President Trump knows how to make good TV.
While he might be delusional in just about every aspect of his presidency, he’s not lying when he boasts that his Apprentice ratings were sky high.
The president understands one thing that has always worked in his favor: crazy sells.
And last night was no different. Instead of having an in-person debate, because the president may or may not be a one-man superspreader of the coronavirus, thanks to NBC News with their pressed asses, voters had to choose between competing town hall events. When Trump turned down an opportunity to do a virtual debate, former Vice President and current Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden signed on to do a town hall event with ABC. Not to be outdone, the president of people who wear EZ-drinker beer hats to Little League games was saved when NBC News came running with their “We will take these ratings at all costs” asses and gave Trump a competing time slot on the same night. The result was a loss for the people who couldn’t watch both events at the same time. Thank God there are DVRs so people could record Biden’s to watch later because who are we kidding? The president is shit for the country but he makes great TV.
And he didn’t disappoint Thursday as he refused to denounce QAnon, the far-right conspiracy theory that Trump is fighting a secret international ring Satanic cult of pedophiles made up of Democrats. Safe to say this group doesn’t believe any of the Tump sexual assault accusations or those Jeffery Epstein stories—you know the guy Trump used to kick it with.
But that wasn’t all; the president also claimed that there were trash cans full of ballots with his name on them. He also wouldn’t denounce or explain this wild-ass tweet that he retweeted claiming that Osama Bin Laden was still alive.
“People can decide for themselves,” he said.
“I don’t get that,” moderator Savannah Guthrie said almost exasperated with the president’s stupidity. “You’re the president, not somebody’s crazy uncle.”
But is he? I mean is the president more than just the crazy uncle in the White House? Methinks not.
And this is how Biden lost the battle of the town halls. The crazy uncle is fun at Thanksgiving. There is a good chance that he’s going to steal grandpa’s good whiskey and sit in the basement until he’s good and sauced and come upstairs butt naked and pee all over the living room floor. Who wouldn’t want to see that? The problem for the rest of America is no one wants to live with the crazy uncle. No one wants to wake up to a house that’s almost burned to the ground because the crazy uncle decided to try and fry some potato salad. And no one wants to be governed by the crazy uncle because he’s fucking crazy.
While viewership numbers don’t mean shit, Trump reportedly won the night online while Biden won actual TV viewers because only QAnon members watch live TV online.
From Newsweek:
On YouTube, ABC’s live stream of Biden’s town hall had around 2.8 million views at the time of writing. However, Trump’s town hall was streamed on the NBC News, CNBC, and CNBC Television YouTube channels, and had 1.9 million, 1.6 million, and 1 million views, respectively.
From the Wrap:
On ABC, Biden drew 12.7 million viewers from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. On NBC alone, Trump got 10.4 million viewers in the same time slot.
So what did Biden viewers get? They got steady answers from a polished politician who is ready to take office. Sike; they got Joe Biden, who was made to answer for some of the stupid Joe shit he’s said in the past.
From CNN:
One clear window into Biden’s tactics in a town-hall setting, with voters pressing him one-on-one, came when a young Black man recalled the former vice president’s flip comment to radio host Charlamagne tha God that if someone was struggling to decide between supporting him and Trump, “you ain’t Black.”
“Besides ‘you ain’t Black,” the man asked, how could Biden convince Black voters to take part “in a system that has failed to protect them?”
Instead of addressing his controversial remark, Biden delved into a several-minutes-long litany of policy specifics aimed at helping Black people. On his list: Tripling Title I funding for low-income schools; helping first-time homebuyers with a $15,000 credit for down payments so that low-income families can begin to build wealth; $70 billion in new funding for historically Black colleges and universities; and government-backed loans for young Black entrepreneurs.
Asked if he’d heard enough, the young man responded, “Uh, I think so.” Then Biden offered to continue their conversation after the town hall ended.
What does any of this mean? Who the fuck knows as one candidate was on NBC blowing his racist saxophone, the other was on ABC blowing smoke up everyone’s asses. (While I’m sure I’ve used this turn of phrase correctly, I have no idea what blowing smoke up someone’s ass means. Seriously, think about it. What does it mean? Anyone?)
Trump campaign senior adviser Mercedes Schlapp tweeted that watching Biden’s town hall “feels like I am watching an episode of Mister Rodgers Neighborhood” but she fucked up the diss by spelling Mister Rogers wrong. It kind of sums up the whole night. Mister Rogers might be one of the most beloved Americans in the history of America. Fucking Tom Hanks played him in the movie of his life and Tom Hanks only fucks with beloved Americans! Do you know how fucking putrid you have to be to use wanting to live in a world in which Mister Rogers’ level of kindness is a diss?
But it wasn’t just Schlapp’s misspelling that was wrong, it was also her comparison of Biden to Rogers. Biden is no Mister Rogers unless when the cameras were turned off, he popped that collar loose, took off that cardigan and started swinging it around his head looking for some action!
And what we witnessed last night was a glimpse of what America has been stuck with since the beginning: a choice between crazy racist uncle Trump and the guy who is way too touchy and sometimes says racist shit that he swears he doesn’t mean because he just drank too much.
Trump may have stolen viewers but without Russia’s interference or the countless attempts by Republican governors to suppress the vote, he won’t steal this election.