The best case I’ve heard for Joe Biden yet is that, by virtue of becoming the president, he’ll shut Donald Trump up. At the first 2020 presidential debate on Tuesday, September 29, Biden convincingly made this case himself as he repeatedly tried to shut down Trump’s incessant bluster with frank demands and insults. At times contrasting with an incoherent Trump and a flustered moderator, Fox News anchor Chris Wallace, Biden was occasionally able to do the only thing that felt worth doing: shut down the conversation entirely.
At one point, Wallace asked Biden where he stood on packing the Supreme Court, an idea that’s been floated by some as a way to mitigate the influence of a conservative majority. Biden said he didn’t want to take a stance, saying that would “become the issue,” as he believes the outcome of the 2020 presidential election should determine the future of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s vacant seat.
But Trump seemed to see a chance to press Biden on the topic, badgering him with the question. He accused Biden of planning to put more judges on the court should he be elected, mentioning the “radical left,” who Trump invoked as a bludgeon against Biden all night.
“Will you shut up, man?” Biden responded. “This is so un-presidential.”
“That was really a productive segment, wasn’t it?” Biden joked as Trump didn’t let up and Wallace attempted to regain control of the conservation. “Keep yapping, man.”
Those quips played well on television and they’re already being merchandised, the kinds of punchlines made for T-shirts and bumper stickers. The schtick may feel done to death by the time we get through two more presidential debates, each of which could have chaotic moments just like Tuesday night’s. But after seeing Trump and Biden on stage for the first time together, I don’t want to lose sight of just how great it would be if we all could stop listening to Donald Trump speak.
Including 2015, when his campaign began, we’ve all spent five years listening to Trump. In that time, we’ve heard him demean countless people, his remarks always amplified by the outrage they produce. The repetition of that cycle creates a feedback loop of waiting for his next tweet or the next leak from his administration, documents of his behind-the-scenes efforts to identify a new target for the headlines it’ll generate. If you pay attention to him for long, it can feel like tumbling down a hill, rolling and bouncing and getting knocked around and bruised up — and what if that could just stop?!
What if the descent that is the mere act of having to pay attention to Trump could end? It’s not much on its own, to be honest! Simply replacing Trump at the center of national political attention with Biden doesn’t end wars or create universal health care or meaningfully address climate change. It doesn’t end racism or capitalism or imperialism. But given the cumulative psychic impact of paying attention to Trump, there would be something merciful in ending the sheer necessity of having to do so.
Maybe I’m being selfish! Maybe I’m just a political journalist who is going to have to react to whatever any president says, and the thought of it being anyone other than Trump is appealing. But as someone who’s struggled to find enthusiasm for Biden’s candidacy for more than a year, I currently need any possible reason to believe that the former vice president can launch a successful electoral intervention into Trump’s authoritarian trajectory.
The kind of Trumpian line that inspires the exact mass-psychic anxiety I’m talking about came up last night, when the president told the Proud Boys, a far-right extremist group with a reputation for street violence, to “stand back and stand by.” Proud Boys have been active in Portland, a hub of police brutality protests that the president had made a focus of his “law and order” crackdown. Even that remark, a shoutout that has reportedly been celebrated by the Proud Boys, came as Trump seemed to be brushing aside the suggestion that he seriously condemn white supremacist groups or militias.
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