{"id":20319,"date":"2024-06-28T16:46:36","date_gmt":"2024-06-28T16:46:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2024\/06\/28\/trump-wins-big-by-letting-biden-be-biden\/"},"modified":"2024-06-28T16:46:36","modified_gmt":"2024-06-28T16:46:36","slug":"trump-wins-big-by-letting-biden-be-biden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2024\/06\/28\/trump-wins-big-by-letting-biden-be-biden\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump wins big by letting Biden be Biden"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"paywall has-gated-overlay gated-article-body\">\n<p class=\"speakable\">Going into Thursday\u2019s debate, I said the two candidates would have to fight their own worst tendencies to reassure voters. Rusty from years off the debate stage, they\u2019d have to reach out to that double-hater demographic, suburban doubters and independent voters. This small sliver of voters that remains undecided needed to be reassured in different ways.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"speakable\">From President Joe Biden, they needed to see a man who was in command, smooth and consistent in his delivery, who could defend a record that simply doesn\u2019t feel great to the average voter. They needed to see a man who laid to rest concerns about his age, or at least quelled them for a night, as he had done at the State of the Union.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>From former President Donald Trump, they needed to see a man who was temperate and disciplined, who could contrast his record with Biden\u2019s while controlling his bombastic personality quirks and tendency to re-litigate his worst moments and dwell on 2020.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The most advantageous version of both men that could show up was the State of the Union version. State of the Union Biden is more energetic and fluent, with a handful of policy points at his disposal, if disconcertingly loud. State of the Union Trump is Trump but more subdued, with a handful of ad libs.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Only one of those guys showed up, and the contrast was undeniable. Even the difference in the two men\u2019s voices in their opening statements told the story of the debate.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It was less than 15 minutes into the debate that Biden seemed to lose his train of thought, ending an answer with a nonsensical non sequitur: \u2018and we finally beat Medicare.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Trump capitalized, merely smirking as he waited for Biden to deliver his answer, then following up with a critique about how Biden \u2018beat Medicare. He beat it to death.\u2019\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Trump\u2019s uncharacteristic restraint, along with a debate rule that cut off mics to prevent crosstalk, let the current president bury himself instead of being rescued by Trump\u2019s interjections.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<div class=\"embed-media fn-video\">\n<div class=\"video-container\">\n<div class=\"m video-player\"> <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>In a disgraceful moment, Biden simply erased the 13 American servicemembers who were killed at the Abbey Gate in Afghanistan during the disastrous withdrawal.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Truth is, I\u2019m the only president this century that doesn\u2019t have \u2014 this decade \u2014 any troops dying anywhere in the world like he did.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Not only was Biden\u2019s mention of one of his most notable and deadly failures an unforced error, but Trump was able to retort:\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u2018And as far as Afghanistan is concerned, I was getting out of Afghanistan, but we were getting out with dignity, with strength, with power. He got out, it was the most embarrassing day in the history of our country\u2019s life.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Trump then used his best skill \u2014 comedic timing and a sense for good TV entertainment \u2014 to deliver the line of the night. After a somewhat rambling and mumbly answer from Biden on immigration, the moderator came to Trump.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u2018I really don\u2019t know what he said at the end of that sentence. I don\u2019t think he knows what he said either.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>He said what everyone was thinking. All of that happened in the first 25 minutes of the debate, the most-watched part of any debate, the part that the very people both candidates needed to reach were tuning in.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>There were arguably moments in which Biden was slightly better as the debate wore on, but it didn\u2019t matter. I struggle to remember even one punch Biden landed on Trump, even on easy subjects, like January 6.<\/p>\n<div class=\"embed-media fn-video\">\n<div class=\"video-container\">\n<div class=\"m video-player\"> <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>On the subjects of the future of democracy or abortion \u2014 the only issues on which Biden consistently leads with voters and which are supposed to form the basis of his whole campaign \u2014 Biden didn\u2019t lay a glove on him.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It was Biden, not Trump, who gave the most off-putting answer on the issue of abortion, leaving pro-choice activists tearing their hair out as he talked about women being raped by their in-laws. I\u2019ll let you try to decipher it:\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Look, there\u2019s so many young women who have been \u2013 including a young woman who just was murdered and he \u2013 he went to the funeral. The idea that she was murdered by a \u2013 by \u2013by an immigrant coming in, and they talk about that. But here\u2019s the deal, there\u2019s a lot of young women who are being raped by their \u2013 by their in-laws, by their \u2013 by their spouses, brothers and sisters, by \u2013 just \u2013 it\u2019s just \u2013 it\u2019s just ridiculous. And they can do nothing about it.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>By not becoming the story of the debate, Trump scored a big win. Biden became the only story of the night by delivering, as even his ally MSNBC host Joe Scarborough put it, \u2018the worst debate performance in modern history.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"quote-text\">Trump then used his best skill \u2014 comedic timing and a sense for good TV entertainment \u2014 to deliver the line of the night. After a somewhat rambling and mumbly answer from Biden on immigration, the moderator came to Trump. \u2018I really don\u2019t know what he said at the end of that sentence. I don\u2019t think he knows what he said either.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Democratic partisans and much of media are rightly freaking out in the wake of Biden\u2019s night, seeming to suddenly realize that the 81-year-old might not be up to the job. The number of times the word \u2018panic\u2019 is going to be used on MSNBC might surpass the number of border-crossings today.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>But Democrats are truly in a sticky situation if they want to accomplish their barely concealed dream of replacing Biden on the ticket in the summer of an election year. Biden has been running for president since I was a child. He seems unlikely to step aside without a fight. His wife, the figure closest to him, was at his afterparty congratulating him because he \u2018answered every question. You knew all the facts,\u2019 as Biden smiled woodenly at an audience that pretended not to see what was before their eyes.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>But pretending not to see what was before their eyes is what got Democrats here. The surprise you see today at Biden\u2019s decline from our elites is just them catching up with voters, 69% of whom in this week\u2019s NYT\/Siena poll said Biden is too old to effectively be president for another four years. That number is not new. This information is not new. What\u2019s new is they just realized they might not be able to get away with lying to all of us about it.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>This post appeared first on FOX NEWS<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Going into Thursday\u2019s debate, I said the two candidates would have to fight their own worst tendencies to reassure voters. Rusty from years off the debate stage, they\u2019d have to reach out to that double-hater demographic, suburban doubters and independent voters. This small sliver of voters that remains undecided needed to be reassured in different <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":20320,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-20319","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20319\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}