Here’s a horrible thought I couldn’t shake as I watched Thursday’s debate: President Biden looked like a corpse.
Of course, anyone would look pale next to the exuberantly orange former President Trump, but Biden’s pallor was alarming.
When he wasn’t speaking, Biden’s eyes were dreamy and, worse, his mouth was slack. Compared to the overly animated Trump—who frowned, smirked, and pursed his lips in a pout—Biden’s face looked as if it had been doused in Botox and frozen.
And his voice! What happened to our president’s talkative voice? He was so whispery and slimy that I wanted to scream, “Clear your throat, for God’s sake!”
Biden’s performance on Thursday was revealing, for all the wrong reasons.
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For years, Republicans have tried to trick us into believing that Biden is weak. They’ve deceptively edited videos to make him look clueless, exaggerated his every little mistake, and exploited his lifelong stutter, which appears to have been worsened by age.
Tragically, he did their job for them on Thursday.
Trump, of course, was Trump: he spewed a volcano of lies, misstatements, exaggerations and fear-mongering. It seemed as if virtually nothing came out of his mouth that was true, especially his claims that the United States under Biden has become a global laughing stock, that Putin would never have invaded Ukraine under his rule, that Hamas would never have attacked Israel.
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I recorded the debate and only watched it again after it was over. I refused to look at my phone — which was ringing like crazy — because I didn’t want to be influenced by anyone else’s opinion of what had happened. I wanted my impressions to be mine alone, free from whatever conventional wisdom was quickly congealing in the cybersphere. And on Friday morning, I tried not to look at the headlines, even though it was clear that Biden had had a terrible, terrible night.
I conducted a thought experiment: If I read the transcript, would I be as shocked by Biden’s performance as I was when I saw it on TV? Would his grave presentation be clear? Would he come across as a man who has mastered facts and history? Would he, to put it bluntly, make sense?
The answer is a resounding but bittersweet yes, because his substance will ultimately be less important than his geriatric behavior.
Take the debate over abortion, which will be a major issue in November, as it has been in every election since the Supreme Court ruled Roe v. Wade destroyed two years ago.
Here’s Biden: “The idea that the politicians, that the Founders wanted the politicians to be the ones making decisions about women’s health is ridiculous. That’s the bottom line: no politician should be making those decisions. A doctor should be making those decisions. That’s the way it’s supposed to be run. That’s what you’re going to do. And if I get elected, I’m going to restore Roe v. Wade.”
Trump came back with his insane spigot: “That means he can take the baby’s life in the ninth month and even after birth, because some states — run by Democrats — take it after birth. Again, the governor — former governor of Virginia: ‘Put the baby down, then we’ll decide what to do with it.’ So he’s there — he’s prepared to, as we say, rip the baby out of the womb in the ninth month and kill the baby. Nobody wants that to happen.”
(Trump has for years misrepresented a 2019 statement from then-Virginia Governor Ralph Northam, a Democrat and pediatric neurologist, about what happens when a nonviable fetus is born with severe deformities.)
Trump’s statements are often ridiculous and nonsensical, but he speaks with the conviction of a pathological liar. For example, during a conversation about immigration, he spoke strongly, but I have no idea what he was talking about:
“He decided to open our border, to open our country to people coming out of prisons, people coming out of mental institutions, mental asylums, terrorists,” Trump said. “We have the largest number of terrorists coming into our country right now. … We had the most secure border in history. In those last few months of my presidency, we had, according to Border Patrol, who is great — and by the way, they endorsed me for president. But I won’t say that. But they endorsed me for president. Brandon, just talk to him.”
I’m sorry, what?
“I’m not saying no terrorists have ever gotten through,” Biden said of the border. “But the idea that they’re emptying their prisons, we’re welcoming these people, that’s just not true. There’s no data to support what he said. Again, he’s exaggerating. He’s lying.”
Tell me again, who is confused?
Regarding the economy, the No. 1 issue for most voters, CNN’s Jake Tapper asked Biden, “What do you say to voters who feel like they’re worse off under your presidency than they were under President Trump?”
“We have to look at what I had left when I became president, what Mr. Trump left me,” Biden responded. “We had an economy that was in free fall. The pandemic was handled so poorly. Many people were dying. All he said was, “It’s not that serious, just inject a little bleach into your arm.” The economy collapsed. There were no jobs. The unemployment rate rose to 15%.
“And so we had to try to get things back on track. …We created 15,000 new jobs. We got to a position where we have 800,000 new manufacturing jobs.” (Biden was referring to the 15 million new jobs total, which his campaign often boasts about.)
Trump’s answer to the question was again lies and nonsense:
“We had the best economy in the history of our country,” he boasted, falsely. “We’ve never done so well. Everybody was surprised. Other countries copied us. We got COVID. And when that happened, we spent the money we needed to so we wouldn’t go into a Great Depression like we had in 1929. By the time we were done — we had done great. We got a lot of credit for the economy, a lot of credit for the military, and no wars and so many other things. Everything was fine.”
Yes, Thursday’s debate was painful to watch. Biden, who has insisted that his age, 81, is irrelevant, can no longer make that claim. His decline is painful.
And yet, whether he withdraws or not, the choice facing voters in November is stark: Do we want democracy, or do we want dictatorship? The answer should be clear.
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This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.
