Article by Kurt Schlichter in Townhall
The Debate Post-Mortem
It was a bit surprising that Grandpa Badfinger showed up Tuesday, and also a bit surprising that he didn’t start a chat with an invisible friend or Nadler himself on stage. Nor was it surprising that Donald Trump came in hard and fast, particularly since it was two against one. The Coast Guard’s got nothing on Chris Wallace in terms of tossing drowning men life preservers.
Who won? Trump, by a little. This was not a “disaster” or “a mess” simply because it got loud and unruly. With one possible caveat, it was not likely to move the needle. And this was peak Biden – he gets no better than this. He did a dozen early am lids prepping to basically achieve not falling over and mumbling to himself as he jerked and twitched on the floor.
Now, the prissycons are all up in arms because Trump was mean and interrupted people. Boo hoo – tighten the hell up, people. Why would you be smiley while getting tagged-teamed by a media hack and Methuselah? The sensitive folks who are all about the decorum were not the target audience for those tactics. Trump likely figured, rightly, that the “Oh well I never!” has nowhere else to go. None of them is thinking, “Yeah, I love conservative justices upholding free speech, free exercise and gun rights in an unpacked Supreme Court, a rebuilt military, a hardline on China, Mideast peace plus support for Israel, and not offing babies up to kindergarten, but Trump was really argumentative so I’m voting for the rioting Marxists who want to ban Buicks and BBQ grills.”
He’s got the squishies and he will keep them – the full Fredocon losers (never go full Fredocon) all abandoned ship in 2016. Trump was aiming at other people - people not so repressed and fussy that a little loud talking makes them cry. He was aiming at non-traditional voters, particularly ones who he thought would respond well to a show of strength. Among the post-pile-on polls were the expected MSM polls showing Biden “won” – and not by that much – was a really interesting one from Telemundo, the Spanish language network. Trump won that at 66%. With other indications that Trump is over-performing with Latino voters, this has got to trouble the Dems.
There are lots of potential voters, including ones who usually do not vote, who will respond well to a show of raw strength instead of buying into the elitist notion of propriety above all. Remember who famously bought that particular handful of magic beans? That’s right, the amazing Mitt Romney (“R”-Miracle Whip). He was a gentleman, a nice guy, and a hapless sap who eagerly donned his vinyl suit to grovel at the leather hip-booted feet of Mistress Candy Crowley.
Real men, and real women, don’t vote for submissives.
Let’s imagine if Trump had decided to play the conformity game. Let’s imagine he patiently waited his turn to answer Oldfinger’s well-rehearsed lies. Let’s contemplate what would have happened if he obediently answered the loaded questions, and only the loaded questions, that Chris Wallace hit him with. What then?
He would have looked weak. Imagine waking up today to the headline, “Pathetic Trump Dominated by a Powerful, Potent Joe ‘Conan’ Biden!” If Trump was the well-behaved lad some on our side preferred, he'd be squeezing into the gimp box with president Mitt right about now. If you have to err, err on the side of not being a sissy.
Moreover, he had to interrupt and ignore Wallace to get out the truths the establishment wants suppressed. Those semi-engaged potential voters, and the folks who only watch Channel 7 Action News, were probably stunned to hear that Biden can’t name a single cop org that is supporting him, that Antifa is an “idea” (of course Wallace blew the obvious follow-up – “So, is it a good or a bad idea?”), and that after Hoover Biden got booted from the Navy he was blasting rails off the taut bellies of hookers while pocketing multi-million dollar checks from Putin’s pals in Moscow. Trump exposed these people to the undernews the mainstream media had decided to hide, and despite his best efforts, Chris Wallace could not stop him. Bottom Line: Trump had to be so Trumpy.
Will Biden go for Round 2 and 3? Maybe. I expected he would be a no show on the 29th so perhaps he will. But remember that Biden has the most to lose. Trump can pretty much say or do anything within the bounds of the expected and keep his followers, but if Biden vapor locks and drools, he’s the Dementia Democrat and he loses a lot of support. His ego, however, may be driving this. His caregivers will all tell him he won and he’ll believe it, because he’s dumb and a narcissist, and so he won’t do what’s the smart, low-risk play and get the media to back a boycott (“Trump is so mean that I will not dignify him with another debate and he’s also racist.”). The fact is that Biden peaked – it took two weeks of him calling a lid at the crack of dawn to get to the point where he merely did not spontaneously combust. Trump, however, has plenty of room for improvement, and plenty of ammo left to expend.
But, except for the nontraditional voters that the media cannot effectively measure, this debate changed nothing for us. No committed Trump voter defected. Maybe we got some independents. And within 24 hours, some other nonsense will displace this debate from our consciousness, relegating it to the same kerfuffle dumpster as Russian collusion, “suckers and losers,” and the tax returns showing Trump paid what he owed and is not in hock to the Kremlin.
https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2020/10/01/the-debate-postmortem-n2577239
