DEBUNK THE DEBATES

I could not be happier the debate process is over. The design of the system is absurd. I have spent my working life "debating" other lawyers, sometimes in a conference room and often enough in a courtroom. I have won some of those “debates”  and lost some (more of the former than the latter, I am happy to report.) 

But there was always a sense of structure to the event. I knew what the other side was going to say and had a specific plan for how I was going to rebut assertions that were false, misleading, or illogical, in addition to making my own points. I was prepared to do that with evidence that I brought to the contest. 

A courtroom session in which each side is permitted to say whatever they want, make any false statement they choose, knowing the other side is barred from bringing along the evidence to prove the falsity of the adversary's assertion, is a sham. It is simply a non-starter.

But that is what television has brought to the debate stage. Participants are denied the ability to bring anything to the debate, not even a scrap of paper with a list of the lies you know the adversary will tell. What sense does that make? It simply favors the team that sells the most snake oil. I'm not talking about small errors. I'm talking about major lies, things like "Trump tried to save Obamacare", and "Vance is not in favor of national legislation banning abortion" (when he has said the opposite in writing!). We are talking whoppers here. 

So one side is given two minutes to tell a handful of lies and the other side is given one minute to rebut those lies and is barred by the debate format from bringing along any evidence to do so. Is that ridiculous, or what.

Questions from the moderator? Answer them if you choose. Otherwise go on and talk about how your grandmother was a drug addict. The concept is preposterous. then the next day the media writes about who "won" the debate, for the most part, ignoring who told the truth and focusing on who was the "smoothest talker."

Lunacy. I'm glad it's over.

 

On another subject there is a growing body of substantial evidence coming directly from Donald Trump that his brain is delaminating. This 78-year-old candidate who wishes to be president of the United States on his 82nd birthday, insists that he won the election in 2020, insists that the January 6 insurrectionists were just good people exercising their First Amendment freedoms, and insists if he does not win the election next month, it will be because the other side cheated and the United States of America, after 250 years of extraordinary democratic existence, will disappear. In other words, no Trump, no United States. All that is in addition to Hannibal Lecter and sharks.

I remain optimistic that Harris will win the election. I,E., she will get 270 or more votes in the Electoral College. I am just as certain that Trump will not concede defeat and will try any one of a dozen legal and extra-legal maneuvers to change that result. He and his partner will tell any lie, fabricate any story, threaten any non-supporter, political or otherwise.

They will fail, but I am pessimistic about our country because this is a tight election and not a landslide. There are not two sides here. Trump is an irresponsible lying grifting felon, but will get almost 50% of the vote.  And, like last time, almost half of our Congressional representatives (and that, of course, includes J.D. Vance, who in 2020 voted in Congress against confirming Biden's Electoral College majority, and last night refused to concede that Trump lost the 2020 election!) will disgrace. themselves by supporting Trump anyway because they believe their personal best political-party interests are so served. Liz Cheney said it best at the J6 hearing: 

"I say this to my Republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible. There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain."

A bientot.

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