Just imagine the answers Trump will give in the
debates
Opinion by
Columnist
August 21, 2020 at 6:45 a.m. CDT
President
Trump continues to say loopy things. “If you want a vision of your life under a
Joe Biden presidency, imagine the smoldering ruins of Minneapolis, the violent
anarchy of Portland [and] the bloodstained sidewalks of Chicago coming to . . .
every single town in America,” he said at a speech
in Scranton, Pa. But of course that is his take on America right now. Under
his presidency. He said former vice president Joe Biden wasn’t really from
Scranton. “He wasn’t born — I view it differently. He’d say he was born here.
But he left when he was like 8, 9 or 10. So he left 68 years ago, he left. Long
time ago. So I view it differently. He wasn’t born here. He abandoned
Scranton!”
I
suppose “He wasn’t born there but he abandoned it” is the newest birther
conspiracy. (Biden was a child when his father lost his job and had to move the
family to Delaware.)
Trump
tells very big lies (coronavirus is almost gone) with great frequency. (He’s
claimed credit for the Veterans Choice Program more than 150 times.
Then-President Barack Obama signed it into law in August 2014.) He continues to
claim Russia meddling in our election was a “hoax.” He welcomes QAnon but
rejects the science of climate change. He has one of the worst records on jobs
of any American president (another 1.1 million first-time
unemployment claims were filed last week), and will not agree to a bill to
extend the weekly $600 unemployment insurance supplement. He lies when he says
he inherited an economic mess. (That was Obama.)
He
insists falsely that no president has been tougher on Russia but won’t raise
Russian bounties on American troops with Vladimir Putin. He encouraged China’s
President Xi Jingping to build re-education camps for Uighurs, says Kim Jong Un
loves his people, pulled troops out of Germany, thinks China pays for tariffs
and is convinced the trade deficit is like a bill we have to pay. He sides with
Putin on the U.S.S.R.’s rationalization for going into Afghanistan, on Russia’s
interference with our election and on readmitting Putin to the Group of Eight
(now the Group of Seven).
Any
number of his ridiculous assertions become fodder for the presidential debates,
potentially launching him to spew one word salad after another. It is also
possible that he will have a fit if asked perfectly reasonable questions.
Alternatively, he might just confirm his crackpot ideas:
·
Why didn’t you follow Obama’s pandemic road map?
·
·
How did Obama manage to create more jobs than you?
·
·
Why do you accept the support of QAnon, a conspiracy labeled by
the FBI as a domestic terrorist threat?
·
·
Would you withhold aid again to a foreign power to get damaging
information on a political opponent?
·
·
Do you think if everyone votes, Republicans will never win?
·
·
Why would you file a lawsuit to take away Obamacare during a
pandemic?
·
·
Why did you let your daughter and son-in-law make millions of
dollars and not liquidate their holdings when they worked in the White House?
·
·
You said the police kill more Whites than Blacks, but aren’t
Blacks killed at a rate disproportionate to their population? Do you think
there is no systematic racism?
·
·
What attracts so many convicted criminals to your campaigns? Or
do you seek them out?
·
·
Do you still think there were very fine people on both sides in
Charlottesville?
·
·
How do you reconcile paying off two women with whom you had
extramarital affairs, separating families at the border by force and deporting
parents of “dreamers” with “family values”?
·
·
You promised the families of children killed in Parkland, Fla.,
that you would support tougher background checks. Why did
you break your promise?
The
topics are nearly endless; the opportunities for hilarious pratfalls plentiful.
And that
brings me back to my underlying suspicion that he might think up some excuse
not to show up to all (or even any) debates. (Rigged! Biased
moderators!) I for one hope he shows up. Biden might even let Trump have
all his time.
