"Biden looks like the walking dead, Trump looks like he's a madman. Who will save our country? ”
After 4 years, Biden and Trump met again on the debate stage. Four years ago, the two would greet each other from the air, but now they have no interaction, and they go straight to the stage and start a debate.
Compared with last time, the relationship between the two is now more tense. In the past two months, Trump has been convicted of multiple felonies, and Biden's son has been convicted of three counts in a gun case. Moreover, the two are older: Biden, who is fighting for a second term, is 81 years old this year, and Trump, who is also fighting for a second term, is also 78 years old.
Both of them have a history of being in the White House for 4 years, and they also have their own governing baggage and handles. The two "rotten apples" became the protagonists of the attention of the American public opinion field on Thursday night. The 90-minute debate brought a dramatic effect to the whole world.
Debate turns into a cannon
There is no live audience, no "cheat sheets" are allowed, and silence is forced during the opponent's answer. These rules are new rules that have only emerged in this year's televised election debate.
It stands to reason that this is more beneficial to Biden, who has always stuttered and is not good at words. But even after seven days of retreat, his performance was still disastrous. When answering the host's first question, his hoarse voice and constantly blinking expression made the outside world question whether he was in a physical condition.
When asked by the moderator how he thought Americans were worse off during his tenure than Trump, Biden also stumbled: "Then let's look at the beginning of my term...... Cough...... What did Trump leave me...... Cough...... The economy is plummeting, and the epidemic is spiraling out of control. Many people died, but he said the problem was not serious at all......"
He was also hesitant when it came to taxing the wealthy to pay more benefits. When it came to listing what projects could be funded by the tax, his thinking became confused, and he paused for a while, and inexplicably said, "We have finally defeated Medicare." ”
Biden
The weak and hoarse voice makes Biden's political views and views look particularly pale, and his momentum is obviously inferior to Trump's.
At the scene, as soon as he sensed that something was wrong with Biden, he began to ridicule his opponent: "I don't know how he finished a sentence." He didn't know how to finish a sentence himself. ”
Debates quickly turned into rhetoric, with them avoiding policies and plans in favor of personal attacks and name-calling. Both of them lied and busted the editors of fact-checking websites.
Especially when it comes to age-related topics, the two old men quarrel like small children, and Biden says that his opponent is "three years younger, but much less capable."
Trump, for his part, proudly said that he had won a golf club championship and that Biden could not hit it for 50 yards.
Trump
Not to be outdone, Biden said that when he became vice president, the "handicap index" dropped to 6. In this way, both sides boasted of their skills.
Biden said he was willing to talk, but only if Trump had to carry his own bag.
"Let's not act like a child," Trump said. Biden retorted: "You're just a child." ”
The 90-minute debate was reduced to an endless crusade of attacks. The two sides also blamed each other about who is the "stupid and the loser", and inevitably took up the issue of lawsuits, "Your moral standards are the same as those of stray cats," Biden said.
Trump responded: "I didn't have sex with stars. ”
Forbes used the term "Trash talk" to describe the debate. Ben Rhodes, a writer who worked as a national security and public relations consultant in the Obama administration, tweeted several times in quick succession — "Imagine. What impression does this leave on the youth of our country? "Tonight's debate is the worst televised debate ever held on the continent in terms of quality and style."
One writer, Marcus Gibson, responded: "The whole world is watching America spin in the stinking gutter." ”
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After the debate, a CNN poll showed that 67 percent of respondents believed that Trump won the first debate declared by Biden in 2024, while only 33 percent believed Biden won the debate.
Biden's performance also made the Democratic guests in the CNN studio mourn. Van Jones, who worked as an adviser to the White House during the Obama years, admits in front of the camera with a blank look: "I love Biden." I work for Biden. But it looks painful! He didn't handle it well. He didn't handle it well. ”
For supporters of the Democratic Party, Biden's voice and expression are only a minor problem, and in the face of Trump's aggressive offensive, he has no strength to ask rhetorical questions and refutes, and it is an unforgivable fault to allow Trump to output his views without scruples.
Biden misstepped
With Biden losing badly in the opening debate, a sense of crisis within the Democratic Party is finally starting to surface.
"He's not yet an official nominee." CNN News host S.E. Cupp tweeted this after the debate. With just a few words, the voice of "changing the commander" in the Democratic camp gradually appeared. "There are still 55 days left to execute Plan B." Someone at the bottom responded.
Biden's defeat in the first battle has made the Democratic Party's doubts about his age and physical condition begin to ferment. "Couldn't Obama call Biden and ask him to retire quickly?" Columnist Patrick Healy asks in the article.
The media in the Democratic camp have made headlines about "substitutions". The New York Times bluntly stated in an editorial that it was a big gamble to expect the public to turn a blind eye to Biden's age and frailty.
"The greatest public service Mr. Biden can do right now is to announce that he will not continue to run for re-election." The way to avoid Trump's scourge on the United States is to "elect a more capable person to replace Biden and defeat him in November."
Democratic donors, who spoke anonymously to various media outlets, also criticized Biden for being unqualified, with one Democratic activist telling the Financial Times: "Big donors say...... He must step down. ”
In general, debates do not have a huge impact on public opinion. After all, the American electorate is so polarized that it is generally difficult to convince them. But Biden is an exception. This time, he took the initiative to write a letter of war, which was nothing more than an attempt to dispel the doubts of the electorate about his age and health, and to prove the skeptics who believed that he was too old and infirm to hold public office.
After the debate, Trump's approval rating rose to 65 percent, while Biden's approval rating slipped to 23 percent
But such a poor performance now is bound to hurt Biden's poll numbers. After all, judging by the current trend, Biden is not favored to win, and in the decisive swing states, he is also in a backward position.
However, substitutions are also unrealistic. To become a party nominee, a candidate needs to win the support of a majority of delegates to the Democratic National Convention, usually 1,968 votes. At present, 3,894 of the 3,937 national delegates of the Democratic Party have expressed their support for Biden.
In principle, Biden can voluntarily give up these nomination votes. However, the official nomination is less than two months ago, and there is no existing process at present, and it is difficult to find a replacement for Biden in a short time. If Biden withdraws, a short-term battle will start, and nearly 4,000 delegates will be free to vote for their chosen nominee without restraint, which will inevitably cause a rift within the Democratic Party, leading to chaos, undoubtedly to Trump to send an assist.
Today's situation is also caused by Biden. He had the idea of letting the younger generation of Democrats take the lead, but he lost to the temptation of re-election.
However, some Democrats believe that there are still more than five months to go before the November election, and American voters will have long forgotten about Biden's fiasco.
Who is worse?
Four years ago, the presidential debate between Trump and Biden was hailed by the media as the worst in history.
At that time, Trump was yelling, aggressive, and lying, interrupting others again and again, while Biden was unresponsive, speechless, and so angry that he could only abuse a few words.
"Shitshow" was the evaluation given by CNN at the time. Now, a similar plot is playing out again. Although the rules were restrictive and no casual interjections were allowed, as the two got older and the scene became more chaotic, they easily broke the worst record in history.
Some media predicted that after the debate, the number of double haters would increase significantly. This group of undecided votes, disgusted with both Trump and Biden, is present in large numbers among American voters. According to a Gallup poll this month, less than half of Americans are bullish on Biden or Trump. Pew data shows that there are more than 25 percent explicit double aversion, the highest in the last 10 elections and doubling since 2020.
Biden Trump double loath
Many of them, having to pinch their noses and choose the lesser of two evils, in November to choose a president they were relatively less hated. It is in this context that debates, which have little impact on the votes, become even more important, and it is possible to convince voters who expect nothing from anyone by showing who has made the least mistakes.
While people hate Trump and Biden for different reasons, one thing they have in common is that they are too old. Whether Biden or Trump is re-elected, their age will put them in the top 10 "senior leaders" out of 189 world leaders.
As early as four years ago, the term "Gerontocracy" appeared frequently in various media pages in the United States. Trump was 74 years old and Biden was 77 years old, setting a new upper age limit for US presidents since Reagan. Coupled with the fact that the then Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi and Senate Speaker McConnell were also 80 and 78 years old respectively, the American political scene gave people a sense of twilight.
In July 2023, veteran Senator McConnell, known on the Chinese internet as "Turtle Cheng Xiang", was photographed on the back of his hand on the podium covered with scars from dripping. Facing reporters, he stood as if frozen and could not say a word, and was speechless for almost a minute.
McConnell froze in front of reporters
The aging of American politics can be said to be a long-term trend. Compared to 1900, 38 percent of members of the U.S. Congress were in the 40-50 age group, but now it has dropped to 20 percent.
According to the University of Virginia, the average age of Americans is currently 38.9, but the average age of members of the Senate and House of Representatives is 64 and 58. In the words of Nicky Haley, the Republican Party's former ambassador to the United Nations, who once tried to challenge Trump's dominance, the House and Senate have "become the world's most prestigious nursing home." ”
There is a clear age gap between ordinary citizens and their popular representatives.
At a youth forum hosted by the Wall Street Journal, the rule of the elderly became a major topic of criticism among young respondents. Some college students said at the forum that the two-party confrontation pattern in the United States has forced many people with political ambitions to choose between two behemoths. In addition, the professionalization of the political arena and the collusion of various interest groups in the selection mechanism of the two parties have led to the fact that those professional politicians who have the opportunity to get close to power have been able to entrench themselves in the top positions of the two parties for a long time, and finally formed a climate of "elder politics".
Young Americans are tired of being forced to choose one of two identical candidates for president after four years. The embarrassment of two old men who are almost 160 years old together fighting for power in a stumbling manner seems to them to be helpless.