Column:
Trump and Biden town halls showed us two worlds, and only one of them is
terrifying
By REX HUPPKE
CHICAGO
TRIBUNE |
OCT 16, 2020 AT 11:33 AM
Toggling
between former Vice President Joe Biden and President Donald Trump taking
questions in separate televised town halls nearly killed me.
I’ve been
dizzy for hours and still can’t spell my name. Each time I close my eyes I see
a flashing image of a calm expanse of ocean followed by a flashing image of
Pennywise, the murderous clown from Stephen King’s novel “It.”
Clicking
from one town hall to the other Thursday night felt like being atomized and
transported to one reality only to be scrambled up and rocketed through a
portal to a reality altogether different.
Biden, on
ABC, was speaking calmly and intelligently about specific policy issues, from
climate change to the coronavirus pandemic. Trump, on NBC, was speaking angrily
and refusing to denounce bizarre conspiracy theories while showing off his
ability to know shockingly little about anything.
During
the town hall, Mercedes Schlapp, a senior Trump campaign adviser tweeted: “Well
@JoeBiden @ABCPolitics townhall feels like I am watching an episode of Mister
Rodgers Neighborhood.” Aside from misspelling “Rogers,” she was absolutely —
and I’m quite sure unintentionally — correct.
Listening
to Biden speak with empathy, kindness and understanding was like hearing the
calming voice of Mister Rogers, a man beloved by Americans of every political
stripe. We’ve had four years of the antithesis of Mr. Rogers and his
Neighborhood of Make-Believe in the White House. We’ve had Mr.
GRAHHHHHHHHHHHHGERS, the angry overseer of the Land of I-Can’t-Believe-This-Is-Happening.
On ABC,
Biden spoke of decency and bringing Americans, both Democrats and Republicans,
together. He even complimented Trump on brokering bilateral agreements between
Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.
On NBC,
Trump defended a tweet he shared on his Twitter account that alleged Osama bin
Laden’s killing was staged and that members of Navy SEAL Team 6 had been killed
to cover it up.
“That was
an opinion of somebody and that was a retweet,” Trump said. “I’ll put it out
there. People can decide for themselves.”
On ABC,
Biden was asked about protecting the rights of LGBT people and answered by
sharing a story from his childhood. He saw two men kissing for the first time,
turned to his dad and his dad said: “Joey, it’s simple. They love each other.”
On NBC,
Trump was asked by moderator Savannah Guthrie if he would denounce the QAnon
conspiracy theory, an outlandish pile of dangerous nonsense that revolves
around a staggeringly baseless belief that Democrats are involved in a satanic
pedophile ring.
Trump
claimed to not know much about QAnon, though he has repeatedly shared tweets
from Twitter users who support the conspiracy: “What I do hear about it is they
are very strongly against pedophilia and I agree with that. I mean I do agree
with that.”
Guthrie
asked: “But there’s not a satanic pedophile cult …”
Trump
responded: “I don’t know that.”
It was
then that my soul briefly left my body. I think it needed to scream into the
void.
I clicked
to Biden and he was talking about the importance of wearing masks to slow the
spread of the coronavirus.
I clicked
back to Trump and he was wildly misrepresenting a study he clearly hadn’t read
and saying — insanely and absolutely incorrectly— that 85% of people who wear
masks get coronavirus.
At one
point I returned to Biden’s town hall and wondered why my stomach had stopped
shooting acid into my throat and my brain didn’t feel like it was about to
explode and send my eyeballs flying across the room.
Back to
Trump and he was trashing Obamacare while promising a health care plan he
couldn’t articulate — because it doesn’t exist — and claiming state coronavirus
restrictions are a conspiracy against him.
It was
like jumping from a rerun of PBS’ soothing Bob Ross show “The Joy of Painting”
to a scene of a hyena devouring a wildebeest on Animal Planet.
These
were not two candidates with different views on governing. These were two
candidates who exist in entirely different realms, one tethered tightly to a
world most Americans can see and relate to and the other spinning violently
away to a dark and noise-filled world of self pity and paranoia.
That
might explain why the first Trump-Biden debate was such an explosive debacle.
These two worlds can’t intersect.
Those who
prefer the delirium of Trump’s world surely viewed Biden as boring, but holy
Moses, let me tell you, there are those of us who think boring sounds beautiful.
Hearing a serious person say serious things without yelling or disparaging
others is a welcome respite from four years of unending dingbattery. (It has
been so bad I had to make up a word to describe it.)
I doubt
the two town halls changed the minds of many voters.
Bouncing
back and forth between the events changed my mind only in the sense that it may
now be permanently altered. The cognitive dissonance of all-caps TRUMP vs.
regular Biden bruised my thinking meat, breaking down synapses then building
them back again, simultaneously embedding nightmares and infusing an unfamiliar
sense of serenity.
It nearly
killed me. But it was worth it to get a fleeting reminder of what normal looks
like.
