The point of the debates, in the final analysis, is to provide information to undecided voters. With such a polarizing president, who are these people in 2020? I answered that question in a post a month ago; they either wanted to see if the condition of the country would improve before the election, or they had unanswered questions about Biden’s strength and acuity.
Trump clearly agreed with my analysis, because his strategy for the first debate was to try to shake Biden and thus win over the second kind of undecided voter. It was a high risk, high reward approach, and it failed miserably. He came across as an obnoxious lunatic, and it cost him votes.
Instead of doubling down, he switched tactics last night in an apparent effort to win back the ground he lost at the first debate. While there was plenty of obvious untruth, ludicrous grandiosity and narcissism, and laughable absurdity in his presentation, he did not sound insane. As a result, he cleared the ridiculously low bar he created for himself, and he may have clawed back a few of the wavering supporters who had fallen off his bandwagon after the first debate.
But in the end, he accomplished nothing. Biden is still standing. He didn’t sound like a feeble, senile old man to the undecideds. Trump is far behind; he needed to do far more than prove to his supporters that he is still on his rocker. The election is still a referendum on him and his response to the pandemic. He can’t win that argument.
At least not in a fair fight. It’s all about vote suppression and the law now. If Biden wins Florida on November 3, it’s over. If he doesn’t, the nightmare scenario is upon us, and the question will be whether all of the lawful votes in the swing states will be counted.