Thoughts on the 9/29 Presidential Debate

I have an abnormal relationship with politics. I have some strong beliefs, but I have not been motivated within our two-party system. Over the years, our government has become bigger and more oppressive. This alone puts me closer to the Republicans than the Democrats, but I absolutely refuse to conform to any partisan ideology. As my fear of the government has grown stronger, I have paid closer attention to the government. It's this fear more than anything that convinced me to watch our most recent debate.

While I'm definitely not a partisan conformist, I would be lying if I claimed the impossible. I have biases. As I have already stated, I'm closer to Republicans than Democrats. That said, I see automatically disqualifying traits in both candidates. Thanks to Biden's definitively anti-educational views, I admittedly would prefer Trump. That is, of course, if I had to pick between the two.

As for the debate, both candidates were horrible. Trump sat there the whole time blurting out whatever came to mind regardless of whose turn it was or the validity of his thoughts (although Biden wasn't completely immune to this behavior himself). He acted like a bully. I'm not going to go further into detail because the liberal media has already done that for me.

Biden took a different tactic. He would share obviously rehearsed arguments. In some cases, he changed the topic as justification for these routines. He struggled when trying to address anything unexpected, and even when going through his rehearsed sequences. Perhaps the worst moments were when he looked into the camera and recited dialog unrelated to debate questions. This was especially obvious early on when he openly refused to answer an important question about packing the Supreme Court and resorted to a rehearsed routine about voting. If he wasn't instructed on how to respond, he refused to answer. Ultimately, he came off as someone who has to be trained about what he is supposed to believe and still couldn't get it right.

Although their tactics were different, there was a lot of overlap between these candidates. They both came off as dishonest. Trump had his rapid-fire claims that were frequently wrong. Biden was inauthentic and prevented voters from seeing an honest portrayal of who he is.

Neither candidate wants voters to make informed decisions. Trump talking over Biden with dubious information certainly didn't help. Neither did Biden's curated dialog and evasion of important questions.

So, who won? This is a common question after debates. Of course, it's not an easy question to answer. The primary goal of these debates is to use them to win elections. It's difficult to completely separate debate performances from other factors. Additionally, winning is not an immediate goal. There could also be some alternative objectives mixed in.

A lot of people have found a shortcut. They resort to simple opinion polls. They ask voters who they thought won the debate. Personally, I don't think Trump convinced many undecided voters to vote for him. I don't think Biden convinced many undecided voters to vote for him. Both might have chased some people away. In one sense, both candidates lost.

An argument could be made that Biden won among those who read about it rather than watched. The media as always provided a skewed perspective of the debate afterwards. There was no question who they preferred, and it is possible that their portrayal could shift the perspective of potential voters.

Despite the complications, I'm going to go ahead and declare a winner. Both candidates were so bad that third parties should now be more appealing. My understanding is that increased traffic crashes Jo Jorgensen's website. The biggest winners in this debate were clearly the third-party candidates.