Mostly on the US Debate

 

Events are moving quickly; this is not a quiet summer. The Tories in the UK are in a panic. Reform is in a panic. The Republicans in France are in a panic. The Democrats in the US are in a panic. Things are almost moving too fast for commentary. What I say now may be obsolete in a few hours.

In the US, even all the left-wing commentators have turned on Joe Biden. His performance in the debate was historically bad. The best they can muster is the claim that, while Biden was incoherent. Trump was lying about everything. 

They never cite any particular lie. That perhaps says everything.

I did track down a list on CNN’s web site:

Trump: “Hard to believe, they have some states passing legislation where you can execute the baby after birth. It’s crazy.”

Trump went on to cite to the former governor of Virginia, Ralph Northram. Here’s what Northram actually said, referring to his proposed legislation:

“The infant would be delivered, the infant would be kept comfortable, the infant would be resuscitated if that's what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.”

But that legislation was, in the end, voted down in the legislature.

There were other close calls in New York and California, but the bills were amended before being passed.

So Trump was not correct. Directionally true, perhaps, as his supporters often say, but an exaggeration. But it might also be unfair to characterize it as a deliberate lie; Trump was speaking without notes. He may only have been foggy on the details. “Have tried to pass” would have been correct.

Trump: “I say, let the states decide. This is — every legal scholar wanted this to be where abortion should be.”

And of course, not EVERY legal scholar wanted the states to decide on abortion. To begin with, obviously, the justices of the Supreme Court count as legal scholars, and a majority of them voted for Roe v. Wade fifty years ago. A minority voted to keep Roe V. Wade last year. 

But given that the strict literal sense of the claim was obviously false, surely it was clear to everyone that Trump was not speaking literally, but using the common exaggeration, as in “everybody knows.”

The network counts as a lie Trump’s claim that there were no terrorist attacks during his presidency: “we didn’t have an attack for four years.”

CNN then cites an attack in New York that killed eight people in 2017, right after his election; and an attack by a lone gunman that killed three soldiers at an army base in Florida in 2019.

Another case of Trump being directionally correct, but exaggerating. He did not mean literally “none.” Just as we might say, “nobody loves a rainy day,” without expecting to be challenged with an example of someone who does.

They also count as a lie Trumps’ claim that the 2020 election was “rigged” or “stolen.” Which is, at a minimum, a legitimate opinion. 

And they counted Trump’s claim that Biden got money from China as a lie because it was presented “with no evidence.” There certainly is evidence of this; although it has not (yet?) been proven in a court of law. 

And the commentators never point out that, apart from not making sense, Biden told many lies. As, to be fair, all politicians do, pretty much all the time. Yet, mysteriously, it is only Trump who is ever accused of this. Biden actually claimed that there were fewer illegals crossing the border now than when Trump left office, and that the numbers are declining. He claimed to have gotten inflation down from where it was under Trump. There was essentially no inflation under Trump. He claimed that Trump initiated the policy of “children in cages,” which was inherited from the Democratic administration in which Biden was vice-president. He claimed that there were people wearing swastikas marching in Charlottesville, and that Trump had called them “fine people.” This has even been debunked by left-wing Snopes.

And so it goes.

Surely Biden now has no chance against Trump. And there is no good way for party insiders and powers to swap him out at this late date.

They did this to themselves, by forcing RFK Jr. out of the primaries and out of the party. Were RFK coming into the convention with a pledged minority of delegates, they could have plausibly coalesced around him at the last minute.

But even if the convention were to turn to someone other than Biden, the backroom powers have tied their own hands. The convention is scheduled for so late in the season that, if the nominee turns out to be anyone other then Biden, it will be too late to get them on the ballot in at least the critical swing state of Ohio.

Bottom line: Biden is not the only incompetent in power on the left.