As I begin this post, I wonder how many of my countrymen read what happened last night as another of the many indications of how far this mighty country has fallen. Are there people who witnessed that debacle as saddened as me?

Let me just begin by saying that among the biggest if not the biggest, of the travesties of the “debate” probably went unnoticed by most, but it struck me like an axe handle upside the head – we have become so inured to the lunacy by which we are constantly inundated that everyone climbed into their lazy boys and popped open a beer and actually believed they were about to watch a presidential debate. The biggest travesty of the debate is that so many gullible Americans actually thought it was a debate.

There were two “moderators” who would attempt, and probably succeed at convincing their audience that their offering for the night would be a genuine face-off between two people who, with the purported mandate of the voting public would make a case for why each of them deserved to occupy the purported highest office in the land, and that the choices before them were somehow the most qualified to inherit said office. There are around three hundred million people in this nation and these two men are the runners for the office of president. This ain’t right, folks.

Jake Tapper and Dana Bash might well be two of the highest paid and well-known actors in the country pretending that what they were moderating was an actual contest and that their audience, the voters of the U.S., somehow actually believed (many of them did) this farce was the real deal. It was a clown show of the highest order and Jake and Dana were the ringmasters for the night’s performance. Suffice it to say that even if elected to the office, neither of the two contestants would be in control of anything. The real contest is between the puppet masters who would be in control of whichever of these men might win the election, and that really isn’t much of a contest either, because the same puppet masters would control whichever of them wins anyway, but for the bread-and-circus aspect of the show, the audience needs to believe, or at least pretend to believe there might be a difference in how they would run things if elected.

I’m doing my best to stay away from the substance of the “debate”, mainly because there was none, and not to demean or attack either of the contestants, because as we all know both of them would be and are, easy prey. I’m trying to drive home the point that this was not a substantive debate on issues of import to the voting public, it was reality TV at its worst. The discussions today are about how demented someone is, or how narcissistic one of them might be instead of where they stand on given issues or what the difference might be in their positions on items of concern, and rightfully so – these men have no business even being considered for the office of President of the US, but here we are. We are listening to pundits talking about whether or not President Biden would “last” through another term, but the poor old codger is not lasting through this one – he can’t. Who are we trying to fool? Enough on Biden – I’m trying not to go there.

The truth of the matter is, and everyone knows it but afraid to bring it up, the people surrounding the president are directing him, and would be if Trump wins. Exactly the same. There are the real string pullers who will instruct the nominee who to select and put into his cabinet, then as now, the real puppet masters will make all the decisions, especially those concerning foreign policy, and through those cabinet members, will relay their edicts through whoever the Blinken or the Sullivan of the next administration turns out to be, and the very same people who will be running the show that are running the show in this administration.

Nothing will change as a result of this “election” regardless of which one of the contestants win. This “debate” is simply bread and circus for the masses, as it will continue until late into the night of the election with drowsy-eyed rednecks reeking of stale beer glued to the TV as the California results are counted and cursing the TV as Trump vote counts come up short in precincts around LA as they knew would happen anyways.

This was not a debate. Neither of these men will make any difference on anything important to American voters. Sure, they might toss a bone out to the masses on some variation of their position on abortion – the string-pullers couldn’t care less either way on abortion so a pretend president would be allowed to make a show out of his stance, but I guarantee neither of them could make a decision on starting or not starting a war or discontinuing foreign financial aid to certain countries. Neither of them could open a new investigation into the events of 9/11. There are many issues over which the president would be expected, and should be able to make calls, but with the stranglehold that oligarchs have over our entire government, the president of the US is simply a marionette of the wealthy.

This was not a debate.

MK