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- cross-posted to:
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Much of the attention on Thursday’s presidential debate fell upon President Joe Biden’s faltering performance, which has called into question whether he can even remain the Democratic candidate. In the aftermath, some have focused on former President Donald Trump’s nonstop lies.
Left largely overlooked, however, has been the open xenophobia Trump deployed against Palestinians and immigrants, and the silence with which it was met.
The most striking illustration might be Trump’s response to a prompt from CNN moderator Dana Bash, regarding Israel’s war on Gaza and the “humanitarian crisis” that Israel has created while killing thousands of Palestinians.
As Biden insisted that Hamas was the only entity standing in the way of a ceasefire, Trump actually pushed back on the idea. “You got to ask him,” Trump began, referring to Biden, “as far as Israel and Hamas, Israel is the one that wants to go. He said the only one who wants to keep going is Hamas.” He continued: “Actually, Israel is the one, and you should let them go and let them finish the job. He doesn’t want to do it. He has become like a Palestinian. But, they don’t like him because he is a very bad Palestinian. He is a weak one.”
The moderators were less moderators and more like living sheets of lined paper with the questions printed on them. Human teleprompters with no willingness or ability to engage with the speakers, only desiring to feed them question after question. There was no point to having them there. We traded actual moderation for the semblance of decorum by cutting off a microphone.