Joe Biden Has A Chance To Destroy Trump In The First Presidential Debate by Robert Covington Jr.
Tonight, Democratic presidential Joe Biden is about to engage in the biggest debate of his political career. On his shoulders is the understanding that America has been traumatized, brutalized and abused by Donald Trump — one of the worst human beings on the planet for four years of his presidency. Also, on Biden’s shoulders is the realization that we have a media that has been one of Trump’s biggest enablers in the normalization of his cruelty, corruption and propaganda to be in this position of possibly being reelected in the first place. Case in point with Fox news, the world’s largest white supremacy network, being the host, primary sponsor and major influencer in the choice of topics for the first debate.
Amid this reality, it’s important for Joe Biden to look at this situation with the glass half full instead of half empty. Biden has an opportunity to reach tens of millions of people and expose Trump on a level that will leave no doubt as to how dangerous, destructive and unrepentant Trump is, and to give hope about the future.
The six topics for tonight’s debate are: Trump and Biden Records, Supreme Court, Economy, COVID-19, Race and Violence in our cities, and Election integrity. Within every topic, Biden should connect Trump’s corruption, cruelty, lack of empathy, racism and malignant narcissism and then pivot to his vision for America. My focus will be Biden’s attacks. It is also critical for Biden to be prepared for the personal attacks and turn it around and redirect to Americans to say his character reflects his nastiness as a human being and to distract people from his awful record as president.
Trump and Biden Records
Biden should go on the attack and set the tone of the debate by talking about Trump running the most corrupt administration in presidential history. Biden should talk about the indictments and jail time for people within his administration. Biden should talk about the one thousand lawyers that believe Trump should have been indicted for the crime of obstruction of justice and make it clear to the American people that Trump knows if he loses the presidency, he will likely face many charges and indictments for a multitude of criminal allegations, from obstruction to tax fraud. Biden should say with emphasis that the president knows there’s a good chance that he’s going to jail once he leaves office. A criminal administration led by a criminal president.
Biden should also focus on Trump’s other abuses of power as it relates to the constitutional violations with emoluments clause, corruption, impeachment for national security reasons and his four year subservience to Putin by highlighting Helsinki press conference where he took the side of Russia over his own intelligence agencies in front of the world. Lastly, Biden needs to make it clear that America has lost allies around the world, have become a laughingstock of a country because of Trump and that Trump aligns himself with autocrats and demagogues.
Supreme Court
Biden should do two things here: connect Trump’s desperation to remain in office to avoid possible imprisonment as one of the incentives behind his push for another Supreme Court justice while voting across America has already begun as he hopes to cause chaos, cheat and look to a right wing Supreme Court to save him. Biden should also talk about the appointment of Justices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and likely Barrett that threaten women’s rights, climate change, worker’s rights and health care and frame it as part of his cruelty of priorities to destroy people’s lives.
COVID-19
Biden should be unrelenting in his attack on Trump for criminal negligence and deliberate killing of Americans by withholding important information on its lethality and persistent acts of malice and lack of leadership. Biden should bring up the Bod Woodward tapes and talk about Trump pushing for our children to go back to school even though he knew that the coronavirus was deadly and impacts children. Biden needs to call Trump’s attacks on science and the Center for Disease Control acts of evil. Biden should say in the debate that the science community is so alarmed by Trump’s dangerousness and willingness to harm and possibly kill millions of Americans by rushing for a vaccine, the science community and drug companies have issued statements trying to reassure Americans and the world that they won’t put out a vaccine unless it’s fully vetted and safe.
Biden should talk about how Trump thinks so little of his own supporters health, lives and their families by encouraging them to attend his rallies without masks and the report of calling his supporters “disgusting” and glad that he doesn’t have to shake their hands. They need to hear on national television that their almighty leader does not value their well-being.
Economy
Biden needs to connect Trump to the worst economic crises in the last eighty years, the widespread poverty and unemployment due to his handling of the coronavirus pandemic. Biden should also connect Trump’s enjoyment of hurting Americans by having his legal team in court now fighting to take away healthcare from millions of Americans that need the Affordable Care Act. Biden should connect this callousness to the economic impact on children and family’s health and finances across the country.
Race and Violence in our cities
Biden should tell the moderator that he takes offence to the topic headline and say that our American cities are the vibrant energy of our nation. That many of our biggest businesses and companies are there, millions of people are raising their families and doing the best they can. Any unrest, which was minimal as it was reported that 93% of protesters have been peaceful, have come from instigators. Biden should speak of his support of protests as the anger of injustice. Biden must avoid agreeing with any racialized, insensitive premise that is inevitably going to come out of the president’s mouth. Biden can also talk about his militarized acts on cities and exploitation of the catholic church for a photo op.
Election integrity
Biden would help himself greatly by reminding Americans that Trump is a pathological liar, reference the 20,000 documented lies and connect it to Trump’s lies about ballot fraud. Biden should remind Americans that Trump and the Republican Party are trying to cheat and steal the election because democracy means little to them. Biden should also remind Americans that Trump has stated that he wants foreign interference again and his attacks on USPS reflects his corruption because Trump knows he is unpopular and a disgrace to the nation. Again, Biden should say Trump knows if he loses, he fears he’s going to jail.
Biden has an opportunity to leave Americans of good will and conscience ashamed of what has happened to this country, but also remind Americans that we as a nation have the ability to recover, reform and renew our commitment to a strong, multiracial democracy. Biden should say that we don’t want a fugitive on the run as our president.
Biden has an opportunity to destroy Trump in this debate, I hope he goes for it.
Follow me on twitter: @robcovingtonjr
