronavirus in the coming days. 

Although the Oct. 15 presidential debate is within two weeks of the president’s quarantine period, neither the White House nor the Commission for Presidential Debates immediately announced it would be cancelled. But unnamed sources told PoliticoFriday “it’s way too early to tell” whether Trump will make it to the scheduled debate in Miami.

Senators Mike Lee (R-Utah), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and John Jenkins, president of the University of Notre Dame, have tested positive. They attended the Sept. 26 Rose Garden announcement of Amy Coney Barrett as Trump’s choice to replace Ruth Bader Ginsberg on the Supreme Court.

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien also have tested positive.

Close aides and family members who have tested negative include Attorney General William P. Barr, Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, and Baron Trump.

Democratic vice-presidential candidate Kamala Harris also has tested negative and is expected to meet Vice President Pence for the only debate scheduled between the running mates in Salt Lake City Wednesday. 

Please address comments to editors@thehustings.news

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Debates Via Zoom? There is a Mute Button

By Bryan Williams

It almost feels it was inevitable this would happen. What to do about the campaign? Should the debates go on?

In a year in which our children are attending school via Zoom and millions of people are working from home online, a presidential debate could easily be conducted via webcam. This could solve the problem of how to prevent the candidates from shouting over each other. My son’s teacher mutes unruly children all the time. And yet, a debate moderator is not the same as a school teacher. Many Republicans already distrust the journalists that moderate the debates. Putting them in control of a Zoom mute button would probably cause the Parler social media site to melt down. As long as President Trump is in good health and good spirits, the debates should go on.

Mike Pence should take the torch and run with it. He is the vice campaigner in chief. We know he’s up for it, and would relish the time in the spotlight, potentially setting him up nicely for 2024. As long as Trump is healthy, he can continue holding online rallies the Joe Biden way. Who knows, maybe even the media will handle Trump with kid gloves the way they have Biden, as a show of respect for our sickened President.

I am heartened to learn Joe Biden has canceled all negative campaign ads. Maybe we, and President Trump, will emerge from this knowing that we are in fact not in control of anything, and being kind and humble works even in politics. Be safe, be kind, and get well soon Mr. & Mrs. Trump.

Williams is a mental health professional in California, and was involved in local, state and federal Republican politics from 2005-19.

Please address comments to editors@thehustings.news

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The Pretending Has to Stop

By Stephen Macaulay

While it is politically acceptable to call what happened Tuesday night a “debate,” it was nothing of the sort, nor was it expected to be.

Let’s stop kidding ourselves. There is nothing decorous about politics now, nor has there ever been. The Founding Fathers didn’t bow and scrape to one another. Didn’t you see “Hamilton”? Do you think Aaron Burr was the only bad guy with a gun?

“But we should expect more,” you decry.

Why? Whether you support or despise Trump, you know the man has no filter, he will lie and fulminate, talk about totally imaginary things and scenarios, then claim they never happened, and do so with the bluster and bravado that makes the shouting matches between 10-year-olds seem Churchillian.

This isn’t a case of one side or the other. Trump is Trump. 

Always has been, always will be.

That’s who the man is. We know that. He’s not the guy who is going to appear in a V-neck sweater with the debate-team logo. And, like it or not, he won the last election, and not because he was some sort of political mandarin. 

All this pearl-clutching is ridiculous.

It would be all too easy to call Trump a street fighter or a bully, but people of that nature don’t have real, or alleged, millions (or billions?) of dollars to fall back on.

He’s a guy who ran his own business and was able to have people who didn’t listen to him fired. It’s his way or the highway.

Both sides know this.

Yet, for some reason, people are now trying to score the behavior of Trump and Biden as though there is some sort of even metric to use. Yes, both men are running for the same office, both are white guys in their 70s, both are people who have more visibility than any of us will ever achieve –  so we imagine that they are somewhat more special or behave in exemplary ways.

Nope.

Much of the post-melee commentary has obligatory mentions of Biden’s jibes at Trump, calling him “a clown” and a “racist,” and telling him to “shut up,” as though there is some behavioral equivalence.

There isn’t. We know this. So … let’s stop pretending.

Macaulay is a cultural commentator based in Detroit.

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Perhaps Grant the Moderator Power to Call in the National Guard?

By Todd Lassa

While few pundits credit the first presidential debate of the season Tuesday night with edifying viewers on the positions and policy proposals of either President Donald J. Trump or former Vice President Joseph Biden, the hand-wringing of that inauspicious verbal battle has sucked all the political air out of the entire week. 

We – as editors and as a nation – are still asking what should be done about the debate that had future PTSD victim Chris Wallace, of Fox News, trying everything he could to claw back control of the 90-minute debacle. The next day, the Commission for Presidential Debates issued a statement announcing it would make running changes for the two remaining presidential wrestling matches, as well as next week’s debate between Vice President Mike Pence and Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.).

“Last night’s debate made clear that additional structure should be added to the format of the remaining debates to ensure more orderly discussion of the issues,” CPD’s statement said. “The CPD will be carefully considering the changes that it will adopt and will announce the measures shortly.”

In the center column of Wednesday’s issue of The Hustings, we suggested perhaps a mic cutoff switch for the moderator, although moderators would still have trouble moderating as they would still hear the two candidates trying to talk over each other. 

Perhaps make Trump and Biden sit in electrified chairs, and give the moderator a buzzer-switch? Many immediately called for cancelling the remainder of the reality TV series’ season.

The remaining debates are Oct. 7 [the only vice presidential debate among the four scheduled] at the University of Utah, in Salt Lake City, moderated by USA Today’s Susan Page; an Oct. 15 Town Hall Meeting [a format some pundits expect will reel in Trump and Biden as they take questions from citizens] at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts in Miami, moderated by the C-SPAN Networks’ Steve Scully, and Oct. 22 at Belmont University in Nashville, moderated by NBC News’ Kristen Welker. 

Please address your comments to editors@thehustings.news

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Signifying … Something?

By Andrew Boyd

We may be a divided electorate, but we’re all living in the aftermath of Tuesday night’s “debate,” which, if I’d stayed for the credits, would likely have listed Jerry Bruckheimer as director. All sound and fury, with little in the way character development or narrative depth. That was Tuesday night, and I imagine we all are hoping for a much-improved sequel.

Right now, however, we’re all left to pick through the wreckage to see if there’s anything we might salvage that helps inform our decisions come November.

In Biden, I saw an ill-tempered fellow, with no meaningfully greater sense of civility or decorum than the other grumpy old man on the rostrum.  More troubling is the sense that Joe seems anchored to nothing at all in terms of policy ideas. He loves America but insists it’s racist to its core. The Green New Deal is terrific, it’ll pay for itself, but he’s not for it.  Fracking must end, except where it supports jobs and potential votes. And the list goes on.  Some may be left wondering who and what it is they are actually voting for if they pull the lever for the Scranton kid. I know I would.

As for Trump, I guess we conservatives get what we deserve. Intemperate to the core, with an ego the size of purple Texas (though I’m not sure I believe the polls on that one), he’s never been easy on the ears or the soul, and that may be his ultimate undoing. The American people are on their last nerve, and I think Tuesday may have been close to a deal breaker.  It’s not over yet, and perhaps he can recover, but my hopes are fading.  If there’s a sequel to this raw and rancorous Tuesday night fight, I pray that the orange man can get in touch with the better angels of his nature, assuming they can still fog a mirror. 

Onward into the uncertain future with best wishes for the health and welfare of all well-meaning people, everywhere, irrespective of political bent.  And may God bless, America.

Boyd is a public relations and communications professional with 30 years-experience. He lives with his wife and three daughters in Charlotte, N.C.

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