These aren’t really “outs” so much as excuses they set up beforehand should the debate go poorly for them.
Not showing up at all allows people to paint him as a loser who backs down. I’ve never given much credence to that. All these sideshows are about what happens after. It sets them up to say “I didn’t lose - they cheated”.
If there’s anything we have learned over the last decade, it’s that he loves playing the aggressive bully who also loves shifting blame to others for his personal failings.
Until we see him set foot on the debate stage Thursday night in Atlanta, there’s a strong chance the former president chickens out and runs to the safety of a rally where he can comfortably air his myriad grievances and extract money from his gullible fans.
Huppke then hedges a bit and offers scenarios about how the debate might go down should it take place.
The first, as mentioned before, is Trump turns tail and runs away from the debate, screaming about how it’s unfair and he’s treated so horribly and everyone is out to get him …
The second possibility is Trump shows up to the debate and then, after having his microphone cut off a couple of times or hearing a question about his own behavior that he considers unfair, storms off the stage, creating a dramatic, faux-tough-guy scene he can use to raise more money to pay his copious legal bills.
If this happens, I hope the moderator simply acknowledges that one of the debators has declined to participate further, and continues the debate in Trump’s absence.
Biden is calm, measured, thoughtful, intelligent, deliberative, and mature → endless refrains of “Sleepy Joe;”
Biden is vigorous, animated, erudite, lucid, has an excellent command of policy and issues, and never lacks for a scathing retort → “Biden’s on DRUGS!”
Indeed. Which is likely why we haven’t seen reports of Trump being spotted with a device in his ear.
.
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I would guess that in response to Biden’s well-received performance in this year’s State of the Union, the Trumpists decided to go with “drugs” instead of with the 2020-popular “earpiece” because of how close House Speaker Mike Johnson was to Biden throughout the entire speech.
Johnson may even have said to the relevant Trump propagandists, ‘do NOT claim that Biden did well because of an earpiece because I am not willing to lie about seeing one in his ear and I don’t want weeks of people asking me to lie about it.’
More accurately, no matter what Biden does or doesn’t do, an ardent lying propagandist can lie about his performance to describe it as something negative.
And in a world where a whole lot of people believe only the liars, and never the truth, the lie becomes the truth. At least to that benighted faction who listen only to them.
I don’t think it will be either/or. They will work both of these angles simultaneously, with no regard whatsoever to the fact they are mutually exclusive. The MAGAts won’t notice.
Yes, but who outside the MAGA bubble will believe that Biden’s on some kind of magical drug that transforms a doddering old man with dementia into an energetic, forceful speaker with a sharp intellect? It’s a stupid argument, even for Republicans.
Flounce, Flounce, he’s heading on out,