In a face-to-face meeting between two rivals we hope that one will be knocked out and the other victorious.
What we don't expect is to be shot down ourselves in the process.
This debate between President Donald Trump and Democratic candidate Joe Biden was
one of the most contentious and chaotic in decades
, where the usual decorum was cast aside.
Some who commented on networks, desperate for disorder, did not resist for more than half an hour and turned it off.
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The chaos
For undecided voters, the night did not bring much, as both candidates and the moderator, Chris Wallace, were
talking at the same time and little was understood
.
There were those who blamed Wallace for the mess.
[This is how we count the first presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden]
This was President Trump's strategy: try to
bulldoze
over Biden
and dominate the conversation.
This
put Biden in an impossible situation
, one in which all parties lost, candidates, moderator and audience: if Biden acted calm and did not interrupt back, he could not communicate his points, and could seem like "low energy" and "sleepyhead", as Trump puts it with nicknames.
Donald Trump and Joe Biden with their wives, Melania and Jill, respectively, after the first presidential debate in Cleveland, Ohio.
AP
But if he responded with the same aggressiveness, he risked worsening an already unbearable situation and adding to the chaos.
In the end, none of them won, and perhaps the biggest losers were the voters.
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The coronavirus
This is a
pandemic election,
and as such, a record number have already voted by mail and plan to vote early.
That is why the management of President Trump and what Biden promises if elected is a crucial issue.
In this,
the meeting was of opposite poles
: Biden said that thanks to Trump more than 200,000 Americans have died, and Trump said that Biden wants to completely close the country (which is not true: a national quarantine is not part of his proposals or of its plan to manage the pandemic, according to its platform on its website).
Trump has also said that he has done "a fantastic job", on the day that the country exceeded one million infected.
Biden says that Trump does not have a plan
to overcome the pandemic, beyond wanting to reopen local economies "too quickly" putting new outbreaks at risk, but that claim is false.
He also pointed out that in fact the Democrats in Congress are trying to reach a consensus to provide financial aid to citizens, who have suffered this pandemic not only in health, but also economically.
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Who is the incumbent?
Although the acting president is Trump, it is as if he was also Biden: Trump claims his 47 years of political career as part of
a strategy that worked for him four years ago
, in the 2016 presidential race. At that time he painted himself as a
outsider
, someone outside the
establishment
who came to change the way of doing politics.
This year it is not clear if it will serve him, since it is Trump who is president and who is in charge of solving the different crises that the country is going through, be it COVID-19 or the massive protests against racism.
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Trump does not reject white supremacy
Moderator Chris Wallace asked the president if he was going to condemn the far-right groups and organized militias that support him and that have called for arms if Trump loses the election.
Trump turned the matter around, called one of these groups that has been activated in recent months, the Proud Boys, by name and
told them "stay back and alert"
, which they, in networks, have celebrated.
The Proud Boys, a self-styled "western chauvinist" organization, is considered a violent, nationalist, Islamophobic, transphobic and misogynistic hate group, according to the Anti-Defamation League, a non-profit organization that tracks extremist groups.
