Opinion

Trump-Biden: first assault with Lake Erie as witness

photo_camera Joe Biden Donald Trump

This Tuesday morning, Spanish time, the first electoral debate in front of the television cameras between the two candidates for the presidency of the United States will be held at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, a few blocks from the shores of Lake Erie. The event will attract the attention of millions of television audiences around the world and will provide a first real insight into the state of the two contenders, who will be facing off for the first time since they were proclaimed by their respective parties in August. The election show, regulated legally in the United States by a bilateral commission of Republicans and Democrats, comes with the accusations against the president published in one of his black beasts, The New York Times, which has disclosed Donald Trump's income tax returns, or rather the absence of income tax returns, for the past 15 years. The information was kept in a drawer until the eve of the first of the three debates and came out forcefully to the extent that it forced Trump to reply quickly from Washington, not waiting for his first meeting after publication.  

Discerning how much damage this news will do to the Republican candidate is difficult, but we dare to predict how little. His election choices, even below Biden's on the surface, will not be altered by confirmation that he pays little tax in a country where paying taxes is considered little less than confiscating the national wealth generated by citizens. Most of them would willingly do as Trump, in a word. The Democrat mentality, which could be assimilated to the traditional left, sees taxation more as a system of popular justice in which those who have the most should pay the most. Thus, in USA 2020 they already have a reform ahead of them that is as big as that of Obamacare if Biden wins 270 votes in the Electoral College.  

Taxes aside, Trump's accusations were as far ahead of the curve as they usually are. The latest, which will be ammunition during the melee on television, refers to the questioning of the cleanliness of the elections because of his suspicions about postal voting.  In a modern democracy like America's, to hear a candidate who also heads the administration suspicious of fraud saying he will not hand over power peacefully is unheard of and says very little about the current state of politics in the first power.  So is listening to him call for a drug test for his opponent. But Trump is the B-side of the candidate and the traditional politician, and with the crisis of the system and values in the Western world his personality has been swept away in recent years, and we will see whether he continues to do so after November 3rd.  

The court battle will be another of the keys to the evening. The proposal of the conservative judge Amy Conie Barret to fill the vacancy left by Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death, a progressive in every respect, has turned the Republican majority in her favour on the Supreme Court. Not surprisingly, and by agreement of the two campaign teams, this issue will be the first of six to be debated for a quarter of an hour each on the night of Tuesday to Wednesday (the others will be the pandemic, the economic crisis, police abuse of the black population, integrity and leadership and, finally, the background of both candidates. Would two Spanish candidates accept this menu?) If this replacement operation in the high courts is finally carried out a few weeks before an election, it will be an undemocratic blow because it would be logical to wait for the new administration to make a new proposal to fill the vacancy, which will be for life.  

The moderator will be the last point to be considered in the face-to-face. Chris Wallace, a Fox News anchor, is not a referee bought for Trump, although he may appear to be. It is true that his network is the President's favourite, who supports it and attends all shows weekly, but the chosen moderator is not a saint of his devotion. He and his father, the legendary Mike Wallace, are often ridiculed when he speaks about the media. The journalist's expertise and experience predict few blunders on his part on the night of the 29th.  

Will there be any surprises on stage? It does not seem that public opinion is expecting a big blow from Trump this time, which could happen, but on the contrary a confident, calm Biden (Sleepy Joe, according to his detractors) is expected, defending the favourable wave of the polls and more concerned not to make his usual verbal mistakes in a programme to last 90 minutes. Trump will be baiting himself in all these circumstances that make Biden a fearful rival and not very inclined to leave home, and will appeal to break the excess of bureaucracy that the senator from Delaware represents. Biden's advisors have advised him not to go into the mud, a substance that his populist rival would always beat him to, under the correct theory that going down into the mud is inevitable not to get dirty, and Joe is synonymous with elegance and exquisite form. He has practised a response to Trump's likely strokes on the set.