sonora2sonoma

Distraction, deception, diversion, talking points, one-liners, innuendo, baseless accusations, unblushing misrepresentations, barefaced outright lies, shameless and endless bluster; long on promises, short on accomplishments and equally so on substance; nothing in the way of planning, no information regarding implementation . . . To the president’s supporters and all the country’s other Kool-Aid drinkers, the recent final presidential debate amounted to a shining success; to the more discerning, to those in possession of their reasoning faculties—it was a megalomaniacal display of reality-turned-sideways blather, twaddle and jibber-jabber more properly suited to a psychiatric evaluation than a political debate.

The president’s throw-it-all-in-a-blender-and-see-what-comes-out debate performance was at once pitiable to behold and difficult to endure. His saddening and maddening attempts at transforming reality on a molecular level left particle physicists worldwide shaking their heads. Those hardy if self-punishing souls who forced themselves to endure the totality of the barrage were left feeling depleted, exhausted and faced with the dilemma of having to choose between taking a long shower, going to confession or becoming unrepentantly drunk.

As expected, Mr. Biden behaved like someone who actually cares about the welfare of those he seeks to serve, in contrast to the president, who seemed interested only in how he might use the office to continue the servicing of his personal interests. As Dana Milbank put it in the Washington Post, “Biden’s compassion accentuated trump’s soullessness. Biden’s common sense put trump’s fever dreams in sharp relief.”

So went the final debate between the two men who would have us choose which of them is to become the arbiter of our fates as we’re poised on the cusp of transformational change in a time of Covid, global warming and deep uncertainty, peering deeper into the first century of the third millennia while dancing the disturbing dance of destiny on the edge of Occam’s razor.

Tim Konrad

2020.10.25