There has been no shortage of commentary about the Biden vs. Trump debate.
As the debate closed, the first focus was on Joe Biden’s appearance, voice and style. He had a poor start and improved as the night wore on, but commentators, journalists, Biden allies and Joe Biden himself conceded it was a bad night.
And a bad night for a candidate always brings out the vultures and the feeding frenzy. As journalist Nicolas Kristof once said, we report crash landings, not safe landings.
Since the debate, The New York Times has published 192 articles about Biden’s debate performance – 142 news articles and 50 opinion pieces. Trump was covered in 92 stories, most in regard to the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling. None mentioned Trump’s own mental fitness or sociopathic lying.
In a disservice to viewers, CNN announced pre-debate its reporters would not fact check the two men in real time. As a result, the moderators let Trump spew lies about taxes, abortion, the deficit, and Biden.
Trump employed what is called the Gish Gallop in the debate. The formal definition of the Gish Gallop is “a rhetorical technique in which a person in a debate attempts to overwhelm an opponent by abandoning debating principles, providing an excessive number of arguments with no regards for the accuracy or strength of those arguments and that are impossible to address adequately in the time allotted to the opponent.”
Trump used this technique effectively throughout, and, just as the definition implies, he spoke without regard to accuracy, spewed falsehoods and used his well-rehearsed style of personal attacks.
Here are a few examples of lies, all without evidence. Biden is “a Manchurian Candidate, paid by China.” One fact checker has dubbed this “Liar, liar, Pants on fire!” He also claimed Biden “encouraged Russia to attack Ukraine.” Not only false but bordering on delusional.
Most of his lies focused on immigration using the words “Biden,” “migrant” and “crime” and claiming Biden was killing “so many at our borders” with immigrants “coming in and killing our citizens at levels we have never seen.” Once again there is no evidence to back up such a claim. But the Gish Gallop is designed to ignore facts and data.
And, showing off his repeated efforts to rewrite Jan. 6 history, he tried to deflect blame to Sen. Nancy Pelosi, saying she refused his offer of 10,000 troops to assist. The latter has been frequently debunked by military officials who were at the ready and got no call. This is not true by any account.
And lastly, Trump’s claim that he “aced” two cognitive tests could or could not be true. He won’t release results. But when asked about being 82 at the end of a term, should he win, he
turned to his golf game. I’m waiting for an intelligent voter to tell me he votes for the guy with the best golf handicap.
In the aftermath there was a feeding frenzy, as the number of articles indicates, and it was not by any standard an even handed approach.
The vultures were flying overhead and began to pounce.
Democrats, journalists and editorial writers began to question Biden’s fitness for the job with some calling for his withdrawal from the race. None spoke directly about Trump’s delusional state of mind. Some said Trump repeated falsehoods from his rallies, but some of the statements are so bizarre it should raise questions about his mental stability.
Regardless of the aftermath or the path ahead, one thing is clear: Neither Trump nor Biden won the debate. The only winner was the Gish Gallop, which was allowed to go unchallenged by both Biden and the moderators.