By Elle Thompson, Staff Editor
Joe Biden is the next President of the United States, but the road to get here was long and messy. For four grueling days in the first week of November, we waited with bated breath, constantly checking CNN and MSNBC. While we spend the last month of 2020 reflecting on the wreckage that was this year, it is important to look back at how Biden won, and how it embodies the mood and spirit of our country through this year.
On September 29, president-elect Biden and President Trump met for a debate that was quickly mocked and just as quickly forgotten. Television journalists largely panned the debate. CNN’s Jake Tapper called it “a hot mess, inside a dumpster fire, inside a train wreck”; ABC’s George Stephanopoulos called it “the worst presidential debate I have ever seen in my life.”
The night was not without its memorable moments, though. During the debate, Biden became more tired, dropping lines such as “will you shut up, man?” and “keep yapping, man,” as well as calling Trump a “clown.” During multiple segments of the debate, he laughed at Trump. The reception for this varied somewhat between political stages, though most viewers still believed Biden won.
Far more memorable, however, is the moment in which, when questioned by moderator Chris Wallace on whether he would denounce white supremacists, Trump told the alt-right group the Proud Boys, designated by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group, to “stand back and stand by.”
What’s so fascinating about this debate is that in its aftermath, public discourse did not focus on the topics. We hated it, but we could not convey exactly what we hated about it. The Saturday Night Live cold open focused primarily on the general chaos of the debate. Beck Bennet’s Chris Wallace introduced the debate as following “Six major topics, none of which anyone will remember by tomorrow.” And the spirit was even more generous towards president-elect Biden: “The country’s counting on you to just stand here and look lucid,” said Jim Carrey’s Joe Biden, in an impersonated pep talk.
Perhaps discussion of this debate would have been more lasting, were it not for what came next.
During a rally in Minnesota on Wednesday, September 30, advisor Hope Hicks began to show symptoms of COVID-19. She was isolated on the plane trip home. As Trump left for a golf-club fundraiser at 1 p.m. on Thursday, the news broke that Hope Hicks had tested positive for the virus. Nevertheless, the president spoke before hundreds of people, indoors and outdoors. That evening, he tested positive, news that he would announce on Twitter at 1 a.m. on Friday, October 2.
The timeline of his illness was the subject of conflicting reports from staff, and thus intense social media discussion. According to White House physician Dr. Sean Conley, Trump was on supplemental oxygen the morning of Friday, October 2. In the evening, he was taken to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where he received an experimental antibody cocktail and antiviral drug remdesivir, among several other treatments.
At least 11 attendees of an event on Saturday, September 26, to celebrate Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination to the Supreme Court have also tested positive. Pictures and videos from the event showed people hugging and touching, as well as interacting in close quarters inside. At least a hundred people attended the event.
As to further details, the timeline and severity of his symptoms were confusing. According to his doctors, the president’s blood oxygen level dropped to 93%. Any less than 94% is defined under the National Institute of Health guidelines as “severe COVID-19”. He was also given dexamethasone, a steroid generally only recommended for patients with severe COVID-19. In a study from the UK, it was shown that even after being given dexamethasone, patients requiring oxygen still had a mortality rate of about 20%. Through it all, Dr. Sean Conley held on to the idea that Trump had a mild case. After a press conference with Dr. Conley on October 3, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows gave reporters an off-the-record quote: “The president’s vitals over the last 24 hours were very concerning, and the next 48 hours will be critical in terms of his care.”
On a Saturday conference, Dr. Conley also described Trump as “just 72 hours into the diagnosis now,” a statement that would indicate he tested positive on Wednesday. Given the timeline, this would indicate he attended a fundraiser with hundreds of people after a positive test. Conley later indicated this was a slip of the tongue.
Nonetheless, on Tuesday, October 6, Trump returned to the White House, tweeting “Feeling really good! Don’t be afraid of Covid. Don’t let it dominate your life. We have developed, under the Trump Administration, some really great drugs & knowledge. I feel better than I did 20 years ago!” A video from that day showed him seemingly gasping for breath.
On Saturday, October 10, Trump hosted his first in-person event since testing positive, speaking before a crowd of hundreds (though located several feet away) on the White House Lawn. During this speech, he encouraged people to vote for him over Biden. In engaging in political activity on federal property, federal employees setting up this mini rally may have violated the Hatch Act. As of yet, no penalties have occurred.
As a result of COVID-19 concerns, a virtual second debate was proposed. Trump refused, and as a result, the two candidates hosted competing town halls on the evening of October 14. Trump was watched by 10.9 million; Biden was watched by 14.1 million. The Trump broadcast, however, was the one that made headlines. NBC reporter Savannah Guthrie was lauded on social media for “repeatedly [getting] the better of Trump.” When confronted about his retweets of QAnon conspiracy theorists, Trump replied that “That’s a retweet! People can decide for themselves.” Guthrie replied: “I don’t get that. You’re the president, not someone’s crazy uncle.” Guthrie also asked Trump about “who you owe $421m to,” to which Trump replied that it was “a tiny percentage of my net worth.” His team would go on to call out Guthrie for being too harsh.
The news cycle over the next few weeks, of course, would be dominated by a very different topic: the impending confirmation of conservative Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. This confirmation was nothing if not rapid. In the time from Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death on September 18 to Trump’s announcement of his nominee on September 26, eight days passed. Just one month later, on October 26, Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed to the Supreme Court, by a 52–48 vote. She became the first justice since 1870 to be confirmed without a single vote from the Senate minority party.
Within this time, however, many small developments made headlines on the road to the election. The Republican Party of Pennsylvania sued to stop counting of mail-in ballots received after 8 p.m. on election day; the Supreme Court declined to overturn the state court’s ruling on this issue. This, and other losses, would not stop the Trump campaign. By the time of the election, the campaign had filed over 300 lawsuits to stop counting of mail-in ballots.
These important developments, however, would be repeatedly overshadowed by political theater. In the week of October 19th, Trump once again picked fights with the news: he called CNN “dumb bastards” for continuing to cover the coronavirus, and abruptly walked out of an interview with 60 Minutes host Lesley Stahl. During the next week, Sacha Baron Cohen released his new Borat film, in which Rudy Giuliani pulled his pants down at what he thought was an interview with a conservative journalist.
On October 14, the New York Post reported that a computer store owner had discovered “smoking gun emails” off a laptop provided to him by Hunter Biden, Joe Biden’s son. These emails allegedly proved that Biden was engaging in corruption in Ukraine during his time as VP. Giuliani did not reply to emails from multiple news sources asking to independently verify the hard drive.
Just two weeks before the election, with thousands of mail-in ballots already cast, the second debate between President Trump and now president-elect Biden took place on October 22. Moderator Kristin Welker of NBC was lauded by many on the left; the ability to mute candidates, many felt, led to significantly less chaos. This led to fewer memorable moments, though not a total absence.
Late into the night, Biden accused the president of avoiding “substantive issues.” Appealing to pathos, he said “it’s not about his family and my family. It’s about your family. And your family’s hurting badly.” Trump rolled his eyes and called this focus on family the turns of a “typical politician.” Biden also expressed regret for the number of deportations that took place during the Obama administration, calling them “a mistake” and saying “it took too long to get [the mistakes] right.”
When pressed on alleged corruption, Biden denied receiving any money from a foreign source unequivocally, before turning back to Trump’s business deals with “foreign companies.” When accused of being a socialist, Biden similarly pushed back, forcefully replying, “He’s a very confused guy… I beat all those other people because I disagreed with them,” seemingly pointing to the further-left beliefs of his colleagues. New York Times op-ed columnist Elizabeth Breunig pointed out that this debate was not based in debating politics, but on debating fact: “Since the right and left no longer agree on what institutions or figures should be seen as authorities on any given issue, there’s no debate there, just an aggressive presentation of two different worlds.”
After the first debate, an op-ed from the New York Times editorial board asked Americans to “consider how [we] would judge a foreign election where the incumbent president scorned the democratic process as a fraud and called on an armed, violent, white supremacist group to ‘stand by’ to engage with his political rivals.” At the polls, Americans did remember. Whether we will continue to progress past this moment over the next four years, however, is an open question.
Image credit: Andrew Neel, Pexels
