Did Joe Biden do well enough in the debate that companies might start hiring older workers?

by philg

Workers older than 40 are inferior, according to the Federal government, which is why employers need to be bludgeoned into hiring them. From the EEOC:

Age discrimination involves treating an applicant or employee less favorably because of his or her age.

The Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) forbids age discrimination against people who are age 40 or older. It does not protect workers under the age of 40, although some states have laws that protect younger workers from age discrimination. It is not illegal for an employer or other covered entity to favor an older worker over a younger one, even if both workers are age 40 or older.

Discrimination can occur when the victim and the person who inflicted the discrimination are both over 40.

Joe Biden will turn 78 in November (unless IHME is correct and COVID-19 kills most Americans before then) and is therefore the oldest person ever to run in a U.S. presidential election. If he impresses viewers with his keen mind and quick wit, might that be enough to get American employers to question the official government position that older = inferior?

Second question: If your opinion, did Biden impress in this first debate?

Also, does at least one candidate get the questions in advance? The debates are moderated by TV journalists. One thing that we’ve learned since 2016 is that people whose job is to report the “news” actually yearn to editorialize regarding how Americans should vote. If they’re not afraid to present facts selectively, twist facts, and otherwise mislead readers/viewers, why wouldn’t at least one person within a news organization that is moderating a debate leak the questions to the candidate whom he/she/ze/they favors?

(A Democrat affiliated with CNN leaked “town hall” questions to Hillary Clinton in advance back in 2016 (Snopes).)

Multiple perspectives from Facebook:

  • I can’t believe the s**t that Trump is having to put up with tonight. Wallace lets Biden talk over him all the time. Nauseating.
  • Chris Wallace did an abysmally awful job. He’s more left-wing than I previously thought. His lack of knowledge is shocking. Wallace doesn’t know the basics.
  • Biden was such a terrible moderator of the Trump-Wallace debate
  • The debate. Trump hit a new low. Biden hit a triple: he acted like an adult, he didn’t get flustered, and he reached out to families around the country. I would not have been able to keep my temper that well. Oh, and Chris Wallace shamed himself.
  • (from a socialist Democrat) TBH, I think Trump did better than Biden in this debate. He was more cogent and concrete, Biden was too much “c’mon man” and just not hitting his target.
  • (from a cower-at-home schoolteacher who otherwise posts on the dangers of COVID-19, the hazards of school reopening, the merits of RBG, the stupidity of the unmasked, etc.) This is an absolute disgrace. How could we possibly expect our children to respect this President? Politics aside, the teacher in me would like to park his bully self in our class Think Tank to fill out a Reflection Sheet regarding his behavior. He is a bully, he is flagrantly ignorant of the facts, and he’s disrespectful in every way possible. HOW can we not be embarrassed and WHY are we tolerating it.

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38 thoughts on “Did Joe Biden do well enough in the debate that companies might start hiring older workers?”

  1. Biden did a better job among a larger slice of the electorate. Trump doesn’t have command of the issues well enough because everything is far too personal for him. He can’t separate the issues from himself. If I had to divide the debate among ten points, I’d give Biden 6.5, Trump 3.5. As usual for Trump, he’s his own worst enemy, because it always comes back to him, and despite all the things he could have said he sounded rabid at times, deeply angry and close to violent. Biden wasn’t particularly keen or quick, and he got a lot of things wrong, but he did a better job controlling his temper.

    But it was a madhouse overall. Disturbing. I didn’t enjoy watching it and I don’t think anyone else did. Chris Wallace deserves a medal.

    • The real serious problem Trump has is that if something doesn’t relate to him absolutely directly, he cannot think in abstraction. And frankly he was disgusting with all the interruptions. He won’t do well if he keeps it up.

    • It reinforced my longstanding view that Trump can’t handle debating ideas without attempting to subvert the question by resorting to belligerence. It’s been a pattern since the Republican primaries. He’s a name-caller, he tries to throw people on their back feet by insulting them, and then continuing to insult them until someone tells him to shut up. A carnival barker, basically.

  2. Nope! Trump mopped the floor with sleepy Joe! The liberals are just happy he showed up and didn’t have a stroke on camera!

    • baz: My Facebook friends are very excited about Trump’s purported endorsement of the “Proud Boys”. But nobody had heard of this group before the debate. And Biden was the one to give this group a shout-out on national TV. Wouldn’t it be more accurate to say that Biden is now the most effective recruiter ever for the Proud Boys (whoever they might be)?

    • Wasn’t the Proud Boys started by Vice Media?

      There are a lot of stupid people in the world, to be sure, but joining an organization based on someone like Gavin McInnes’ recommendation is probably the saddest thing anyone could ever do.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gavin_McInnes

      McInnes resides in the U.S. on a green card.[7] In 2005, he married Manhattan-based publicist and consultant Emily Jendrisak, the daughter of Native American activist Christine Whiterabbit Jendrisak[22][118] who describes herself as a liberal Democrat.[75] About his wife’s ethnicity and their children together, McInnes said, “I’ve made my views on Indians very clear. I like them. I actually like them so much, I made three.”[119] They live in Larchmont, New York,[120] where Emily threatened neighbors with legal action in a dispute over anti-hate lawn signs. Her threats were such that several neighbours notified the police.[76]

    • Larchmont is a very tony town. Nobody there is a Proud Boy.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larchmont,_New_York

      “In February 2019, Bloomberg ranked Larchmont as the 15th wealthiest place in the United States, and the third wealthiest in New York.[4]”

      So if Joe Biden promoted them, and the President doesn’t know anything, I guess it’s just an American tragedy.

  4. I enjoyed the raucous entertainment, it was a bit like watching Wrestlemania. Trump-the-brawler was the winner, while gentleman-Joe was too timid.

  5. One thing we can be absolutely sure of: nobody debates that the government controls everything. From the climate to making people feel better, and everything in between, there is nothing but government. That’s why, as America continues its long and painful trip down the drain, everyone wants to be on the government raft.

    Where was the question: “What would either of you do to reduce the role of government in the lives of ordinary Americans?”

    • > “What would either of you do to reduce the role of government in the lives of ordinary Americans?”

      that question would have resulted in a home run for Trump since his admin got rid of an astounding pile of govt regulations in many different areas (food and drug, healthcare manufacturing, environmental, energy, etc) . No way this question will ever be asked in a debate with Trump – too easy. Joe would have had nothing to counter with

    • > that question would have resulted in a home run for Trump

      Yet it was a famous Democrat leader who said “Do not forget the time-honored Democratic doctrine that the government is most effective which governs the least.” That was Al Smith in 1920, in a speech against Prohibition (“a restriction to … personal liberty”), as quoted in The Long Thirst by Thomas Coffey. Imagine that, the Democrats as champions of small government and individual liberty!

    • @LP: That’s a great contrast, very apt. On the subject of this President, I think Ambassador John Bolton is one of the finest public servants America has had in the past half century, and his conversation with Gloria Duffy of the Commonwealth Club is well worth the time. Bolton has a very clear-eyed view of America’s role in the world, the threats we face, and the global consequences (both for us and our friends and allies) when we don’t live up to the role that only we can play. There’s a good discussion of how this President makes decisions and his many serious limitations, and I agree with him.

      Worth it!

      https://www.commonwealthclub.org/events/archive/podcast/conversation-ambassador-john-bolton

  6. A few judiciously spaced interruptions would have been ok for Trump, since everyone knows by now that he does that. But he had overdone it, and the whole debate sounded like bickering between patients in the cookoo’s nest

    Joe was a lot more coherent than I expected.

    Medication time!

  7. Debates do not change the way people are going to vote, Trump and Biden were each talking to their supporters. At the end of the day most people are going to vote for the person that will give them more money, the average person does not care about most of the debate topics, they are too theoretical for people who are trying to get food on the table.

    They should get Joe Rogan to moderate the next debate, Chris Wallace was an amateur. Or hold it in an octagon and get Dana White to moderate the next debate.

    • A note to readers Pavel is a foreigner who has admitted in trying to meddle in our election. This may be a crime! Readers beware.

    • (disclaimer: not an American & not trying to meddle in your elections).
      this came in on my twitter feed: https://twitter.com/DanLinden/status/1311120345026494464
      Biden: “You’re the worst president America has ever had, come on.
      Trump: “I’ve done more in 47 months than you’ve done in 47 years, Joe.” https://abcn.ws/3jeVv24

      joe biden probably has an upper hand on trump, because he is so experienced. but, overall orange man seemed more convincing as an outsider … sorry guys.

    • What exactly has Trump done in 47 months?

      ACA is still in place. The Wall, what of it there, was not paid for by Mexico. 200k dead.

    • baz: That’s a good point. Trump has achieved only one big change domestically, i.e., the tax law changes that started in 2018. On the other hand, my Facebook friends say that Trump is the most dangerous dictator since Hitler. How can these two positions be consistent? If he is able to get only one big law passed every four years (now down to zero laws because the House is controlled by Democrats), how does that make him the neo-Hitler?

      (To be fair, Obama didn’t actually change that much during his 8 years in office. There were some tax increases and Obamacare. And the tax law change was huge. Without it, eventually every profitable U.S. company would have been acquired by a company in a lower-tax country such as Canada, Ireland, or the UK.)

    • Comrade Toucan Sam, it is so easy to meddle in your elections. Canada has closed the border for non essential travel from the US by air and ground. The US has closed the land border for for non-essential travel. But you can still fly from Canada to the US without any problems and no quarantine requirements.

      https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/u-s-travel-restrictions-covid-19-land-border-fly-1.5607741

      So I can go to the US and meddle in your elections anytime, but unfortunately upon return to Canada, I will be forced into isolation for 14 days.

  8. The most amazing sight last night was Rahm Emanuel and George Stephanopoulos in the post-debate postmortem. They’ve been integral parts of the two administrations that have set up the permanent, irreversible leftist transformation of government we’re witnessing, and that it all began in academia, and it cannot be stopped. They know exactly what it is, but they won’t level with the American people. They know Patrisse Cullors is a Trained Marxist and Black Lives Matter is a revolutionary Marxist group. And Emanuel knows that because he used to be the mayor of Chicago. Both of them should hang.

    And Trump is not the man to prevent it. He doesn’t know anything. If it’s not about him, it doesn’t exist.

    • I watched Rahm Emanuel last night with his long face, sitting there talking about Rope-a-dope, knowing that he’s helped sign, seal and deliver the United States to the Marxists, and wanted throw a brick at the screen. He knows what he’s done. Starting at 4:30.

  9. Wallace interrupted Trump 35 times, Biden 0. More than once every 3 minutes. And yet Trump still defeated his debate opponent Wallace. What I don’t understand is why was there an old guy on meth mumbling in the corner?

  10. Just a couple sentences: Trump had the opportunity to score at least three grand slam home runs last night (the packing the Supreme Court, Hunter Biden/Burisma, and the Green New Deal and arguably even Obamacare) if he had let Biden finish his sentences and dig himself in, then come back with the response. Chris Wallace *handed* him the Supreme Court question on a platter and he blew it. He has no discipline, and it hurt him with the people he needed to persuade the most.

    Biden didn’t have good answers, he had slick answers, and Trump could have driven a huge wedge between moderate Democrats and the Left Wing, but instead what he did, the way it played out, he drove them closer together and simultaneously managed to alienate the votes he needs (independents, undecideds, suburban women) even further. No points. Anyway, that’s my $0.02.

  11. I have a hard time entrusting my future to a man on a golden toilet. Also as a father of three accomplished daughters, I lean toward the ticket with a woman.

  12. When Trump wasn’t interrupting, he was lying. There’s no way to rationalize his performance…he stunk it up big time. The only thing worse than Trump are the republicans that enable him. Virtually everything he said last night has been fact-checked to be a lie, or at best, an exaggeration.

    • Jim: Maybe he thinks Americans can’t handle the truth! There is a lot of evidence to suggest that this is true. Imagine a politician who said “As a group, Americans are kind of lame compared to folks in Singapore, Tokyo, and Shanghai. And as a cower-in-place society, we are nowhere near as brave as even the most timorous person in Sweden.”

  15. Didn’t strike me that Biden was sufficiently with it to sit across the table from Xi, Putin, Erdogan, or the other bad boys on the world’s stage and represent our interests. So my answer would be no, that someone his age should be out playing golf or cards or with his grandkids or maybe a couple of hours a day answering the phone for Hunter Biden’s influence peddling business — not running a country of 330m, operating a lathe, driving a truck, etc.

    • Someone close to his age, Trump…age 74…is out playing golf. As far as Xi, Putin, Erdogan are concerned, Trump is sitting in their laps.

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