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Today a democrat of the old school would demand, not freedom for the press, but freedom from the press.
Oswald Spengler
Civilized debate has been ruled out by the D.C. smart set which considers the Trump agenda, endorsed by 60 million Americans in 2016, subversive and treasonous.My abiding impression of the debate five nights ago, between Messrs Trump and Biden?
Ilana Mercer
I am left angry at the way the moderator talked over his condemnation of white supremacists, whatever they are, and heckled him to condemn the Proud Boys, who are extreme, according to the BBC World Service last night, because they want to stop immigration, revert to traditional female and male roles in marriage and are proud 'Western chauvinists' who say they believe in the superiority of Western civilisation.
The Reuters/Ipsos poll shows Joe Biden leads by 10 points after President Trump tested positive for the coronavirus. A majority of Americans think the President could have avoided the infection if he had taken the virus more seriously. They are probably right and he has shown a characteristic lack of concern for other people.
This is my abiding impression, because it is the failure to condemn the Proud Boys is what the media want our abiding impression to be.
George W Bush was one of the worst presidents in history (only Lincoln, Wilson and LBJ are comparably bad) but he was a gentleman and had impeccable manners. Not so Donald Trump.
I think Joe Biden is going to win next month, even though he is a cipher, and this will mean the pre Trump structures of power will consider themselves justified in America and Europe, which on the whole is a thoroughly bad thing.
The Democrats will return to power like the Bourbons, having learnt nothing and forgotten nothing.
My powers of prediction are not good. At the start of the year I said Bernie Sanders was bound to lose to Donald Trump. I was persuaded out of my hunch that Trump would win in 2016 by a clever American Democrat I was friends with on Facebook and the Brexit result came as a big surprise. I never imagined either that there would be a Pope like the present one.
Finally, if the debate was messy and heated, it was but a slice, a glimpse of the state of American politics as a whole. Partisanship has reached the level of insane intensity. Pro-Trump and anti-Trump partisans loathe each other with a loathing that is feral. Reason has fled from cross-party divisions. Anything goes if it can be levelled at the other side. Democracy is being mangled by the hatred each party has for the other.
ReplyDeleteIn such a context the debate was but a trivial exemplar. If people wish to deplore the loss of civility and the abandonment of decorum deplore the widespread, if not universal, abandonment of both in American politics as a whole. And for all those in the media scorning the debate — look into the mirror. Media practice during the Trump years has been a farce of unbalanced “reportage,” atrocious opinionating, and anti-Trump obsessionism. The media have never been so reckless and irresponsible.
The debate was poor beyond poor, that we agree on. But American politics and practice over the past three plus years have been conducted on a gutter level all the way through. It’s a bit rich to highlight 90 minutes of debate as its major failing. The debate was merely in harmony with the great mass of the political process. When all of politics is crude and raw and careless and without scruple, where did the expectation come from that Donald Trump and Joe Biden were going to elevate it?
Rex Murphy
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/rex-murphy-yes-it-was-a-rotten-debate-but-a-lot-worse-is-happening-in-america-right-now
Yes.
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