The first 2020 Presidential Debate took place on Tuesday night in Cleveland, Ohio, and was moderated by FOX News host Chris Wallace. The program was broadcasted on multiple prominent channels, including CNN, FOX, and C-SPAN, and had over 73 million viewers nationwide. The two candidates, President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden, practiced social distancing, there was a limited crowd, and those in the audience got tested for COVID and wore masks.
The candidates “discussed” multiple topics (if I can even call it that), the first major one being the Supreme Court. As most already know, Trump nominated Amy Coney Barrett, a U.S. federal judge, to replace former Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. This was the opening subject for the debate. At first, it seemed to be going well. However, that cannot be said for the next hour and 25 minutes remaining. The two candidates interrupted each other too many times to count, and soon national issues did not seem to be as important as the direct bashing of each other’s leadership for the country.
President Trump attacked Biden for his “socialist” views (though I’m not totally convinced he knows what socialism is), and Biden brought up statistics from America’s COVID death toll in order to prove Trump’s lack of management. One of the points that stood out to me was Trump’s argument about law and order, stating that, “[Biden] doesn’t want to say law and order because he can’t because he’ll lose his radical left supporters”. This was something that I actually believed was a smart tactic by Trump (I know, I’m sorry), because it’s actually very true. A lot of those voting for Biden in November support the BLM movement, and it makes sense that if Biden says something that doesn’t respond well with them, he will lose this vote. Trump also pointed out that Biden would lose voters when he said he did not support the Green New Deal. Now, I don’t think that people who support a humans rights movement don’t believe in law and order but, somewhere in Trump’s twisted mind, they correlate. So, for him, trying to get Biden to say what he wanted him to ended up working out in his favor.
Anyway, I’ve talked enough about Trump. Biden had some strong points when addressing healthcare, specifically Obamacare (“socialist medicine” – President Trump), as well as the Affordable Care Act and COVID-19. Though he holds many centrist values, his beliefs on these issues resonate with those of left leaning Americans. One of the things that may have shocked the aforementioned Americans was Biden saying he “[does not] support the Green New Deal”, a legislative package that addresses climate change. Many prominent progressives, namely New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey most recently, have been adamantly in favor of the Green New Deal, as well as many other Americans. Though this is the case, he announced that he has a different plan in the works to deal with the environment and climate change as a whole.
So, who won? If you ask me, neither of them did. If you were to ask me who lost less than the other, the answer would have to be Joe Biden. Looking at it from a maturity perspective rather than a political one, because I am personally not fond of either candidate, Biden was entirely more respectful than the President. Every time Biden had a point to make, Trump talked over him with his own points and beliefs. It was obvious that Wallace, the mediator, was getting tired of the President’s actions, and he works for a company that supports the Republican party. One of the most disrespectful aspects of the debate was Trump bringing up Biden’s sons, Hunter and Beau. During this, it was obvious that Biden was getting emotional. I think that was totally unfair of the President to do and also completely unnecessary. After the debate, Biden tweeted a photo of him and his deceased son, army veteran Beau Biden, with the caption “Beau Biden was not a loser.” This made me incredibly sad, I believe that his family should not have been mentioned at all.
If you’ve heard anything about the debate, it was probably negative. Regardless of what political party you agree with, I think most Americans can agree that the debate was truly a disaster and will go down as one of, if not, the worst presidential debate in American history.