In the middle of every soccer fan's dream summer...
It's Biden vs.Trump in a possibly decisive election moment
Credit: John Raoux, AP
Tomorrow’s televised debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump is fully debated in the media before it has even taken place.
But I can’t say I’m excited. Actually, I am not sure why it is even taking place, and at this time in late June, four months before Election Day on November 5, and before the two party conventions in July and August, when their respective presidential nominees will be officially anointed.
I fail to understand the reason why Biden, the President of the United States, is even debating former president Trump. Why bother? How could he stoop so low, I ask, and agree to debate a man so compromised — the target of over 90 indictments at four different courts, and found guilty of all 34 indictments — a convicted felon — at the recent hush-money trial in New York.
I understand why Trump has been so eager to meet Biden on national television. He really needs that exposure, although many in the media wonder if it will end well for the former president. But Biden?
The debate also comes at a very inopportune time for me, a football, or soccer, fan, as the world’s most popular sport is called here in America. If you love soccer, the summer of 2024, is a dream summer, with the European Championships, Euro 24, and the North- and South American championships, Copa America, under way here in the United States. They go on at the same time, every day, with games from Europe in the mornings here in California followed by late afternoon and evening matches all over this country.
It’s a television soccer feast. And we are right in the middle of it.
Winners? No one knows yet. At the Euro 24, and in the absence of my old home country Sweden which failed to qualify, I am rooting for my former Nordic neighbor, Denmark, while at Copa America, the U.S. — my new home country — is fielding a strong team that could go deep in the tournament. An American success in Copa America bodes well in the preparations for the soccer World Cup in 2026, co-hosted by the U.S., Canada, and Mexico.
Can’t wait…
But back to the debate. Of course, I’ll watch it. How can you not, if you are interested in politics, but, more than that, if you care about this country and the future of its democracy? Still, I am not looking forward to it, like Charlie Sykes, a prominent, moderate, anti-Trump Republican, who writes on his To the Contrary: “It’s going to be a shit show that will leave us all the dumber for it.” And he continues:
“Of course, it will be immensely important — perhaps even decisive. But that’s part of our national tragedy, because the debate will be neither enlightening nor ennobling. Forget about serious policy discussions, since Donald Trump is neither interested in nor capable of putting together a lucid or coherent argument. A substantive discussion of the national debt? Health care? Foreign policy? Immigration? Tax policy? Surely you jest. Instead, we will get a blizzard of personal insults, lies, bluster, and bullshit. Fact-checking won’t even begin to catch up with Trump’s firehose of frauds and fabrications. And no one will remember any of the substance, anyway, because it’s all about the show now, isn’t it?”
Sykes’ colleague among the anti-Trump Republicans, Rick Wilson, warns Biden about Trump, ‘the ultimate anti-hero:”
“A criminal. A rapist. A liar. A conman. A felon. A traitor. A cult leader. A man for whom the rules are meant to be broken and for whom dignity, probity, and civilized norms are scorned.“
“Mr. President, you have a battle this Thursday with a villain of a character and danger that America has never seen before…You’re entering an arena with a man you’ve defeated in two prior debates, but this creature you face now is more desperate, deranged, and vicious than anyone imagines. Nothing is beneath him, and no attack will be off the table.”
And this from respectable, honorable observers of today’s American politics! How did we get here? How’s it possible that so many, seemingly, still support this man. The polls, and they are many, day after day, point to a dead heat, 41.9 percent for Trump and 41.2 percent for Biden, according to polling guru Nate Silver’s Silver Bulletin.
We’ll see how it goes tomorrow. My hunch is that Biden will do well, as he always seems to do in the big moments, which this will be, as six of ten U.S. adults plan to watch. I’ll watch, too, but I’ll also keep an eye on the soccer matches around the world and in particular on the Americans, led by Christian Pulisic from Hershey, Pennsylvania and AC Milan in Italy, as they play Panama just before Biden takes the stage against Trump.
A double victory would be very nice.
I'll also watch. Biden will kill him because trump will kill himself, as he did last time with Biden when he kept bullying and interrupting. He can't help himself because he's mentally ill, though I know I'm not qualified to write that in a column. How else to explain his chaos, his constant changing of subjects, his refusal to read, etc.
I liked your original take though: Why should Biden even want to debate him. Because he knows trump will go ballistic if he pulls the right strings. And he will. He has a clever team behind him.
Sorry about Sweden and football. Good luck for Danmark!