{"id":36071,"date":"2020-09-30T06:58:34","date_gmt":"2020-09-30T14:58:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=36071"},"modified":"2020-09-30T06:58:34","modified_gmt":"2020-09-30T14:58:34","slug":"debate-train-wreck-shows-us-in-no-position-to-lecture-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2020\/09\/30\/debate-train-wreck-shows-us-in-no-position-to-lecture-the-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Debate ‘Train Wreck’ Shows US in No Position To Lecture the World"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reprinted from Responsible Statecraft<\/a> (Quincy Institute) with permission.<\/i><\/p>\n

It was called \u2018\u201cthe worst debate in American history\u201d by more than one pundit and cable news anchor.<\/p>\n

The graphic descriptions<\/a> of Tuesday night\u2019s presidential debate between incumbent Donald Trump and challenger Joe Biden began mounting on social media and spilling over into Wednesday\u2019s headline stories. The most used: \u201ctrain wreck\u201d and \u201cdumpster fire.\u201d CNN\u2019s Dana Bash figured it was the night to break protocol: \u201cI\u2019m just going to say it like it is. That was a shit show.\u201d<\/p>\n

The highly anticipated event devolved early into bickering and interruptions, with moderator, Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace, having to reprimand the president several times to wait his turn, reminding him at one point that his campaign had agreed to the terms for letting his opponent speak for two minutes, uninterrupted, during responses. <\/p>\n

The evening rolled over the broad domestic issues that only emphasized today\u2019s domestic divide: Trump\u2019s Supreme Court nomination, the coronavirus pandemic, economic recession, racial strife. Rather than leading to a substantive discussion on the candidates\u2019 records or plans, each question immediately gave way to squabbling and sharp personal attacks.<\/a> Biden called Trump a \u201cracist\u201d and a \u201cclown.\u201d Trump repeatedly and aggressively demanded Biden talk about his son Hunter\u2019s business in Ukraine; at one point he sneered that Hunter was \u201ckicked out of the military\u201d for \u201ccocaine use.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

To say the least, foreign policy, especially in any manner that Quincy Institute staff had hoped would be explored<\/a> Tuesday night, was not on the menu. Aside from a rapid volley about Trump blaming China for COVID and his early response during the pandemic, there was no talk about the trade war or increasing tensions with Beijing. The words Iran or North Korea never passed their lips. The only mention of Russia was Trump insisting one could not trust their COVID numbers. The issue of climate change and alternative energy actually invoked China, for a minute. (Trump blamed them for lagging in pollution control; QI\u2019s Rachel Odell was able to provide a speedy riposte<\/a>).<\/p>\n

But given the way issues like health care became an excuse for launching ad hominem attacks or cast each other\u2019s leadership in apocalyptic terms, it might be best they didn\u2019t <\/i>talk about foreign policy last night.<\/p>\n

“For once we might be the big winners if this debate concludes without ever mentioning our issue area!” declared Eli Clifton, QI’s investigative reporter.<\/p>\n

But there was a more serious takeaway by members of the Quincy Institute staff: it was clear from the embarrassing spectacle that the United States needs to be taking care of its house first, before telling other countries what to do. In other words, that \u201cshining light on the hill\u201d needs a massive light bulb change.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only right thing is to put a pause on our democracy promotion programs until we’ve fixed things at home,\u201d noted QI Executive Vice President Trita Parsi. Earlier he had tweeted<\/a>, \u201cImagine the number of countries panicking that we might decide to export democracy to them.\u201d<\/p>\n

The idea that the world was watching – in horror, or laughing, possibly both – was not lost.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe debate said all it needed to say about foreign policy. Who could watch it and think the United States is the indispensable nation that must dominate the world by force?\u201d quipped Stephen Wertheim, Deputy Director of Programs and Research for QI.<\/p>\n

QI President Andrew Bacevich, blaming Trump for the mortifying display, noted how the debate was just a symptom of America\u2019s civil degradation. He invoked the first televised presidential debate in 1960. \u201cFrom Kennedy vs. Nixon to Trump vs. Biden: one expression of American decline.\u201d <\/p>\n

Kelley Beaucar Vlahos is a Senior Advisor at the Quincy Institute and Contributing Editor at Responsible Statecraft. She comes to QI from The American Conservative, where for the last three years she served as the magazine\u2019s executive editor and remains a co-host on the Empire Has No Clothes podcast. Follow her on Twitter @VlahosAtQuincy<\/a>. <\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reprinted from Responsible Statecraft (Quincy Institute) with permission. It was called \u2018\u201cthe worst debate in American history\u201d by more than one pundit and cable news anchor. The graphic descriptions of Tuesday night\u2019s presidential debate between incumbent Donald Trump and challenger Joe Biden began mounting on social media and spilling over into Wednesday\u2019s headline stories. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":69,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-36071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/69"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36071"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36071\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36073,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36071\/revisions\/36073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36071"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=36071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}