The Trump-Biden Debate: Yikes! What next?

Is this Ali-Frazier? The End of the World? Some were saying the the future is at stake like never before.

Yes, some were saying it would be the biggest prize fight ever, something akin to the Thrilla from Manila, or Ali-Frazier. Some wondered whether the president could survive 15 rounds going toe-to-toe with his arch enemy.

Once the pre-game show was over we were live in Georgia. Moderators Dana Bash and Jake Tapper looked ready to go.

The President walks to the podium looking lost.

The former president is introduced and walks out looking testy.

The opening. The heavyweights have entered the ring.

President Biden sounds hoarse. Trump, the former president, appears restrained, makes an effort to appear friendly while wearing his traditional scowl. I turn to the peanut gallery (X, formerly known as Twitter) and listen to the comments.

* * *

--This has to be a set up to get rid of Biden! DEMs want him gone and have allowed this humiliating debate! Mission accomplished!

--One has to think they allowed this to happen so they could have reason to replace him at the convention. Seriously that was painful to watch.

--Really America? 
Are those your only options?

--What a terrible time to stop drinking. #debatenight

--https://x.com/rustyrockets/status/1806527566490067351

* * * *

Analysis
Many in the media were ready for this, but some Americans were not. Had they be reading and listening to media from a wide spectrum of viewpoints, they would have known how much the President's mental acuity has deteriorated. The majority of mainstream media seemed determined to conceal Biden's public rambles and muddled moments while conservative commentators, podcasters and radio hosts collected these clumsy stumbles for highlight reels. 

When articles commenting on President Biden's declining mental faculties would appear in the Wall Street Journal or elsewhere, you could count on immediate denials from a Liberal source saying, "It ain't so." (I think here of how the media avoided showing FDR in a wheelchair lest he appear weak.)

Now the question is why Dem insiders aware of his decline allowed this debate to happen at this time. Can it be that the first debate took place so early in this year's election cycle in order to set up a maneuver at the Dem's National Convention in Chicago this year?

Conservatives have been making hay with the polls showing Trump ahead in swing states. The fact that his lead is only marginal should be a signal that all is not well in the "Grand Old Party" either. Will Trump as candidate make it easier or harder for Republicans further down the food chain? 

* * * *

The response to Biden's performance was swift. "Joe, maybe it's time to hang up your cleats." Four of the five stories in today Atlantic enews skewered the President. The influential New York Times editorial board made an appeal for Biden to step out of the way.

Trump, who is accustomed to making news simply by being outrageous, was overshadowed by the swirl surrounding the President's embarrassingly poor showing. This was to be Joe Biden's moment. Unfortunately, with the bases loaded he struck out.

Setting The Trajectory

I've been reading Joseph Ellis' Founding Brothers, a book about the first decade of our Republic. Ellis, who wrote a National Book Award-winning bio on Jefferson did this piece as a follow up, no doubt because of his love for that period, but probably also to utilize all the research he'd dug up to produce the first book.

Ellis argues that of all the decades in our history, the first one was preeminent in importance because it set the trajectory our country would take. From the manner in which conflicts were resolved to the manner in which power was wielded, there is probably some truth to Ellis' assessment.

Take, for example, the matter of Washington stepping down as president after two terms. This was unheard of in the era of monarchies. King George III said Washington was the greatest man ever if he could do that. Well, he did it. The torch was passed to another, John Adams. It was unprecedented, but served as just one example of how things were different over here. Instead of being about power, Washington's presidency was about service.

The book begins with the story of the duel between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr. It is inconceivable today that a sitting Vice President would kill a man in a duel -- though our previous VP did shoot a lawyer. The significance of the Burr-Hamilton event is this: even though Burr won he lost. When he shot Hamilton, his reputation was shot. The real significance is that the old order, the code of the duel, and all those "gentlemanly" things that were vestiges of the old British ways, fell to the wayside and from this instance on were no longer to be a part of the New America.

Another major chapter in the book is about the manner in which the founding fathers avoided resolving the slave issue. In thinking about to tell it I was reminded of a dream I once had.

In the dream there was a giant tortoise in my small house. It was making a mess as turtles do, but it was also so enormous that I could not get it out of the house because it was wider now than the doors. I was in despair, and I prayed to God for help. A ray of light came down from above and shone on the tortoise, and almost immediately the critter began to become translucent, then transparent and a misty nothing... but just before disappearing altogether, she gave birth to four more baby turtles which were just so cute. Then I woke up.

The meaning of the dream for me was this: deal with a bad habit or situation when it is small and you can maybe get rid of it, but allow it to stick around and you have a major problem on your hands. The only way to get rid of that tortoise would have been to tear a wall out.

Well, the slave issue was not cute like those little baby turtles, but it was a much smaller problem in 1790 than in 1850. The founding fathers would have been better off facing it, and dealing with it while there were fewer slaves and a lesser economic impact. Instead, though they knew sooner or later it was going to tear the fabric of the Republic, they shuttled it off for another time the way many groups and individuals deal with their problems. Try to put a good face on it, try not to make waves.

Aside: How about in your life? Is that an elephant in your living room?

For sure reading Founding Brothers has me eager to find the Jefferson book by Ellis. I very much enjoyed David McCullough's John Adams a couple years ago and recommend it to you are well for an intro to this period of our history. They were remarkable times and remarkable men. They were not passive about the world they lived in. The issues they wrestled with and how they resolved them set the tone for what made America the influential nation it later became.

A World Of Mental Pictures

“We see what our minds are trained to see.” ~ Journal Note, 1991

Most of what we know comes to us indirectly. We accept what we read in books, what we see on television and in the movies. We read newspapers and make assumptions about the veracity of what is called news. Astute readers may occasionally notice a little spin within the writing but we usually assume the reported facts have actually occurred.

Yesterday’s headlines included a story about a murder. A man stabbed a man outside a bar in Hermantown. We generally believe that in point of fact, the murder not only took place but occurred outside a bar and not across the street at the auto parts store. It was purportedly the first murder in Hermantown history. Most of us accept that as a matter of fact even without knowing the history of Hermantown.

Things are dicier when it comes to news broadcast from overseas. Walter Lippman, in his 1921 book Public Opinion analyzes in depth the problems associated with our pictures of reality. He begins with the story from Plato’s Republic of the men in the cave who can only see each others’ shadows but believe they are perceiving reality.

How do we understand what is really going on in the world if our minds have been filled with pictures that are interpretations, not realities? Lippman points out that our images of the world do not come from direct experience. As a consequence, our behavior is not derived from what we know but rather from what we are led to believe."The way in which the world is imagined determines at any particular moment what men will do," Lippman writes.

The book appeared shortly after World War I, and is peppered with examples of how the American public often had a distorted view of events at that time. Lippman’s book outlines “how opinions are crystallized into what is called Public Opinion, how a National Will, a Group Mind, a Social Purpose, or whatever you choose to call it, is formed.”

During the Viet Nam War, falsified skirmishes from the battlefield were sometimes leaked to the media in order to make it look like the Viet Cong were attacking a U.S. outpost. The news stories helped legislators in Washington D.C. win key votes to help escalate the war effort. Those votes were based on events that were non-existent.

We have an image inside our heads of our world & universe that’s more comprehensive than any generation in history… TV, magazine, Nova, Discovery, talk radio, the internet. Does all this flood of information make us wiser and smarter than any generation? Or are we now so overwhelmed that we’re even more easily manipulated?

Tomorrow night is our Philosophy Club and we just happen to be discussing Descartes. Descartes, as you may recall, was the one who presented us with that famous dictum, “I think, therefore I am.”

The point he was making is not that he exists because he is a thinking person. Rather, he was wrestling with this very same issue that we’re discussing here. What is true? What can I be sure of? What a reliable basis for behavior? I need a tool to help sort through all these sensory perceptions and miscellaneous anecdotal messages regarding what I should be. What do I know innately as opposed to what I have been told from outside myself?

We like to believe we have reliable pictures in our heads. Capitalism is good. Government needs to be handcuffed. Business people are good because they provide jobs. Unions are bad. Muslims are dangerous fanatics. Or maybe we have alternate pictures. The compartmentalization of everything into black and white is likewise a picture many people have. It resolves a lot of things, makes some choices less complicated.

But what is true? What is reliable?

My suggestion -- and it’s sort of the place Descartes ended up -- is to separate what you know to be certain from what is grey and uncertain. When we hear a new idea, we shouldn’t just swallow it whole without examining it. Put it on the shelf for a little bit and see how it stacks up or fits with everything else you’ve tested and accepted… or rejected.

Even the apostle Paul, who wrote much of the New Testament, did not demand that his hearers accept what he himself was saying. He commended those who checked things out first before acting on Paul’s teaching.

I have high regard for those who are able to hold new ideas with a loose grasp until they’ve fully investigated and verified them, if able. Sometimes it may even stay on that shelf till it gets cobwebs. Eventually, as the saying goes, the truth will out.

In the meantime, things aren't always what they seem.

Something New

I’m working a trade show in Las Vegas this week, with limited time for serious blog entries. I’d intended to write some things in advance to post each day, but with so much “Vegas in your face” (non-stop meetings, interesting people, stories, sights and sounds) plus the election happening, it seemed that recycling old material or giving re-heated pre-prepared blog servings would be lacking in something.

All that being said, let's turn to the election. Wow. It's a new day in America.

First, congratulations to everyone whose hearts were captured by the tall, dark and handsome man who last night captured the presidency. Historic would be an understatement. We wish him the best in these turbulent economic times of global unrest.

To the McCain supporters, you had many reasons to believe in your man. The magnanimity of his concession speech was a good model for all of us. It is important that we all learn to work together. Bury your hatchets and support your president.

I’m sure this election will be analyzed ad nauseum, and I am also certain that there are many stories that will be told that have yet come to light. In the 2004 election, Newsweek had the privilege of maintaining a small unit of embedded reporters in both the Kerry and Bush campaigns. Reading that account was the last issue of Newsweek that I purchased, and I am hoping they had similar access again. The old “fly on the wall” stance is where every one of us wants to be.

Theodore White’s bestseller The Making of a President set the standard for election journalism in his coverage of the 1960 battle between JFK and Nixon. It was a campaign with many parallels to the 2008 experience. A fresh, young face with style and grace…. JFK’s handlers were better image crafters and knew how to use the media to their advantage. Barack Obama likewise is skilled at oratory and vision-making. He inspired with his speeches, but did much more than that. Did McCain use Twitter? More than 3 million Twitterers had the option of following Obama there, if they wished. I did. Obama, I believe, even campaigned in the virtual realm of Second Life. (Someone can correct me if I am wrong.)

This election reminded me even more of the Clinton vs. Dole runoff. Bob Dole likewise had a physical handicap, and likewise won the nomination through longtime party affiliation. Was he the best candidate, though? In the final verdict, youth and charisma again won out over age.

Did the Saturday Night Live appearances help or hurt the Republicans? I know it helped the SNL ratings, that’s a given.

One of my favorite moments during the election day coverage on CNN yesterday was an interview with a young volunteer who had been making phone calls on behalf of the Democrats in the weeks leading up to the election. He seemed genuinely hurt by how many people were angry at him when he’d call. Well guess what, buddy? If your people weren’t calling three to five times a day this past week, we maybe wouldn’t be biting your head off. Nothing personal, but we don’t like unwelcome home invasions.

My first deed, if ever elected president will be to include all such fake phone surveys and political calls in the National Do Not Call list. Anyone out there in Washington need help writing that piece of legislation? I will happily volunteer.

Naked Economics

Why did the entrepreneur cross the road? Because he believed he could make money on the other side.

The book Naked Economics, by Charles Wheelan, is a worthwhile read that I highly recommend to anyone. Wheelan puts in layman's terms many of the complex ideas and issues that have littered the minds of intellectuals and economists for decades. Of the book, 1992 Nobel Prize winner (for economics) Gary Becker wrote, "I recommend this book to anyone who wants to gain an understanding of basic economics with little pain and much pleasure."

One reason for reading books like this one, and getting familiar with how economics works, is because in our postmodern era it would appear that Capitalism has won the war against Marxist Socialism and it is important to understand the reasons Capitalism (with a capital C) became the force that it has in today's global society.

Another reason for reading books on economics is that with hailstorm of financial upheavals bringing major banks and investment houses to their knees, it can be helpful having at least a rudimentary understanding of why all this turbulence is putting so many retirement portfolios at risk today.

The reality is, capitalism is not a perfect system. Wheelan, in fact, argues that a market driven economy is to economics as democracy is to government: "a decent, if flawed, choice among many bad alternatives.”

Early on he states, “Economics starts off with one very important assumption: Individuals act to make themselves as well off as possible.” Is this not why many people from all over the world have striven to make there way to America? I've heard stories of people who came to the U.S. and we startled to find that the streets were not paved with gold.

In an early part of the book Wheelan notes that markets are not always fair, and that we especially see this in pay scales. “Small differences in talent tend to become magnified into huge differentials in pay... One need only to be slightly better than the competition in order to gain a large (and profitable) share of that market.” Horses that win by a nose, superstar baseball players... the difference in financial outcomes between best and runner up can be significant. If I have a job opening, and one person gets it, that person ends up with a living wage while the contender remains unemployed. Markets are amoral and not concerned with the apparent unfairness of this situation. In addition, they reward scarcity, which has no relationship to value.

Even if we do understand how free markets work, and why government controlled economies are problematic, I doubt we'll ever fully understand what's going on with the trillion dollar fiascoes like Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. I've heard it said that when you have autopsies without blame, only then can you know why the patient died. In point of fact, power is a more important than truth, and you can be sure Republicans and Democrats alike will do all they can to make sure that blame gets placed at the other's doorstep.

In this instance, the Bush administration is being tarred for not having provided more oversight to these major mortgage institutions. But in point of fact, in 2003 when the Bush admin pressed for greater oversight, it was the Democrats who objected. (Read the N.Y.Times story here.)

I sat on a plane last spring next to a fellow who works for one the nation's largest housing lenders. He said that five years ago the government put pressure on them to loosen lending standards in order to get more people into houses. Easy loans are not always an easy burden to bear. The mess we're in was created by people inside the beltway trying to manipulate the rules in a manner that violated the way markets work. To paraphrase a popular saying, the road to economic hell is paved with good intentions.

G O P

Last week, at the end of the Dem Convention, I made the comment that it would be interesting to see how the Republicans positioned their party in the week that followed. Turns out to have been an interesting week as predicted.

The Obama campaign has been very successful at sinking home the message of Change. Time for something new, something different in Washington. I have a friend who said his father, an old man nearly eighty, was for the first time in his life thinking of pulling a lever for a Democrat. He said to his son, "Who does not want change?" The son had no answer.

Well, this week the McCain people addressed this very hunger for change by spinning the campaign theme this way: We are the candidates of change. We, McCain and Palin, are not about going to put up with the status quo politics that has become standard fare in Washington.

I watched from the PR spin angle sidelines and see it as a brilliant position to stake out. Even though John McCain has been a Washington insider for more than a little while, he has a reputation as a maverick. (It was amusing to see a delegate on the floor of the convention in St. Paul holding a sign that read, "Mavrick"... )

The night before, the convention speakers set the table with Palin's achievements. For sure, you could not get further from the beltway with this governor from Alaska. Her reputation was staked out as being one who fights corruption, who is not afraid to take on special interests. She was not afraid of a fight. Of herself she said the only difference between a pit bull and a hockey mom is the lipstick.

And, of course, John McCain, it was repeatedly noted, is himself a fighter... This is where the orchestration comes in. The theme all week of McCain the fighter and maverick all connects to our grass roots "people against the machine" desires. But it was also a setup up for his bearing of the soul to reveal his motivations. Like Obama the week before, McCain told the story of how he came to care so much for his country. He shared how he had been a proud young man, but met his match under torture. What kept him going was having to live for something bigger than himself.

McCain and Palin are now claiming to be carrying the real banner for change, painting Obama and Biden as "more of the same."

GOP originally stood for Gallant Old Party. Somehow over the years Grand Old Party must have sounded better to someone.

Fortunately, there are less than two months now to the election. Hopefully there will be no hanging chads or other disputes when the votes are tallied. But comments on the future of voting (i.e. eVoting) will be saved for another day.

Y'all come back now, ya hear?