John Chuckman
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE ON SCOOPY WEB
“Pelosi Doubles Down, Says Biden Shouldn’t Debate Trump On Tuesday”
I am not clear what Pelosi’s intentions in saying that are. The Right-wing, of course, interprets her as fearing that Biden will stumble and fail in front of millions. Maybe, maybe not.
But how can Biden or anyone genuinely debate someone who almost never tells the truth and constantly exaggerates his own importance and central role in almost everything that happens? Someone who disclaims all responsibility for failures and claims victories that don’t exist? It’s like trying to nail down a blob of Jell-O.
Black is white. Evil is good. Ineptitude is leadership. Violence is peace. Theft is policy. Trump regularly drifts beyond mere lying into a world of confused and malicious fantasy.
Whatever you say, Trump will say something else. He is limited by no facts, ethics, or decency.
There is no one to correct Trump’s massive assault of dishonesty and narcissism. A debating opponent cannot spend all his time attempting to do so, or he risks being perceived as having nothing of his own to say.
Debate with such a man as Trump, who is now hyped-up almost as if on drugs about his re-election, is an exercise in futility.
Trump’s America is a country where no one is responsible for anything. Unless there is someone he wants to accuse of being responsible, as the Chinese who stand accused for an act of Nature, the evolution of a new virus.
The remarkable thing for an outsider is that close to half of America’s adult population believes him, and with the same kind of head-nodding conviction you witness in the crowd at an Evangelical revival meeting. Yes, that is a big part of the character of the nation which claims to be so exceptional that it has a responsibility for telling the rest of humanity how to run their affairs.
And I am certainly not a Biden admirer. No career American politician, and Biden goes back fifty years, has much familiarity with truth.
