Scars and stripes; Donald Trump and Joe Biden’s rotten example in TV debate – The Yorkshire Post says

PERHAPS British politics isn’t so bad after all.
Graeme Bandeira's latest cartoon of President Donald Trump.Graeme Bandeira's latest cartoon of President Donald Trump.
Graeme Bandeira's latest cartoon of President Donald Trump.

That’s one clearcut conclusion which can be drawn from the most unedifying debate in American history as the toxic and, often, tawdry exchanges between Donald Trump and his challenger Joe Biden degenerated into a depressing new low.

A setpiece occasion that will be remembered solely for the insults, insinuations and interruptions, rather than any constructive policy proposals, the hostility merely confirmed the extent to which a deeply divided United States has become diminished by the sloganism and shouting that so characterises contemporary debate.

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This wasn’t democracy in action – it was the political equivalent of an ugly bar-room brawl, played out in front of the world, as two ageing political leaders, totally unrepresentative of modern America, slugged it out for the right to call themselves the de facto leader of the free world. And while President Trump is being rightly condemned for his vacillation over white supremacists, his refusal to accept the result of the November 3 election is even more ominous because the US does not appear to have a fraud-proof system of postal voting. “This is not going to end well,” he warned.

President Donald Trump speaks during the first presidential debate with Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden.President Donald Trump speaks during the first presidential debate with Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden.
President Donald Trump speaks during the first presidential debate with Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden.

Yet, while that last caustic remark was made in the context of his veteran challenger who has many questions to answer over his economic approach, it’s a foreboding warning about the fragility of America’s democracy. It risks the ‘land of the free’ being bereft of credibility unless its respected former presidents can persuade both candidates to bring some dignity to a campaign which is setting such a rotten example to the USA and a world watching on in bewilderment. And despair.

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Thank you

James Mitchinson

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