There is not much I can add about the debate. Unanimity is a weird experience in American life these days but everything you have read or probably thought yourself about Biden’s performance is correct. I have nothing to add on that front but I did have an interesting time watching, as I dropped in on the monthly meeting of the local Republican Party at the White Sands Mall in Alamogordo.
My intention was to try and view the debate through MAGA eyes, and then talk to people about why they support Trump. I also wanted to ask some of the older ones about their personal history with the Republican Party and perhaps use their answers in a BBC radio documentary I am making to mark the 50th anniversary of Richard Nixon’s resignation coming up in August.
With the help of Richard Coltharp, former and future publisher of the Alamogordo Daily News I found out about the meeting and my presence there was agreed. Coltharp also gave me a quick tutorial on local politics: Alamogordo was a solidly Democratic town 30 years ago. It isn’t now. I hoped to find out why.
Around 30 were in a meeting room at the Mall listening to Jon Henry, mayor of Artesia, a sister town the other side of the Sacramento Mountains. Henry was talking about food standards on imported beef. Most of the people in the room work in agriculture — ranching and nuts, pistachios mostly.
I stood in the back near the remnants of a pot luck dinner strewn on trestle tables chatting with a couple of others who were on a loose bit of guard duty. While we were talking, Henry’s speech shifted gears and suddenly he was telling the group about how important it was to have respectful conversations with people who disagreed with you politically. He acknowledged his own tendency to sarcasm and letting people know in other ways that, “I can’t believe you even think that!”
He then went on to talk about his daughter at a big university in Texas and how, contrary to what these folks might hear, she and her classmates are being led by teachers in respectful conversations with others who have different views.
It didn’t sound very MAGA-like until the last question to Henry from the floor. A woman in her fifties wanted to “share” more than ask a question. She asked if the room knew about the World Economic Forum and its plans for every single person at this meeting. Did people know about the plans to reduce global population through the covid vaccine?
People need to open their eyes!
Then she quoted something from Corinthians, I didn’t catch the verse, but it was pretty hair-raising. Now, I guess there’s someone like this in most local meetings of the GOP. JesusMAGA is a part of the Trump movement. But the reason I’m telling you about her is that suddenly people were taking notes in a way they hadn’t when Jon Henry was speaking as the woman rattled off the url for the WEF and the name of a substack newsletter that had ALL the details of the world government’s secret plans for taking over.
The meeting overran and the debate had already started when the big screen TV was turned on. About half the people in the room didn’t bother to stay and watch. Only a handful of those who remained actually paid close attention.
My hope to talk to MAGA folks on home turf slid out of the room and besides, the shot of Biden looking every minute of his age next to the gurning, Mussolini-lite Trump was too depressing. I didn’t feel like speaking to a soul.
That changed when the subject turned to Ukraine. There were snorts of derision either side of me when Trump spoke about how he would bring peace before he is sworn in (there’s no doubt in his mind he will win). I was sitting between two men who were ex-military. Trust career enlisted men to have bullshit detectors when it comes to officer-class bluster.
Both had an understanding that Putin was the enemy and a canny, powerful one at that. Both acknowledged Biden’s Ukraine policy was the best thing he had done in office — even though they were both thoroughly critical of the way the Afghanistan withdrawal had been executed.
I asked, if on the biggest geo-political issue the US faces Biden is the better choice, why are you voting for Trump?
There are other issues, came the answer. And look at Biden, he’s too old.
The choice is between the lesser of two evils, said Justin, retired Air Force mechanic and the only African-American in the room.
By the time the debate was over there were about eight people left including the volunteer clean-up crew. My recording equipment stayed in my bag.
Justin was an interesting fellow. Somehow he got started talking about the troubles at Boeing. Proof of American decline.
His view: Management was the problem. DEI, hiring and promoting to top levels by category of oppression rather than ability to do the job.
My view: that’s the wrong three letters, it’s not DEI behind Boeing’s inability to build a safe plane any more, it’s MBA. Too many over-educated, no real-world experience people being promoted and not enough aeronautical engineers who understand how a plane works.
It was all very respectful, as Jon Henry had been talking about an hour earlier.
Walking back to my motel it occurred to me that there is an analogy between the problems at Boeing and the Biden campaign. Too many over-educated political advisers with no real world experience are in control of the re-election effort. Trump’s a known quantity and the Dems have had eight years to figure out how to deal with the firehose of horseshit and lies he spews. They’re still bringing data sets to a knife fight. When Biden said Trump had the morals of an alley cat he was on to something. More back alley brawlers need to be in his inner circle.
A reminder: I am traveling in the Southwest this week trying to get a feel for the dynamics shaping November’s vote. I want this to be the first of several trips to report from the country of my birth but that takes your support. The road is more expensive than it has ever been. (Note to Biden team: don’t go by the statistics. Inflation is a beast and it’s damned expensive out here). So please, if you value my work:
And if you can’t afford to make a donation then help by spreading the word about this newsletter to 10 people you know.
You certainly have a stronger stomach than I had Thursday night. How in the world does anyone deal with a firehose of lies and worse? You are correct...data sets never works...stories are the way to meet and move people. All of the former guy's stories are lies even though there may be 1/2 a kernel of something resembling a but if truth. The prep should have been remembering real people and real stories...not trying to refute a tsunami of lies. Below is a quote from a reader of HCR's newsletter concerning the debate and President Biden’s "performance":
“. This was not a debate. It was Trump using a technique that actually has a formal name, the Gish gallop, although I suspect he comes by it naturally. It’s a rhetorical technique in which someone throws out a fast string of lies, non-sequiturs, and specious arguments, so many that it is impossible to fact-check or rebut them in the amount of time it took to say them.
Trying to figure out how to respond makes the opponent look confused, because they don’t know where to start grappling with the flood that has just hit them.
It is a form of gaslighting, and it is especially effective on someone with a stutter, as Biden has. It is similar to what Trump did to Biden during a debate in 2020. In that case, though, the lack of muting on the mics left Biden simply saying: “Will you shut up, man?” a comment that resonated with the audience.
Giving Biden the enforced space to answer by killing the mic of the person not speaking tonight actually made the technique more effective.”
I think that quote says everything. Frankly, I am hard pressed to think of anyone who could have withstood what was coming at President Biden for 90 minutes. Maybe the tactic would be not trying to respond but sticking with a story you want to tell. With the moderators not commenting on lies and non answers trump ran roughshod over the process itself. He's a perfect authoritarian and dictator.
didn’t think I could read this, but it’s interesting, both in its display of unanticipated virtues and then the usual absolutely insane, delusional Maga conspiracy stuff - at which people take notes! couldn’t stand to watch the debate myself but caught Biden’s early moments, in the memory unit facial expression and voice, etc and saw all I needed - I very much liked your interaction with the military men, and totally understood just being worn out at the end - what a situation. I’m one of those rare people who actually don’t mind Harris, but it still feels very bleak - hang in there!