07/09/2024
THE STUPIDEST PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE IN AMERICAN HISTORY
by Jim Baines
Chair, LPME
Part 1 of 4: Why We’re So Much Better Than Biden and Trump
While I was putting together a Libertarian perspective of the first 2024 Presidential Debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, I realized I had far too much material to put in one article. I felt it was best to break them down into four short parts – why we’re better than Biden and Trump, what they got wrong, what they got right, and what they can’t control.
A lot has been made of the age of the octogenarians running for the government’s top spot, Biden’s geriatric stammering, and Trump’s continuous bloviating. Neither seemed very presidential on that debate stage, yet here we are, and no matter how bad it gets, the Biden and Trump camps continue to defend their guy to the hilt.
So, how did we get here? It starts with the strange-hold of the two party system, and ends with futility and complacency. This hold goes far deeper than the presidential race, of course. In many states, there’s a constant battle where Democrats and Republicans band together to pass laws that suppress other parties from being recognized. In Maine, the two corporate parties passed a law that would throw out an individual’s voter registration if that party didn’t meet a threshold. That law was deemed unconstitutional in a federal court, and the Libertarian Party soon reregistered 5,000 Maine voters to earn recognized status once again.
What does that have to do with this debate? All of this protectionism has led to an abysmal display on a debate stage for something that is supposed to be so vital to the world’s existence. However, since Republicans and Democrats won’t allow other candidates to debate with Trump and Biden, they perpetuate this false narrative that voting is binary. More importantly, they’re scared to death of losing power. They’d rather waste everyone’s time perpetuating hate toward disagreeable concepts, and defend whatever partisan dreck represents them, than actually work solving problems, and God forbid, actually admitting that they wrong before about their policies and personnel choices.
The end result of two sets of blind eyes is two old men pointing fingers at each other, with no fresh ideas, no allowance of other voices, and no responsibility admitted on how overspending has made our nation worse (unless the other guy did it). We got here because too many have accepted a system as is, instead of being Americans, and challenging what is wrong.
Next: Part 2 – What Biden and Trump got Wrong