Should Joe Debate? May 3, 2024May 15, 2024 He’s announced that he will. I think there are two good options: OPTION #1 He announces he’s changed his mind after reading this article — and refers all further inquiries to that article. OPTION #2 He debates, with this opening statement: Donald is a better debater than I am but a much worse candidate to be President and let me tell you why: [turns to Trump] Donald, you’ve proven yourself to be a serial liar and a loser who cannot lose gracefully or even admit defeat. > You write love letters to dictators who murder journalists and political opponents. > You’re a tool of Vladimir Putin in his quest to conquer Ukraine and reconstitute the former Soviet Union. The only part of the 2016 Republican Party platform you touched — the only part! — was not about real estate or taxes or the problems of working men and women – it was about weakening our support for Ukraine. > You failed to improve on Obamacare even though you claimed to have a secret plan to deliver — and I quote — “terrific health care at a tiny fraction of the cost.” The only piece of that plan you revealed was Step One: REPEALING it. Your Republican colleagues voted over and over — 52 times! — for repeal but never succeeded, thank God. > You failed to make any progress on infrastructure, even though you called week after week “Infrastructure Week.” > You don’t do your homework. Being a GOOD president requires a lot of actual work, not just watching TV, throwing paper towels to hurricane victims, and playing golf. I could go on and on, but the biggest reason you would make a terrible president is that what you really want to be is a dictator, not a president. That’s in part because you admire dictators — you even started your 2016 campaign with a quote from Mussolini, for crying out loud — and in part so you can shut down the multiple criminal cases pending against you, for which you are currently out on bail. So go ahead and win this debate by being loud or bullying or making up what you call “alterative facts.” But no matter how many $60 Bibles you sell quoting “two Corinthians” to raise cash to pay your lawyers, may God keep you from realizing your unAmerican vision of vengeance and retribution. I’m good with either option. The second would actually give him a chance to be heard — even on Fox — by people who don’t usually hear “our side” of things. It would give him a chance to quote Trump’s staunch Republican critics, starting with Nikki Haley, who aptly dubbed him the “chaos” President . . . Tucker Carlson (in private texts he never expected to become public) . . . and dozens of Trump’s own high-level appointees . . . and, for sure, Lindsay Graham and Ted Cruz, using their words from before Trump bullied them into submission, the way “strongmen” (think Putin and Mussolini) do. There would have to be some ground rules — read that article — but they would apply to each candidate equally. Let me know your thoughts.