Hail to the Grief

On the presidential debate.

The Beach at Trouville by Claude Monet (1870)

As a child of the Nineties, I recall an inquisition in which President Clinton was harangued for receiving consensual relief from a young intern.

The Clinton Affair burrowed into our television sets for what seemed like years. On the screen, Clinton's tormentors could not quite bring themselves to describe in plain English the offending act, the residues of which stained an infamous blue dress.

Perhaps then was the beginning of this age of euphemism. We seldom say what we think, and we seldom think what we say.

Back then, when I asked my parents what President Clinton had done wrong, neither proffered the truth. My father, though, was strangely attentive whenever a young, curvaceous woman appeared on the television.  

Later, I learned the truth. In proletarian English, President Clinton got a blowjob from a coquettish intern named Monica Lewinsky. He then lied about it. Today, the Clinton presidency, despite its many successes, is synonymous with fellatio.

How refreshing, then, to witness momentarily the winds of linguistic honesty.

On the debate stage last night, Donald Trump said clearly: I didn't have sex with a porn star. He did not say, I did not have sexual relations with a member of the sex industry. That instance, and that instance only, was a brief triumph in what soon devolved into a theatre of sloganeering and cant.

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President Biden shuffled on to the stage as if he'd woken up hammered in the middle of an ice rink. Confused, bewildered, his hands shaking, his lips quivering, Biden extinguished any hope residual in the three-quarters of Americans who say he is too old to be president.

His lines, though well-crafted and amusing, strangled themselves in the low, garbled din of his voice. It was as if each sentence, cleverly phrased and sharply pointed, got lost between his throat and his tongue.

One instance was acutely painful. When attacking Trump's tax cuts for the richest Americans, Biden serpentined off the road and into quicksand. His sentences disembowelled themselves. Topping a garbled statement akin to a Chinese finger-trap, Biden blurted out: "We finally beat Medicare."

As usual, the American penchant for advertising patter and hyperbole defined the debate. America, her young culture prone to overstatement, draws toward extremities like a moth to a lightbulb. This debate was a masterclass in American bipolar disorder.

Trump claimed the US was 'being destroyed' at the hands of the 'worst president in our country's history.' Biden's reply was equally and cartoonishly lopsided. Biden's America is the 'most admired country in the world.' With 'nothing beyond our capacity.' According to Biden, America's history—all 248 years of it—is the 'finest in the world.' Allow your British narrator, whose country actually built the modern world, to press firmly on the doubt button.

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The rule changes to this early season debate helped Trump. Moderators agreed to cut a candidate's mic once their allotted time had finished. The distinct lack of a whooping and hollering audience focused the debate into one unnervingly free of Trump's dirty-bomb boorishness or bullying insults.

The split screen did not help Biden. Whenever Trump was talking, Biden's face hung an incredulous expression akin to a nursing home resident staring blankly at a cryptic crossword puzzle. Reader, I say that without satirical flourish—there's no need to exaggerate what played out before our eyes.

When Biden routinely veered off-course, Trump offered no route back, instead allowing Biden to wade through a syntactical treacle of his own making. For calculated stretches of the evening, Trump adopted a cactus-like indifference to a man lost in the desert. Dehydrated, hallucinating, and driven mad by the punishing sun, Biden meandered in ever-decreasing circles. Help did not arrive.

What would Trump or Biden do about the many issues ordinary Americans discuss between bar stools and smartphone screens? Not much. On the economy, taxes, crime, inflation, immigration, we learned little beyond the realm of slogans.  

We learned a lot about golf. Trump is a better golfer than Biden. No. Biden is a better golfer than Trump. Who can pee the furthest? Perhaps they're saving that for next time.

For Biden voters, it got surreal. In an astonishing development, Donald Trump said, 'Let's not act like children.' And he came off better! For a brief moment in time, Donald J. Trump appeared to be the grown-up in the room. Yes, seriously.

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What came next was frankly inscrutable. In the debate's aftermath, Jill Biden addressed a crowd as if she were commanding a kindergarten.

Embodying the total victory of self-esteem culture, Jill Biden lavished praise upon her husband. Her tone was that of a mother successfully deploying a spoonful of pureed string beans into her toddler's mouth. "Here comes the helicopter!"

Reader, it wasn't funny. It was sad. Your Millennial narrator was transported back to primary school where self-esteem dictums insisted that every sponge-brush composition of a three-legged dog was a Louvre-worthy Monet.

"Joe! You did such a great job. You answered every question!" she gushed. "You knew all the facts! Let me ask the crowd: What did Trump do? He lied!"

Incredulous, I expected the audience to echo in child-like unison with 'Umm-umm-umm-umm-ummmm,' just like we did as five-year-olds when disapproving of a naughty wolf who routinely blew down straw houses.

Then I remembered this is not The Three Little Pigs. There is no Big Bad Wolf. This is the United States of America. That cruelly diminished man, his mouth agape, his pupils dilated, is the leader of the free world.

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