What in the hell was that? The first debate between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden was a train wreck. It wasn’t completely useless, though. The President provided many opportunities for Biden to clap back at him with surgeon-like precision only to choose to do so a handful of times. When he tried to respond, Trump would simply shout him down and talk over him so you couldn’t actually hear what he would say.
But, this isn’t about what we heard or couldn’t hear from Biden. This is about the flow of gifts Trump provided Biden and his campaign directly from his mouth. One of the biggest takeaways from the debate was Trump seemingly unwilling to publicly denounce far-right domestic terror groups such as The Proud Boys and other white supremacists/nationalist organizations.
As a result, the Biden campaign has quickly capitalized on Trump’sTrump’s blunder (even though many were expecting Biden to supply all the gaffes) and released this ad.
There’s no other way to put it: the President of the United States refused to disavow white supremacists on the debate stage last night. pic.twitter.com/Q3VZTW1vUV
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) September 30, 2020
This new ad successfully demonstrates a clear and obvious distinction between Biden and Trump. Biden is effectively highlighting how the president sides with violent, far-right organizations with a history of racism, misogynistic behavior/attitudes towards women, and threats of violence or actual physical violence against minorities or those with opposing political views.
Taking video clips from news stories concerning the protests, marches, and riots along with violent acts committed by those far-right groups with audio of Chris Wallace asking Trump to condemn those types of groups and his inability or outright refusal to do so reinforces a belief among many Americans that the President is a white supremacist himself, will use violence against all who oppose him and will encourage his coalition of white nationalist, militia group supporters to hurt those who try to vote him out of office.
How much of that is based in reality and what would actually happen versus being straight hyperbole doesn’t matter. What matters are the optics, and the President did himself zero favors during the debate with this one exchange. Whether he really is a closeted racist or just someone willing to use whatever ”tools” are at his disposal to get re-elected matters not. Politics is a blood sport. Trump should know that considering that’s how he’s treated his own business interests his entire career.
