On Tuesday night, at the beginning of a virtual meeting with members of the school honor society that I advise, students were excitedly discussing the upcoming presidential debate. I was impressed that a group of high school students would be that in tune with national politics. I don’t recall being as civically engaged when I was a teenager.
Today, the day after our first debate, I’m simply embarrassed. There aren’t enough adjectives to describe the utter disgrace that was this first presidential debate. I’m embarrassed to think how far we’ve fallen as a nation – embarrassed that those students who were so eager to experience democracy in action last night were subjected to such an abhorrent spectacle. The youth of this nation need leaders they can look up to. Instead, they’ve got Donald Trump.
Joe Biden didn’t quite hold up his end of the bargain either. He talked prior to Tuesday night about how he wasn’t going to allow himself to get dragged into the mud along with The Donald. He put up a valiant fight at first, but on occasion did sink to Trump’s level. Although in Biden’s defense, it must be next to impossible not to get sucked into such a powerful maelstrom of negativity, lies, and personal attacks.
Moderator Chris Wallace obviously wasn’t up to the task. I’ve seen colleagues who’ve had similar problems with discipline in the classroom. Then again, those teachers were dealing with children whose frontal lobes weren’t fully developed yet.
I keep coming back to the moment when Chris Wallace gave Trump a chance to denounce white supremacists – and he refused. He is not running against Joe Biden. He’s running against the election itself, against our Democracy itself, against America itself. Trump’s actions Tuesday night were those of a scared man who knows he’s in over his head, and has decided that if he’s going down, he’s going to take as many of us with him as he can.
DAN WILLIAMS
Concord