My Take on the Latest Presidential Debate

 

Anyone who, like myself, had hoped that Trump would deal Biden a knockout and confuse him with the barrage of serious accusations of corruption, compromising national security, money laundering and child pornography, was perhaps disappointed. Trump, however, achieved something far more important.

Pre-debate polls showed that Trump had been leading among the male population but is trailing among women all over the continent.

Therefore, Trump’s first goal, at the debate, was to address suburban married women with children. They were the crowd he was addressing with two important missives. In the first, character related, he wanted to pass the message that he is not the relentless bully he had been portrayed as. He wanted to impress upon them that he acknowledges his opponents, responds to his challenges, resolute but not verbally abusive towards them or kicks them when they are on the ground. These are traits that women abhor.

Content wise, Trump wanted to plant hope that the vaccine is on the way, that the economy would not be crippled, people would not be fired, and children will not remain at home. One does not treat the pandemic lightly, but one does not take measures which will kill the sick in other ways.

Trump’s second goal was focused on exposing Biden’s lies. My friend, Niv Arot, summed up four such lies:

1. Biden said, “I have not received one dollar from any other country” – he did receive, through his son and from foreign companies. The amount is, at least, 10 million dollars. Now that the emails have surfaced out of the laptop, Trump repeatedly asked him about that, and Biden barely answered.

2. Biden said that no one had lost their health insurance because of ObamaCare. That is a blatant lie. Many lost their insurance and that will come back to bite him.

3. Biden lied about the Corona when he called Trump a “xenophobic” for banning Chinese from entering the U.S. The tweet, however, is still there.

4. Biden stated that he would never liquidate the oil shales. This is another brazen lie. In the coming days, the campaign will concentrate on refuting these lies.

Trump’s third goal was to repeat and strengthen the notion that he is a go-getter, unlike Biden, the politician. One of the strongest themes that he kept repeating was “Where was Biden 8 years when he was Obama’s Vice President? How come he never pushed any of the beautiful projects which he is taking about today?” In other words, “all talk, no action.”

There are ten long days to the elections. Indeed, many have already voted but the expectations are that, on Election Day, about one third to three quarters of the voters will exercise their voting rights. More exposures will be published, in line with Bannon’s strategy of delayed release, and Biden’s main message that he is a “man of honour and truth, may collapse.

It all depends whether the traditional media will continue to flex a muscle and hide the truth from the nation. It is an extremely unusual phenomenon which I have never encountered before, the erasure of any known journalistic standard. It is, though, a subject for a special article when the dust settles.

Back to the first and important point, women. It is essential to note that Meagan Kelly, an ex-presenter at Fox News who, following a dispute with Trump in 2016, left Fox for NBC, fired from her job after a year and a half and nowadays is starting a career as the presenter of her own podcast. She is a moderate conservative, very practical, not a blind supporter of Trump, one who does not hesitate to criticize him when needed and, of course, symbolizes the “suburban family woman.”

Following the debate, Kelly wrote: "Trump won this debate, handily. Biden wasn’t a force at all. Trump was substantive, on-point, well-tempered. Definitely helped himself, when it mattered most," I fully agree.

The Silence of the Donkeys

We are witnessing a sad phenomenon nowadays. The U.S. is divided almost in the same manner it was before and during the Civil War in the early 1860’s.

The difference is that, unlike then, nowadays, it is not about some painful and revolting issues such as slavery and inequality. This time, it is about exercising some healthy and democratic tenets, Freedom of choice and the freedom to practice that which is innate in every free and enlightened society. The right to vote for one’s choice is what I am referring to.

The American voting system was decreed by the forefathers of our Republic. It was so decreed that the candidate that gets most of the electorate votes, is the chosen candidate. Our great U.S. A. has voted like that for over two centuries.

Many of us have voiced our dissatisfaction with this system but have done little if anything to change it. I remember the contested elections during the Gore Bush season. I also remember that as an Al Gore voter, I was upset. However, I accepted the verdict and supported Bush in his efforts to ensure the well-being and safety of the American people.

I certainly did not think then of going out to riot, cause havoc and use violence to express my dissatisfaction with the results. I would not have contemplated it ever, not then, not now even if the Democratic candidate, whom I oppose, had won.

Moreover, I am very upset, to put it mildly, to see protesters burn our flag. The Star-Spangled-Banner is the flag of the great U.S.A. It is the symbol of everything anyone anywhere else in the world could ever dream of! It stands for freedom, equality, opportunity and rights. It is the subject of our National Anthem It is the symbol of the Land of the Brave and the Land of the Free. For me personally, it is the symbol of the power that liberated my parents from the Nazi death camps.

Yes, I know, some will be quick to correct me and point out that back in 1989, Supreme Court Judge Scalia  was the fifth and deciding voter (Texas vs. Johnson) that upheld the decision that flag burning is a form of expression. A year later, he also voted against a federal law that banned flag burning.

And that, too, is part of what the Star-Spangled banner stands for, freedom of expression and freedom to choose one’s own candidate and one’s own form of government and policies democratically and openly.

Sad that some Donkeys do not get it!

It is not the voters that I direct my anger at. They have a right to be unhappy and protest. It is the leaders that they voted for that I direct my criticism against.

They promised us that they will work to make America great. They promised us that they will be there for us.

Well, your humble servant is one of those us. And this humble servant would have hoped that those same leaders would continue to stand by their promise to make us great, to unify us, work together towards one common goal and make America great again.

Instead, they have chosen to remain silent, sit and watch American brothers and sisters fighting against each other, boycotting and slandering each other. Have they forgotten parts of our bloody history?

I am glad I am in the elephants’ camp. After all, they say that elephants have a long memory!