Trump and Biden town halls showed us two worlds
Only one of them is terrifying
Toggling between formerVice President Joe Biden and President DonaldTrump taking questions in separate televised town halls nearly killed me.
I’ve been dizzy for hours and still can’t spellmy name. Each time I closemy eyes I see a flashing image of a calm expanse of ocean followed by a flashing image of Pennywise, the murderous clownfromStephen King’s novel “It.”
Clicking fromone townhall 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, onABC, was speaking calmly and intelligently about specific policy issues, fromclimate change to the coronavirus pandemic. Trump, onNBC, was speaking angrily and refusing to denounce bizarre conspiracy theories while showing off his ability to knowshockingly little about anything.
During the townhall, Mercedes Schlapp, a seniorTrump campaign adviser tweeted: “Well@JoeBiden@ABCPolitics townhall feels like I amwatching an episode ofMister RodgersNeighborhood.” Aside from misspelling “Rogers,” shewas absolutely— and I’m quite sure unintentionally— correct.
Listening to Biden speakwith empathy, kindness and understandingwas like hearing the calming voice of Mister Rogers, a man beloved byAmericans of every political stripe. We’ve had four years of the antithesis ofMr. Rogers and hisNeighborhood ofMake-Believe in the WhiteHouse. We’ve hadMr. 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 complimentedTrump on brokering bilateral agreements between Israel, theUnited Arab Emirates and Bahrain.
OnNBC, Trump defended a tweet he shared on hisTwitter account that alleged Osama bin Laden’s killingwas staged and that members ofNavy SEALTeam 6 had been killed to cover it up.
“Thatwas an opinion of somebody and thatwas a retweet,” Trump said. “I’ll put it out there. People can decide for themselves.”
On ABC, Bidenwas asked about protecting the rights of LGBT people and answered by sharing a story fromhis childhood. He sawtwo men kissing for the first time, turned to his dad and his dad said: “Joey, it’s simple. They love each other.”
OnNBC, Trumpwas asked by moderator Savannah Guthrie if hewould denounce theQAnon 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 knowmuch about QAnon, though he has repeatedly shared tweets fromTwitter users who support the conspiracy: “What I do hear about it is they are very strongly against pedophilia and I agreewith that. Imean I do agree with that.”
Guthrie asked: “But there’s not a satanic pedophile cult …”
Trump responded: “I don’t knowthat.” Itwas then thatmy soul briefly leftmy body. I think it needed to scream into the void.
I clicked to Biden and hewas talking about the importance ofwearing masks to slowthe spread of the coronavirus.
I clicked back to Trump and hewas wildly misrepresenting a study he clearly hadn’t read and saying— insanely and absolutely incorrectly— that 85% of people whowear masks get coronavirus.
At one point I returned to Biden’s town hall andwonderedwhymy stomach had stopped shooting acid intomy throat and my brain didn’t feel like itwas about to explode and sendmy eyeballs flying across the room.
Back toTrump and hewas trashing Obamacarewhile promising a health care plan he couldn’t articulate— because it doesn’t exist— and claiming state coronavirus restrictions are a conspiracy against him.
Itwas like jumping froma rerun of PBS’s soothing Bob Ross show“The Joy of Painting” to a scene of a hyena devouring a wildebeest on Animal Planet.
Thesewere not two candidates with different views on governing. Thesewere two candidates who exist in entirely different realms, one tethered tightly to aworld most Americans can see and relate to and the other spinning violently away to a dark and noise-filledworld of self pity and paranoia.
That might explainwhy the firstTrumpBiden debatewas such an explosive debacle. These twoworlds can’t intersect.
Those who prefer the delirium of Trump’sworld surely viewed Biden as boring, but holyMoses, let me tell you, there are those of uswho think boring sounds beautiful. Hearing a serious person say serious things without yelling or disparaging others is awelcome respite fromfour years of unending dingbattery. (It has been so bad I had to make up aword to describe it.) I doubt the two townhalls changed the minds of many voters.
Bouncing back and forth between the events changedmymind only in the sense that it may nowbe permanently altered. The cognitive dissonance of all-caps TRUMPvs. regular Biden bruisedmy thinkingmeat, breaking down synapses then building them back again, simultaneously embedding nightmares and infusing an unfamiliar sense of serenity.
It nearly killed me. But itwasworth it to get a fleeting reminder ofwhat normal looks like.