Talking to the Chair

MSNBC personality Joy Reid, who I think is partly made of sunshine, raised a point a couple of times before last night's debate between Impeached Preznit Carnage Not Actually a Billionaire and Captain Scranton of Scranton Scranton: Why is the Trump team working so hard to lower expectations regarding their opponent?

That's not the normal strategy, that's for sure. Yinz usually want to talk up your opponent, talking about oh, we're working real hard to prep our guy, cuz he's sure gonna need it. Then, when your opponent turns in a ho-hum performance, they have not even come close to the high bar you've set in the meeeeeedia. But hey, leave it to the Trump team to eschew conventional wisdom. Again.

That and Impeached Preznit's entire approach to the debate I think is informing. Do you remember Clint Eastwood at the 2012 Republigoat Convanshun? Eastwood made up a pretend Barack Obama who he said was sitting in this chair, and then he really told imaginary President Obama off!

Republicans love to talk to the chair. Impeached Preznit apparently loves to bully and growl at the chair. See, Impeached Preznit's strategy seems to have been to unsettle a mentally unstable Joe Biden who they had convinced themselves was mentally unstable and who would, under any slight pressure, start pulling at his sweater and humming Louis Prima songs while bobbing back and forth like a little girl.

They invented a Joe Biden who doesn't exist and prepped to bully that Joe Biden into a stupor. But that Joe Biden doesn't exist. The Joe Biden who showed up last night was wearing a blue suit and big red cape under there.

And not only was Joe Biden swinging like Superman, he was also drawing in like an everyman. His pained grimaces, his pointed barbs; Joe Biden got to tell Impeached Preznit Carnage Not a Real Billionaire things to his face that I've been barking at my television for months. You're the worst president America has ever had. You wouldn't know a suburb unless you took a wrong turn. Why don't you just shut up. Clown. Irresponsible fool. Putin's puppy. Those were cathartic words. And I don't think that was the Joe Biden the Trump campaign expected to encounter.

Because Republicans prefer to talk to the chair rather than to actually do the work.

I smell a landslide.