Trump tone it down? That’s wishful thinking

The debate organizers have made a rule change for the second debate on Thursday between Joe Biden and Donald Trump that includes mute buttons.

When Trump and Biden face off on Thursday for a final televised debate, each candidate will have their microphones cut off while the other is delivering responses to questions.

During the 90-min debate, each candidate will have two minutes of uninterrupted time to respond to questions before they move on to open debate. The rule change from the non-partisan Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) comes after a chaotic first debate during which the presidential conductors spoke over each other, and Trump, especially, interrupted his opponent.

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Sadly, this satirical prediction made may well come true

Observers have been warning that given the unprecedented nature of this year’s election with the large numbers of people voting using mail-in ballots instead of in person on election day, previous methods of projecting results are no longer valid and should not be used even if that means the results will not be known until days later instead of on election night.

The media are on course aware of this problem but as this piece from The Onion suggests, they may not be able to withstand the pressure to call the result if they think that another network might be on the verge of doing so. In the media business where ratings is everything, the desire to be first can, sadly, overpower the desire to be right.
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Seth Meyers sums up the week’s news

It is disturbing that neither Trump nor his doctors nor White House spokespersons are saying when he last tested negative for the coronavirus, even as he insists that he plans to hold rallies and demands that the next debate on October 15 be held in person instead of virtually as the debate commission has decided. The fact that Trump seems to have later decided against traveling this weekend after saying that he would suggests that maybe, just maybe, wiser counsels have prevailed on him to not be so utterly reckless.

You want media attention? Say that you are an undecided voter

As the election draws nearer, reporters are fanning out trying to root out that very rare species, the undecided voter. I find it hard to imagine how anyone can be an undecided voter at this point. Elections with an incumbent running are usually a referendum on that person’s performance and Trump has been such an intensely divisive and polarizing figure that this time it will be even more so. I find it hard to imagine that any sentient being could not have formed an opinion of whether to vote for him or not. But yet there are people claiming to be so and the media is drawn to them as flies to honey.
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