I didn't watch the debate. I knew it would be painful. The reality is the perception of the debate and media reaction is the important part. I knew I could see all the pertinent highlights in a two-minute segment, and I did. These debates are not even really debates in the classical sense. We aren't talking Lincoln/Douglas here. This was nothing but two cognitively impaired old men incapable of speaking in complete sentences lying and insulting each other. No wonder SNL isn't funny anymore. Reality is beating them to the punchline these days. That is not to say these debates aren't important. Nixon lost to JFK in 1960 because he was exhausted from a whistlestop campaigning strategy from another era and didn't understand how modern media worked. JFK was primed and ready and that debate turned the election.

I think it is a pretty good bet that Biden is done. Once Jon Stewart, Rachel Maddow, and the View bitches want you to drop out of the race, it is pretty much a done deal. The media is the real power broker at the end of the day. I worked with dementia patients one-on-one for 8 years. I saw this coming way back. Biden is failing fast too. No way will he withstand the pressure of a presidential campaign from here on out, much less be an effective president. Even his post-debate speech sounded like grandpa getting mad because you are threatening to take away his car keys. His brain is fried. The Democrats have a problem though. Who else can they get to run? No way will Harris or Newsome win, and I don't see anyone else on the horizon. That is how Biden got his shot in the first place, lack of competition.

Trump really didn't win the debate either. He was basically debating a lobotomy patient. It made Trump seem relatively sane and sharp, which he isn't. He also has some pretty amazing word salads coming out of his mouth and I detect some early onset dementia going on with him too. Remember, Trump is 78. That age deal can be turned on him also. He is basically just a con man, a cheat, and a liar. Any pretty sharp debating student from a junior college could have beat him. I think even he was amazed at how out of it Biden was. Biden missed countless opportunities to slice up Trump good, but he wasn't able to.

As an optimist I always like to end on a happy note though. Presidents don't have near the power we are led to believe they have. They are the showbiz division of politics and we have had our share of wacky presidents historically. The system itself is still very robust and was designed that way, though it may be fraying around the edges. It is the electorate that is the weak spot. It will not be the end of the world no matter who wins, at least not for me at 73. I am not too fearful of a civil war either. We are too pussyfied for that anymore. The most we will do is send nasty Tweets to each other, or maybe if we get real mad throw our smart phones at our enemies. As long as the Illuminati and the Bilderbergers are in control, I feel pretty safe. At least they know what they are doing.