Earlier, a presidential debate was supposed to take place. Instead, Americans received a very different experience from what Alexander Burns and Katie Glueck of The New York Times described as "different universes." During President Donald Trump's town hall on NBC, Donald Trump did not deviate very far from his far right support base while maintaining ambiguity as to not betray this base, but at the same time pull moderate conservatives into his corner.
President Trump danced with Savannah Guthrie on many issues, one being whether he had taken a coronavirus test on the day of the first debate. He said: "Possibly I did. Possibly I didn't." Despite the President's recent case of Covid-19, Trump criticized lockdowns, attacking the Governor of Michigan who was recently marked for kidnapping by a group of anti-government militants. Calling her out further instigates a narrative among his support base that she is a "bad guy", and dog whistles to the far right militias that are willing to take action in Trump's corner. This could give Governor Gretchen Whitmer, amongst other enemies of Trump more to fear. When Guthrie asked him about his income taxes, Trump claimed the reporting was illegal, playing the victim and pushing the "fake news" narrative he has been championing throughout his presidency.
Trump was also asked about Qanon, a far right conspiracy theory that law enforcement has called a "potential domestic terrorism threat". The theory alleges that multiple politicians and celebrities participate in a secret satanic pedophilia cult. Followers lap up Q-drops from a mysterious person known as "Q", who claims to be in the government and working with president Trump to expel the demonic presence from American government. Trump claimed he did not know anything of the group except they were against pedophilia, and when Guthrie pressed him to reject Qanon's more far-fetched views, he reverted back to the "I don't know" stance, similar to when Chris Wallace pressed him about the Proud Boys in the debate a few weeks back. This is because if Trump publicly rejects Qanon, that debunks the whole theory because Q is supposedly working with Trump. If the theory falls, he loses votes, if he rejects far right extremist groups, he loses votes. The whole reason a real debate didn't happen tonight was because when he debates, he loses votes.
This graphic is from The Washington Post and is based on a CNN poll conducted after the first presidential debate. 60% said Biden won the debate while 28% said Trump won. However, post debate polls are no real indication of who will win. The same poll CNN article says back in 2016, 62% said Clinton won, and 27% said Trump won. And Donald Trump still became our current president.
One civil and honest gesture the president made was agreeing to a peaceful transfer of power. Granted he only agreed to it under the circumstances that the election is "honest", which is a vague standard that changes in the eye of the beholder. Despite the vague nature of honesty, this is overall a small step in the right direction. In fact, Trump made a few small steps in the right direction, including kind of denouncing white supremacists. But with three weeks until the election, how many more small steps will it take for him to be ahead in the polls? How many small steps can he take in the less than three weeks there are until the election? Or does he even need these small steps? Only time will tell.
3 comments:
I agree with your point that Trump did make a few small steps in the right direction, although, like you mentioned, he still didn’t condemn Qanon and instead switched the topic to pedophelia. However, I disagree with your point that when Trump debates he loses votes. Right now, US voters are extremely polarized - the vast majority either support Biden or Trump; there aren’t that many still in the middle. Trump’s base is extremely strong - arguably stronger than Biden’s base - so no matter what he does, his base will still support him. This is not only seen in polls taken after the debate, but also a few years ago when Trump himself claimed that he could shoot someone and no one would care. Even though there is bipartisan agreement that Trump’s debate performance was horrible, I don’t believe that it predicts any change in votes. I believe Trump didn’t agree to a virtual debate because it is much harder to interrupt someone when the host has the power to just mute you when your time up.
Although I'm not sure why Trump declined a much needed opportunity to debate Biden, his town hall performance might not have been the best replacement. His continuous denial and fake news allegations about his tax returns were not entirely helpful for his case and I definitely don't even know what to make of the QAnon stance. I've never of this conspiracy theory, but it seems pretty far fetched and I seriously doubt its validity or claims. Even though Trump agrees to peaceful transfer of power, I think that if he loses, he will still call it rigged, or blame the polls or some other outside influence. After his presidential win in 2016 in Hillary, he was still calling the election rigged. As the election is coming up very soon, I think Trump is going to need to have to play some big cards if he wants to gain some ground in the polls.
If Trump is a part of satanic pedophilia cult, then he should be arrested and stripped of his duties. But, those are just theories for now, and you can't have a sensible discussion over theories. That town hall meeting was a mess. A town hall meeting is supposed to bring light to policy and give the public a chance to see the presidents views on public issues. To ask the president if he is apart of a Satanic cult on live television is just a waste of everybody's time. Obviously there is only one answer that a president can say to that question. It felt as though Savannah Guthrie was debating Trump instead of truly trying to inform the public. She spent the entire beginning of that discussion talking about Donald trumps run in with the Corona Virus. Why does the American public need to know if his lungs were irregular or not. He came out of it alive and that's all that matters. Obviously as president of the United States he has the best doctors working on him 24/7. People should be able to come to the conclusion that they are not in the same situation as President Trump. He can risk it because he has the medicine and staff he needs, we the American people cannot. People see him as careless, and he is sometimes, but if you had the best doctors in the world on standby for you, I think you might be a little more care free too. Trump did not "kind of" denounce white supremacy, he flat out rejected it. I too did not fully comprehend what "stand back and stand by" was about, but he cleared that up in town hall. I now think he meant that he wanted to put a pin in that topic and wanted to talk about the real problem in his eyes, which was Antifa. Trump is still very much a presence in this election as you pointed out. I do not know who is going to win. A lot of things have come out recently about both men which if true, could lead to the other one winning.
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