On Thursday, the showdown of all major presidential candidates took place at Texas Southern University (an HBCU). The third presidential debate was, thankfully, just one night, and for three hours, candidates jousted back and forth to move the needle in the polls.
And, to no surprises, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren stood significantly stronger above every other candidate on the stage. It wasn’t just that they back a lot of policies I’m for, but they were more prepared in rebutting any conservative, right-wing framing of questions, or centrist arguments from other candidates. Bernie was asked how his proposed Democratic Socialism was different from Maduro and socialism in Venezuela. Yeah. That happened. Perhaps the most frustrating part of the debate is just the constant rehashing from everyone asking how you’re supposed to pay for Medicare-For-All, and again and again, they’re forced to just restate their arguments, losing valuable time they can utilize to push on further elaboration.
Surprisingly, for at least the first 30–35 minutes, the candidates were discussing health care plans. It allowed candidates to detail more in-depth on the debate stage why their respective plans were the best for the country. Yang went right to explaining again why M4A benefits small businesses (relieving costs, expediting the process for employees), which is a much-needed part of the plan that Bernie and Warren could do more of. Klobuchar (who I still don’t understand why she is still running) attempted to get at Bernie with “While Bernie wrote the damn bill, I read the bill” as some sort of sneaky way to get around the fact that private insurance is responsible for the absurd costs for prescription drugs and premiums.
Aside from the top two progressive candidates, Yang continued to take more strides to get more people to support UBI. I may personally disagree on how he is getting there, but I cannot deny that he is destroying the other establishment candidates on a majority of policies, from health care to foreign policy. I’ll admit he did have quite a few fibs, but throughout the night, but as a whole, he had one of the stronger evenings compared to the majority of the field.
There’s a reason why I’ve just steered clear of hands down the biggest loser of the evening. And it isn’t close in any stretch of the imagination.
Joe Biden. His debate performance was terrible.
Perhaps the moment that stands out was his racist response after scoffing at a question as to how to deal with the legacy of slavery. Here’s a clip from Secular Talk where they play the clip in full:
Aside from the complete random jumble of words, including a record player for whatever reason, lies unfettered bigotry. Biden’s racist remarks on minority and poor households needing social workers to help reinvigorate the abhorrent stereotypes that black people cannot parent properly (which of course we know is completely false). The idea that these children need to hear words and are not exposed to the material to learn is also racist and unfounded. Forget the fact he didn’t even answer the question. No one in MSM (mainstream media) is acknowledging truly how consistently Biden is allowed to repeatedly perpetuate racist ideas and policies, which is not necessarily frustrating as it’s enlightening. No one there seems to acknowledge or care that these are issues a significant portion of voters will not stand for. These are the types of positions that will result in some voters not turning out if he’s the general election candidate.
Thankfully, Julian Castro came ready to parry and get right back at Biden over and over again. Although his polling numbers indicate he is almost certainly out of the running, I am thankful he has been able to tackle Biden’s hypocrisy within the debate and took risks to point out the obvious: Biden is an abhorrent candidate.
After this debate, if there’s anything that stands out, it’s this: Biden is not fit to be our next president. It’s his policy, his actual cognitive abilities, and his racist and archaic perspective on America that should steer all of us away from him. Jamil Smith wrote a more pithy and direct articulation of this idea in a recent column for Rolling Stone, but we need to face the truth he will almost certainly lose to Trump.
Fortunately, signs are showing Bernie or Warren will begin to eclipse him at some point in the polls, and so at least for now, we could see a true progressive White House.
Being Noah Tesfaye #98: The Third Democratic Primary Debate — Joe Biden Rambling His Chances Away
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