A Clash Of Visions: Thursday’s Debate Features Donald Trump Standing For Optimism And Renewal Against Joe Biden Embodying Pessimism And Decline

A general sense of fatalism about the prospect of Donald Trump’s impending return to the White House seems to have swept over the mainstream media – and is the subject of much behind the scenes chatter in Washington’s corridors of power.  We now are almost in July. While it is true that there are still five long months to go between now and Election Day, which is tantamount to many lifetimes in politics, the idea of a second Trump administration has become more than just a chance happening for many on the Left who have worked long and hard over nearly a decade to vanquish the Apprentice from our national politics for good.  But all their efforts seem to have been in vain.  Indeed, at this juncture in 2024, President Trump appears more formidable than at any point in his entire political career.  He has transitioned from Apprentice to Master.  This includes at this same point in 2016, the election he won legitimately, when he was still facing a mountain of obstacles, including an obstinate Republican establishment led by John McCain and Mitt Romney, who were reluctant to forfeit the mantle of their power to a brash populist insurgent.  

Donald Trump looks even stronger now than he did prior to the breakout of COVID in early 2020, when the country was enjoying a roaring economy and general sense of optimism about the future – before the yellow menace sprung from a laboratory experiment in Wuhan, financed by Bill Gates and Anthony Fauci – that would plunge the entire world into darkness, making it easy for Democrats to exploit unlawful last minute rule changes to illegitimately cakewalk their way into the Oval Office.  This gave their globalist philosophy of governance, which should have been dead and gone with Barack Obama’s departure from national politics, a new lease on life.  

Fewer than four years later, that lease on life appears short-lived.  Its personification is the geriatric Joe Biden, who, although only in his early eighties, looks at least a decade older – and acts and behaves the part of a dementia ridden outpatient who will not go quietly into that good night, even though most of the world wishes he would.

The looming sense of dread by the mainstream media is reflected in the headlines of legacy newspapers.  The New York Times, for instance, has been running article after article of late about a second Trump administration.  Exemplifying this point, a recent article was headlined, “The Real Danger if Trump Is Re-elected.”  Other recent articles have boasted such headlines as “A Felon in the Oval Office Would Test the American System” and “Trump Has Been Convicted. Can He Still Run for President?”, all of which seem to grapple with the impending political reality that the 45^th President’s faux “conviction” in a New York kangaroo courthouse did little to thwart the momentum of his political campaign.  In fact, there is a ton of countervailing evidence to support the belief that it propelled him in the polls even more.

Thus, the sense of dread by the mainstream media, which loses credibility whenever it takes an especially critical view of President Trump, has slowly but surely transformed into fated resignation.  And the views expressed in recent Times articles are ubiquitous across the mainstream media landscape.  From The Atlantic’s “If Trump Wins” to The Economist’s “Donald Trump’s return is making Hollywood nervous” to Bloomberg’s “Prospect of a Second Trump Term Demands Preparation, Not Panic,” the general tenor of these outlets has shifted markedly in recent weeks from denial to quiet acquiescence. 

This has been buoyed in part by the sham show trial, which rather than sinking the President’s campaign, as many of them hoped, actually had the opposite effect.  Donald Trump is currently enjoying some of the best poll numbers in his political career.  In 2016 and 2020, mainstream polling never had him in a competitive position in states like Virginia, Minnesota, and Nevada.  Now, many reputable polls – not just right-leaning outliers – have him leading in all three.  Others, like Emerson and Rasmussen, have gone a step further – showing him to be within reach in once deep-blue states like New Jersey and New York. 

This suggests that millions of Americans are waking up to the malaise that defines Joe Biden’s atrophied regime.  Malaise, a familiar term from the Carter years, might be too soft a word to describe our harsh state of affairs under Joe Biden.  America experiences decades-high inflation, wide-open borders bringing tens of millions of illegal, military-age migrants from lands as far away as the Middle East and Southeast Asia, and a two-tier system of justice that has weaponized the Department of Justice against Donald Trump and his most loyal supporters.

What makes our present difficulties so harsh is the fact that Americans don’t have to go too far back in time – only four years ago – to remember what things were like under President Trump.  We had an economy more prosperous than at any point over the past fifty years.  Illegal migrant crossings were brought to a complete halt.  ISIS was all but defeated, and the world was at its most peaceful that it has been within living memory.  Even more would have been done if not for the false hoaxes peddled by the Washington Swamp, from the Russian collusion myth to the recalcitrance of both party establishments to support many of President Trump’s cornerstone policies, from the border wall to infrastructure reforms.  

Nevertheless, despite the unprecedented internal opposition President Trump faced in his first term, it was still one of the greatest four year runs in modern American history – and tens, if not hundreds of millions, of Americans appropriately give credit to Donald John Trump, where credit is aptly due.   And now, when juxtaposed with the disaster that has been the Biden Regime, where political dissidents have been punished with heavy-handed justice, and where America has in every sense — politically, economically, demographically — sold itself out to the world, the people are longing for the days of the Pax Trumpicana – the era of peace, prosperity, and order.

Donald Trump and Joe Biden, although relatively close in age, are worlds apart in aptitude, temperament, life philosophy, and general vision for the country.  This will be acutely on display on Thursday evening, when the two meet head to head for the first time in nearly four years.  Of course, the playing field will be rigged in Biden’s favor.  Trump, as always, is being forced to head into enemy territory and play by the arbitrary and capricious rules set by CNN, which will do everything in its power to accommodate Joe Biden.  Expect sudden rule changes last minute.  The prospect of allowing Biden to sit in a chair, because he cannot stand for an hour and a half on his own at his ripe age, has been entertained by Team Biden.  Perhaps he will need a break midway through to use the bathroom or change his undergarments – much as what appeared to be the case in his recent trip to Normandy.  Also, there is always the possibility that Biden will be spoon-fed questions from the network beforehand.  After all, CNN has a history of doing these acts of political favoritism.  In 2016, Hillary Clinton had advanced knowledge of the questions that were to be asked in the debate.  In 2024, it would not be a surprise to learn if Biden was given an earpiece – maybe they will call it a ‘hearing aid’ – in order to be given the answers in realtime by his campaign team or network producer because he has proven himself unable to think on his feet.  

This prospect, seemingly farfetched, gains credibility after observing the incident that occurred on CNN just yesterday.  Karoline Leavitt, President Trump’s national press secretary, was abruptly cut off by CNN commentator Kasey Hunt when being interviewed on her morning show.  Leavitt was not even given the opportunity to finish her sentence; Hunt, who appears to have been given the order from her producers through her earpiece, proceeded to have an on-air meltdown by Leavitt’s responses.  Rather than address Leavitt’s legitimate concerns about CNN not being able to put aside their history of anti-Trump biases and conduct a fair debate in a mature and ‘adult’ manner, Hunt instead had the equivalent of a temper tantrum.  She claimed that it was unbecoming of any guest to “attack” a colleague.  But Leavitt was not acting wantonly or gratuitously. Nor was she even in attack mode. She merely raised concerns about Jake Tapper who peddled the Russia conspiracy theory for years on air, which did real damage to President Trump’s first administration before that whole narrative was debunked and went up in smoke upon the Mueller report’s findings that no collusion ever occurred.  

CNN could have picked any one of its dozens of anchors to moderate the debate – instead, it chose the man with perhaps the longest history of anti-Trump animosity on the network in Tapper.  Of course, CNN is not known to be a bastion of Trumpism.  But there are varying degrees of TDS among CNN’s pundits; alas, Tapper’s affliction is right up at the top of the list for among the worst.  

Nevertheless, even under these circumstances, Donald Trump has done the gentlemanly thing and agreed to debate Biden – and with a smile on his face.  What should give the 45^th President confidence – separate and apart from the mounting enthusiasm from the grassroots as reflected in the surging poll numbers, historic rally crowd sizes, and unprecedented amount of money pouring into the campaign coffers from business leaders to small money donors – is his record of achievements as President of the United States.  

What President Trump was able to accomplish in just four short years, despite every odd, speaks for itself – but, when placed against the horrors of Biden’s presidency, his greatness is cast in a whole new light.  And Americans know it. More business leaders are comfortable openly rallying to President Trump’s side in television appearances, podcasts, newspaper articles, and press statements than ever before. Millions of regular Americans, including in deep blue states and urban areas, now wear their MAGA gear openly and proudly.  Former Democrats and Independents are flocking to the Trump Train in droves; the 45^th President has made significant inroads with demographics once considered a lock for the Democratic Party, like Latinos and African Americans.  

While there is still a long way to go until November, and nobody should rest on their laurels, the momentum behind President Trump is undeniable.  No amount of debate rigging can diminish that fact, which will be readily on display Thursday night – because the enthusiasm behind Donald Trump is, to put it in terms familiar to his rally attendees, too big to rig, a motto that applies equally to debates as it does to elections.  

Paul Ingrassia is a Constitutional Scholar; Communications Director of the NCLU; a two-time Claremont Fellow, and is on the Board of Advisors of the New York Young Republican Club and the Italian American Civil Rights League. He writes a widely read Substack that is regularly posted on Truth Social by President Trump. Follow him on X @PaulIngrassia, Substack, Truth Social, Instagram, and Rumble.