Narrative Front: Stand back, and stand by
The first presidential debate of 2020 began with low expectations from both candidates, with neither truly appealing to the majority of working class Americans; President Trump through his failure to deliver on his campaign promises of ending bad trade deals with China, to former Vice President Joe Biden authoring and approving deals like NAFTA in the first place back in the 90’s. What unfolded was an absolute scathing unintentional satire on the state of cultural health in the USA. Between the constant insults, interruptions, complete disregard for debate protocol, this alone is enough to make one discount the value of even participating in the catastrophe that is US politics. But these debates are, whether we like it or not, part of the history of our nation. We must confront this reality and take the words and strategies put forth by our prospective leaders, both in terms of policy and in terms of political positioning, as their truest representation of what they will do to our country should we elect them in November.
The moment I want to talk about occupies but a small portion of the debate, no longer than a minute or two. When asked by moderator Chris Wallace: “Will you commit today to call on white supremacists and right wing militias to ‘stand down’?”, Trump unleashes a fury of verbal smokescreen to try and distract the audience from the original question before finally answering “stand back and stand by”.
It is very difficult to perform the mental gymnastics necessary for seeing it as anything other than what is clearly a message from Trump to domestic extremists that he does not want them to stand down. I think transcends the realm of authoritarian tendencies into the much more grave reality of overt, violent, autocratic behavior. We’ll see where October takes of course, and I hope that I’m wrong about raising alarm bells about this sort of rhetoric. But as people who value the freedom of speech and thought we are all aware that words carry weight, power, and influence. Let us be ever vigilant of rhetoric used by all in power, and always hold them accountable for the things that they say and the things that they do.
