For all of the instability which has wreaked havoc upon America during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 there have been two constants - at least where it concerns the 2020 presidential election.
First, Joe Biden has consistently held a 6%-7% lead over President Trump.
Second, the first constant notwithstanding, is that Biden continues to be underestimated.
Much of that underestimation has come from Trump himself who has repeatedly dismissed Biden's capacity to function claiming that he has been hiding in his basement and cannot speak in complete sentences without the aid of a teleprompter. Trump epitomized this sentiment in his interview with Chris Wallace of Fox News this past July:
Biden can't put two sentences together. They wheel him out. He goes up -- he repeats -- they ask him questions. He reads a teleprompter and then he goes back into his basement. You tell me the American people want to have that in an age where we're in trouble with other nations that are looking to do numbers on us.
For good measure, Trump went on to claim, "Joe doesn't know he's alive, OK? He doesn't know he's alive."
Let's also consider what Trump had to say at one of his "super-spreader" rallies in Fayetteville, North Carolina on September 19th. (The one where he claimed, "You'll never see me again," if he lost to Biden.):
He's always using a teleprompter. I don't care if he uses a teleprompter. You know what bothers me? That means the fake news is giving him the questions. They never gave me the questions.
Even when Trump says he isn't underestimating Biden - he's underestimating him. Consider what the President said of Biden during the very same rally in Fayetteville:
No, but don't underestimate him. Look, he's been doing this for 47 years and I got a debate coming up with this guy.You never know! You never know! They gave him a big fat shot in the ass and he comes out and, for two hours, he's better than ever before, you know.The problem is what happens after that. Nah, we're gonna ask for a drug test. We are. Both of us. I'll take it. He'll take it.
Trump reiterated his desire that Biden take a drug test on Twitter only yesterday and mocked Biden when he would not play his game earlier today. Although Biden campaign deputy chair Katie Bedingfield quipped, “Vice President Biden intends to deliver his debate answers in words. If the president thinks his best case is made in urine he can have at it,” before assailing that Trump "pissed away the chance to protect the lives of 200,000 Americans." If this a preview of what Biden is going to do in tomorrow night's debate then Trump had better watch out.
Other members of the Trump family might want to watch out as they have similarly disparaged Biden. In July, Donald Trump, Jr invoked his younger half-brother when he tweeted, "In all fairness, Joe Biden is not capable of debating Barron Trump let alone Donald Trump."
Don, Jr's younger brother Eric, during an appearance on Fox & Friends earlier that month, claimed Biden did not have the "aptitude" to debate his father. He further claimed:
No one has seen Biden. The guy has been in his basement for the last four months. He hasn’t been out. The few times he has been out, he’s stuttered through sentences, he hasn’t been able to get through a cohesive thought and they’re literally trying to convince the guy not to get on the stage where you’d have 40-50 million people each time see somebody who could potentially become the commander in chief of the free world.
Such commentary selling Biden short is to be expected from Trump and sons. Yet there is similar level of underestimation going on among those who would prefer a Biden presidency. Indeed, Eric Trump was commenting upon New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman's suggestion that Biden not debate Trump unless the President released his tax returns and agreed to fact-checking during the debates. Given the exposition now by Friedman's own paper regarding Trump's tax returns this demand would seem moot. Yet Friedman isn't alone in this way of thinking.
Late last month, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also called upon Biden not to debate Trump on similar grounds. During a news conference on Capitol Hill, Pelosi stated, "I do not think that the President of the United States has comported himself in a way that has any association with truth, evidence, data, and facts."
Yet Friedman and Pelosi's sentiments can also be read as a lack of confidence in Biden. If Trump's opponent were Barack Obama would Friedman, Pelosi or anyone else be calling upon Obama not to debate Trump? In a recent article in The Atlantic titled "The Debates Could Seal Biden's Fate", Edward Isaac-Dovere noted the anxiety in Democratic circles concerning Biden's performance:
Almost every Democratic operative I've spoken with in the past few weeks remains petrified that Biden is going to bungle to debates in a way that costs him the election -- perhaps by looking old or confused, confirming the worst paranoia and conspiracy theories about him being unfit for the job. They see the debates as Biden's best chance to blow an election that, based on the current polls, seems like his to lose.
Even if Biden should stammer or even stumble during any of the three debates, it is hard to conceive how these shortcomings could carry the same weight as the deaths of 200,000 plus Americans this year as a result of Trump's incompetence and malevolence during the world's worst pandemic in a century not to mention the economic cataclysm, social unrest and racial injustice which has followed. As actress Angela Belcamino tweeted back in June, "Who else but Trump could bring back the 1918 pandemic, the 1929 Great Depression, and the 1968 race riots all in one year?" When we add, Trump's business losses which have allowed him to pay little or no federal income tax one must wonder what verbal gaffe could Biden make that would be equivalent to what Americans have experienced under Trump in 2020?
In the grand scheme of things all this underestimation of Biden by both the Trump camp and by his own ostensible allies might turn out to a blessing in disguise. In underestimating Biden during the debates, he has the opportunity to exceed expectations. How many people in American public life have managed to exceed expectations in 2020 much less the past four years?
I suspect that by the time the first debate has ended (which Wallace will have moderated) that Biden will have removed all doubt as to his capability to be our next President of the United States. I suspect Trump will have wished he would have got a big fat shot in his corpulent ass after Biden has given it a swift kick.
Biden will balance being able to stand toe to toe with Trump by demonstrating calm, competence and compassion - qualities sorely lacking in our current President. At which point, Trump will all but stop calling Biden's cognitive capacities into question and instead attempt to portray him the avatar of a socialist revolution powerful enough to hurt God and destroy Christianity and civilization itself. It will represent an exercise in futility as few voters view Biden as a revolutionary figure while many view Trump as a revolting figure.
Should Biden be able to exceed expectations during the debates then there is also the hope he can exceed expectations in the White House.
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