This Just In – Tonight’s Presidential debate will be no ordinary event. It will be the closest thing to a WWE Smackdown/Rattlesnake Roundup that we’ll ever see. So here’s my three point plan for Joe Biden to wallop Donald Trump and send him home crying.
If Joe Biden can put Trump’s unfit temperament on full display, he’s won the race. There are several areas of Trump’s life that are vulnerable and Joe should focus on them more than reciting his record of achievement (which is substantial).
Step one. Berating him with laughter. From “Perry Mason” through “Law & Order,” crime shows frequently culminate in a scene with a loser male character blurting out the “why” of his confession: “She laughed at me. She LAUGHED at me. That’s when I strangled/shot/otherwise killed her.”
Each of Trump’s blathering rants (ranging from shark and electric boat danger to America not having enough water pressure to bathe) should be responded to with a chuckle and some variation of Reagan’s very famous and successful “there he goes again.” This will add up across the evening and Biden can periodically insert a reminder that his opponent never answered the policy question.
Step two. Say he’s stupid. Just say it. Trump thinks that because his uncle was an MIT professor, people should think that’s he’s a wicked smart guy. He’s not and he’s thin-skinned about it.
Biden should directly address and criticize Trump for his attempts to diminish and disparage the medical experts that made it possible for the United States to emerge from the pandemic via vaccines. Standing at the lectern in the White House and talking about injecting bleach into the human body – just talking about it – was wildly irresponsible, dangerous and just plain STUPID.
The Clorox company felt compelled to issue a statement immediately after that happened, telling people NOT to inject their product into their bodies or ingest it in any way.
Biden should applaud the work of the scientific and medical community and the public health service for heroic effort to serve Americans despite Trump’s insistence that the COVID-19 virus would just go away when Spring arrived … like the flu does annually. The best scientists in the world told him otherwise. He ignored them and many thousands of people died as a result.
Step three. This one should be reserved for the end. Attack the myth that Trump has “built a great company” and done anything other than squander a fortune that he inherited.
Biden should throw the following haymaker at Trump’s feet with his closing statement (to be followed by Trump’s):
This race is about character. My name is Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. My father suffered some business setbacks when I was very young and our family struggled financially. Eventually, we returned to the middle class through hard work.
I wasn’t the best student, but I worked hard and graduated from college. I got married, graduated from law school and practiced law briefly before running for office and beginning my career in public service as an elected official.
My father didn’t leave me hundreds of millions of dollars and a business to take over. My father gave me his love, his name and a strong work ethic with which to build my life and endure some of the tragedies that have befallen my family. I call on these values and my faith every day in this job. I don’t publish bibles for profit, but I have read my Bible. I think my father would be proud of my representation of his legacy.
If President Biden can throw that long overdue punch, Trump cannot take it. He will melt before our eyes just as if Dorothy Gale had doused him with a bucket of water.
(featured image via AP Photo)
Jean Bolduc is a freelance writer and the host of the Weekend Watercooler on 97.9 The Hill. She is the author of “African Americans of Durham & Orange Counties: An Oral History” (History Press, 2016) and has served on Orange County’s Human Relations Commission, The Alliance of AIDS Services-Carolina, the Orange County Housing Authority Board of Commissioners, and the Orange County Schools’ Equity Task Force. She was a featured columnist and reporter for the Chapel Hill Herald and the News & Observer.
Readers can reach Jean via email – jean@penandinc.com and via Twitter @JeanBolduc
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