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About Last Night: Debate Debacle Edition

Andrew Donaldson
5 min readJun 28, 2024

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Trump was who he always is. Joe Biden was a shocking, hard to watch shell of himself on camera. That’s the story of this debate debacle.

Screengrab from CNN’s Presidential Debate

Since he announced his presidential run back in 2019, I’ve been wrong about many things when it comes to Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. Ol’ Joe, Sheriff Joe, President Biden, has, for the last 5 years or so, had a knack for delivering when he really had to. Left for dead in his 3rd primary attempt? Big comeback win, as his party looked into the abyss of a Bernie Sanders candidacy and ran, not walked, to the polls to nominate Joe Biden. Sharp enough to debate an incumbent Trump? He malarkey’d his way right through helped by a spastic Trump’s constant interruptions. Questions about his age and fitness in the general election? Yeah, but he’s “not Trump” and that was enough to win. State of the Union? Exceeded expectations. Whenever someone — like me — thinks President Biden might finally have played out the string, Joe figures out, lucks out, or finds a way to keep on keeping on, at least perception wise.

That is why last night’s debate was so jarring, and such an alarm to even the president’s most ardent surrogates and supporters. Joe Biden was incapable of doing it. Incapable of answering questions. Incapable of stringing thoughts together. With a few exceptions, incapable of retorting to the fire hosing of Donald…

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Andrew Donaldson
Andrew Donaldson

Written by Andrew Donaldson

Writer. Mountaineer diaspora. Veteran. Managing Editor @ordinarytimemag on culture & politics, food writing @yonderandhome, Host @heardtellshow & other media

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