The 11th and possibly the final debate of the Democratic Presidential primary showed that while Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders generally see eye-to-eye on how to tackle the coronavirus in the United States the chasm between their policy proposals, the vision for the country is as wide as ever. While Biden stuck to his return to normalcy policy agenda along with a few notable additions, Sanders never wavered from his revolution. That revolution now seems to be at the end of its cycle.
The lead-up to the debate was dominated by the government’s botched response to the spread of the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) in the US. The mixed messages from the White House were met with shrugs from masses of the population even though doctors in charge said that drastic measures needed to be taken. The Trump presidency’s inadequacies were laid bare as the stock market stepped off a cliff and brutal price war between Saudia Arabia and Russia led to global oil prices tanking. Worse still while the rest of the world was focusing on widespread measures to stop the spread of the disease, Donald Trump seemingly put his fingers in his ears and wished the virus away.
The debate then became an ideal moment for a Democratic candidate to step up and look like the only adult in the room. This was a moment to look presidential, to seize the electorates attention and make the case for why they were best suited to take on and replace Donald Trump.
Unfortunately, it just didn’t play out like that. What should have been a vital debate and essential watching turned out to be as empty as the room they stood in. The collective mind of the nation was instead focused on whether schools, business and restaurants would be open on Monday morning. People were worried about being laid off, having health insurance, groceries selling out and when if ever this sense of national and global dread would end. It was theoretically the right time to debate but the timing was just off. If Trump had taken his fingers out of his ears long enough to listen to the experts in the room, the public messaging about COVID-19 would have been very different.
In an alternate universe where Trump and the word competent can be used in the same sentence the US public would have had clear and direct messaging about what how to mitigate the spread of the virus, widespread testing would have started two weeks ago and there would have been no need for the panic that ensued. If that happened the debate would still have been relevant. Suffice to say even in failure Trump manages to destabilize the Democrats.
What we were left with was a debate that while feisty at times lacked a sense of purpose. Biden has become the overwhelming favourite for the Democratic nomination and this would essentially be Sanders last stand. Unlike the previous 10 times he took the stage Bernie seemed ready for a fight and laced into Biden’s questionable voting and spoken record.
The tersest exchange was when Sanders took his time and questioned Biden’s record on cutting social security. When asked point blank if he ever said that he would cut social security on the senate floor Biden looked Sanders straight in the eyes and said no. It was an incredibly brazen lie. When asked about his views on abortion Biden lied again. And when asked about his views on voting for the Iraq war Biden lied again. Which begs the question if there’s no one around to hear it, is it really a lie?
The fact that Joe Biden has a spotty voting record and has been to the right of a lot of democratic issues across his career will come up when he eventually takes on Donald Trump in the fall but on Sunday night he effectively smothered all talk of that by announcing that his vice-presidential nominee will be a woman. The move which Sanders essentially echoed while admirable was undercut by the tokenism of his earlier statement where he said he would appoint a black woman to the supreme court. It was neither a bold nor brave move on his part because it came off as him trying to pander rather than actually believing qualified black women should take up the position. He first mentioned a potential black female supreme court justice at the debates in South Carolina but since then had yet to explain why and how we came to that decision. It will also inevitably lead to other questions, why not an Asian American or South Asian American woman? There isn’t a fine line between intersectional feminism and pandering; it seems like Biden has chosen which side he stands on.
If ever Sanders needed an audience, Sunday night was it. He finally managed to link his revolution to the current moment in a way that felt urgent and tangible. The Senator from Vermont skewered Biden on his record and every time he needed a roar of approval from the audience he got nothing. Sanders feeds off the energy of crowds and because of the virus, they were debating in an empty studio. It was sad to see possibly his best debate performance ever go unnoticed by a public that rightfully was preoccupied with COVID-19 and how it would destabilize their lives.
In the end we were left two old men standing six feet apart from each other arguing over intangibles in an empty room. If no one was there to see it, did it really happen?
Nader Rahman is a freelance journalist based in New York
