Debate Night!

Show me someone who doesn’t know tonight is the final debate between US presidential hopefuls Trump and Biden! From the moment I awoke this morning – no, throughout the past three days – I have been consumed by the upcoming event!  It surprised me to learn when speaking today with a long-time friend in Nova Scotia that he and his gun dogs are able to bear the deprivation. He said he’d prefer to drink his martini in peace! It is perhaps a poignant notification that we for our part have descended to the vulgarity of the groundlings.

The Pit, or yard, was the area located around the stage. There was no seating – the cheapest part of the Globe Theater and the audience had to stand. The stage structure projected halfway into the ‘ yard ‘ where the commoners (groundlings) paid 1 penny to stand to watch the play.

Nonetheless I stand by two imperatives. One, the election of November 3rd pivots Americans on a decision which apart from possibly restoring the Union may also signal the obliteration of down-ballot Republican candidates and the Republican party of John McCain. Two, this so-called debate will be Trump’s last stand before he goes to jail. After four years it is a certainty that at tonight’s performance no amount of coaching to the contrary will inhibit this manifestly unwell man from his usual braggadocio.

While Canadians – and foreigners generally – can bellow from a convenient distance “I told you so!” it doesn’t begin to capture the more specific fallout upon the thinking American public.  The issue of the preservation of democracy has surfaced with uncommon frequency throughout the Trump administration. It may be premature to fret about it; but I’m wagering that many Americans seek to calibrate the deeper meaning of the seemingly impenetrable divide which daily deepens into a chasm. Such unimaginable subjects as universal healthcare and education threaten to collide with capital individualism. The former has traditionally not been an utterly competing ambition. But things are now at a point when everything matters, including the often forgotten elements of perspicacity and social propriety. Not to mention the blunt observation that things have changed, that we’re all living in a different world and just maybe we all have to learn to care for one another.

The unspoken alternative is not something we should be tolerating or anticipating – that is, the relentless reduction of society to accommodate a narrowing fortuity.

Anticipation, anticipation
Is makin’ me wait
Keeping me way yay yay yay yay-ittin’
Just like Grease was the word
“Mute” hails tonight, silence, unheard
While it’s muted, will there be leakage
Could, by chance, there be some seepage
Final face-off, what it’s called
Anybody gonna be enthralled
Fifteen minute segments there will be
An hour and a half is what we’ll see
Kristen Welker is her name
A thankless job is the game
Trump not like her-radical, unfair
Skuttlebutt, however, not compare
First question, first answer- turn off the mike
No exceptions, both treated alike
Ditto with all the questions
Civilized it is, avoids transgression
Duel action next
We’ll see what muscles they will flex
Twelve days and counting, that’s the deal
Will this debate prove who is real
  
Plexiglass scrapped, there’ll be no screen
Trump tested negative on
Air Force One
Biden the same, covid there’s none
But Trump yelled “covid“ many times today
Fake news, he says, that’s all they say
He says it’s going
But facts say it’s growing
Did either one practice
Or fall askeep on a mattress
Biden remained quiet, strategized his moves
Trump tried out attack, at rally he proved
Big, big night, who’s gonna watch
Probably many if candidates kick things up a notch
So sit back for a significant event
Or rant and rave on the edge of the couch and loudly vent

Random Thoughts by Rocci Fisch