Last night's biggest loser

If you had the good fortune to skip the presidential debate last night, the CNN headline sums it up: “Biden’s poor showing and Trump’s repeated falsehoods.”

There was little surprising in Trump’s performance, except perhaps that he was somewhat more disciplined than is often the case (at least with respect to his behavior if not his accuracy). That said, any number of answers he gave would have been astonishing had they come from any candidate in any party in the pre-Trump era. His demonization of immigrants should be particularly jarring, not to mention his “I did not have sex with a porn star,” but the truth is, most of us are used to it.

To catch you up, here’s a taste of what pundits are saying, from the New York Times:

“Biden is even whiffing on his easy pitches — abortion and Jan. 6. I mean, my God,” said Matt Gorman, a Republican strategist and former senior adviser to the presidential campaign for Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina.

“Look, I debated Joe 7 times in 2020. He’s a different guy in 2024,” Andrew Yang, a Democratic presidential candidate in 2020, said on the social media platform X, adding the hashtag #swapJoeout.

“Former President Trump stuck to his factually incorrect messaging points tonight, but President Biden wasn’t capable of counteracting them in real time in a convincing way,” said Henrietta Treyz, managing partner and director of economic policy research at the consulting firm Veda Partners.

“The silver lining is that Trump provided a metric ton of problematic sound bites tonight and we can expect those to be used in ads on every medium from here to the moon over the next four months. Every woman in America will see ads on TV, mobile and on mailers reminding them of Trump taking credit for overturning Roe v. Wade,” said Caitlin Legacki, a Democratic strategist and former adviser to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo.

“Joe Biden lost the country tonight, and will not get it back. If Trump is a threat and democracy is on the line, then Biden must step aside. His duty, oath and legacy require an act of humility and selflessness,” said Steve Schmidt, a former Republican political strategist who co-founded the anti-Trump Lincoln Project.

Photo by Paul Weaver on Unsplash

Late last night, your favorite pundits recorded an episode of The Convocation: Unscripted. Listen here for our very unscripted comments.

We did the best we could:

The biggest loser? Our democracy.

On this front, it’s a lot to take in. We’ve been working for years to fend off threats from an authoritarian Right, only to see Biden (and, it’s fair to say, the Democratic Party) fail to step up in such a critical moment.

As someone who was never particularly partisan and whose activism has always been motivated more by a commitment to preserving liberal democracy than advancing any one party’s interests, it’s hard not to feel betrayed by both parties right now.

Where does this leave us?

The landscape hasn’t changed. The dangers to democracy are real and present. And, as Jemar reminds us here, it’s still in our hands.

What we do now matters more than ever.