Chris Wallace–TV anchor for Fox News–was the moderator Tuesday night for the first of three scheduled debates between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden leading up to the presidential election on November 3. Since the debate, Wallace has been plummeted on social media and by many political experts alleging that the debate was such a chaotic and somewhat worthless affair mostly because Wallace lost control of it by allowing Trump, with the louder voice, to constantly interrupt both Biden and Wallace. The result was that viewers often could not hear what was being said because two people would be talking at the same time.
Chris Wallace is a good journalist. However, he works for Fox News, which has mostly been anything but “fair and balanced” in reporting politics, which is its motto. Instead, Fox News has been quite right wing and thus pro-Trump. However, a few of its lesser reporters and commentators have adopted a more fair and balanced approach this year. Chris Wallace has been pretty fair in his analysis as well.
Since the debate, Wallace has responded to the criticism lodged against him. He has said, “I never dreamt that it would go off the tracks the way it did.” IMO, that is naive and a result of his being enmeshed in the Fox News culture. Although Wallace constantly tried to reign in Trump’s interruptions, it pretty much did no good. Why? Wallace did not assert himself enough with his voice. And he could have smacked his microphone to get Trump to stop. Wallace could have even shouted at the president. But The Commission on Presidential Debates, which conducts these debate, should have been prepared for such a interrupting and dominating performance by Trump, which was surely planned by him and his surrogates.
The Commission and Wallace should have known that Donald Trump might do such a thing. After all, we non-Trumpers have constantly accused of being a conman, but worse, of acting like a mafia mobster. Donald Trump, being from New York City, sometimes talks like a mob boss, using such language as “dirty cops.” Trump’s propensity for using degrading name calling is mafia-like, such as Crooked Hilary, Adam Schitt, and Nervous Nancy. There are constant reports in the media that White House staff claim President Trump sometimes flies into a rage and refuses to listen to people. Mobsters do that by dominating conversations. That’s what Trump with his rage tried to do by his constant interrupting and going over his two-minute allotted times. Wallace should have had a way of silencing Trump’s microphone just to stop it.
The commission’s response to the avalanche of criticism about the debate being out-of-control was to say the next two debates will have some changes to avoid that. We’ll see. Many people are calling for canceling the other two debates. This one made America and its democracy look so bad. Some foreign leaders have so spoken. But with Donald Trump as president, America’s democracy, and therefore its very Constitution, is under serious attack. The only way to stop this is to vote now, tomorrow, or November 3.
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