Last night’s US presidential debate brought the Democrats' worst-case scenario to fruition – fumbling and at times incoherent Democratic candidate Joe Biden distracted from Republican candidate and former president Donald Trump’s characteristic disregard for facts when it comes to his own past actions.
For Trump supporters, it was a moment of triumph and a clear victory proving their thesis that Mr Biden is not mentally fit to be in charge of the US.
The two campaigns posted after the debate claiming to have defeated the opposing party. Mr Biden posted a clip of himself saying that fact-checks will prove Trump to be a liar, while the challenger posted an Onion-esque headline riffing on his recent criminal counts to say he was “indicted for murdering an elderly man on CNN”.
Supporters from both sides came to social media to refocus public attention on their preferred debate takeaways. Staunch Biden supporters, ignoring his strange on-stage behaviour, were quick to call out Trump’s debate responses, saying his stances are much more dangerous than a Democrat struggling to put sentences together.
Republicans relished in the "victory" – a CNN poll showed 67 per cent of respondents favoured Trump in the debate.
Gavin Newsom, Democratic governor of California, was trending on X as he doubled down on his support for Mr Biden, using his platform to fact-check the debate, and call his 2.1 million followers’ attention to Trump’s anti-abortion stance, which has had stark consequences for young rape victims and women with medical issues during pregnancy.
Abortion is the Democrat’s best chance at winning votes from the right, as several polls have shown that Republicans, women in particular, do not support harsh restrictions.
Other Democratic voices in the US acknowledged Mr Biden’s poor performance and expressed concern. Nicholas Kristof, a long-time New York Times opinion columnist, wrote on X: “I wish Biden would reflect on this debate performance and then announce his decision to withdraw from the race.”
For many US voters, perhaps, the choice is not Trump or Mr Biden, but Trump or anyone who isn’t Trump.
Republicans on X, joyful in Trump’s debate win, had plenty of content to work in their favour. Mr Biden’s stumbling sentences and slow speech made him an easy target for Trump to bombard with his go-to public speaking lines about immigration, taxes and other major policy issues.
As far as non-performance debate content goes, Republican politicians including House Speaker Mike Johnson and Marjorie Taylor Greene called out Mr Biden’s border policies failures and lauded Mr Trump’s tax policies.
The war in Gaza
Beyond the mainstream US social media commentary about this debate, those with their eyes on Palestine were quick to point out that neither candidate offered support for people suffering from the war in Gaza.
Democratic voters in the US who care about the Palestinian issue commented that while Mr Biden has been bad for Gazans, comments such as encouragement for Israel to “finish the job” proved that a Trump presidency would almost certainly be worse.
Arabic-language social commentators were quick to point out the nonsensical moment where Trump called Mr Biden a “bad Palestinian.” In a way, this moment underlines the major disconnect between top-level US political debate and the real cost of politics on human lives.
While both candidates sling insults at each other in the hope of gaining control over the most powerful economy in the world, vulnerable populations in the US and abroad are waiting to see the actual results.
