A while back I wrote a blog titled: The Muhammad Ali Syndrome. In that essay, I pointed out that Muhammad Ali made the mistake, like many athletes and other professionals, of not knowing when was the best time for him to exit his boxing career. Many commentators thought it was best for him to quit boxing after his upset win in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) over George Foreman in the 8th round. But he persisted to fight way beyond what his body could endure resulting in permanent debilitating brain damage.
Adam Grant, an organizational psychologist at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, recently wrote an article in the New York Times called: The Reason It’s So Hard for Powerful People to Walk Away. Grant maintains that rather than walk away from a losing proposition people often double down on their decisions because it feels better to be a fighter than a quitter. He has labeled this phenomenon “escalation of commitment to a losing course of action.” Subsequent to President Biden’s poor performance in his debate with Donald Trump last week, Biden has appeared to fall into this very same trap insofar as he has refused to throw in the towel by terminating his presidential campaign for the Democratic party. His perseverance has held steady despite several of his past supporters stating that they would like him to withdraw his candidacy from the coming election in November.
Currently, no one knows exactly what President Biden will decide to do in the future. But as Adam Grant mentioned, if Biden listens to the people closest to him such as family and top aides, he is receiving advice that is hardly objective but rather tinted with those susceptible to confirmation bias. Regardless, I would recommend that whoever debates Mr. Trump in the future, be it Mr. Biden or another candidate, that that person focuses on Trump’s pattern of lying. In the debate for presidency between Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter on October 28th, 1980, in responding to Carter’s attack on Reagan vis-à-vis his position on Medicare, the latter said: There you go again.” That comment received much laughter from the audience then allowing Reagan to explain where Carter was misconstruing what, in fact, he really believed about Medicare. So then, why not have whoever does debate Trump, assuming there will be a debate, focus on Trump’s lies by mentioning something like the following: “Mr. Trump every time you make a false statement, I’m going to respond to it by using that famous line of the great communicator, Ronald Reagan, and say: There you go again.” This may appeal to the Americans who remember and loved Reagan, many of whom, of course were Republicans. The motive here for Biden, of course, would be for him to expand his base with the potential pool of voters that are undecided as to how they will vote.
The format of the first debate was such that the commentators that presented each candidate with the questions were not going to fact check each of their statements. That chore was to be left to the two participants in the debate. Unfortunately, President Biden failed to call Mr. Trump on many of the falsehoods he made during the debate. One very blatant lie Trump made was when he asserted that some Democratic states are allowing abortions after the 8th month of a woman’s pregnancy right up to the birth of the child. When I heard this, I was surprised that Biden did not react to this obvious “Trumped” up statement. Ironically, one of the few comments Trump made that had a ring of truth to it was when Biden was having difficulty expressing himself, Trump said: “I really don’t know what he said at the end of his sentence and, I don’t think he did either.” I’m quite sure Trump’s followers appreciated that rejoinder.
In a Wall Street Journal article, Peggy Noonan declared Trump’s behavior as characterological whereas she believed Biden’s evident lack of coherence was neurological. What a shame that our country is being represented by two leaders, one an individual with sociopathic tendencies, and the other one showing clear signs of aging. These two are being backed by their parties with the belief that they are the best of all candidates to defeat their rival from the other party. I hope this political game does not result in deleterious consequences to us, the citizens of America.
Dr. Bernard F. Natelson 
5 replies on “The First Presidential Debate of 2024”
According to Allan Lichtman’s 13 Keys to the White House, if there were to be a change, the DEMs would lose these four Keys, which they currently have in their favor:
2. Contest: There is no serious contest for the incumbent party nomination.
3. Incumbency: The incumbent party candidate is the sitting president.
7. Policy change: The incumbent administration effects major changes in national policy.
9. Scandal: The incumbent administration is untainted by major scandal.
I did see that article and it does make sense. However, he did point out, if I am not mistaken, that if Biden gracefully resigns pointing toward Kamala, he might not lose any of those assets mentioned.
I’d like to reframe the terror from Biden Vs Trump to democracy vs Trump. we all need to get involved with Biden or whatever shiny new object the left claims as a leader, untested but HOPEFULLY a leader. Whoever gets the nomination,matter who it is, he/she will have no record of foreign affairs to run on. No, democrats and independents need to grow up and accept that we are in a domestic war and everyone needs to stop sniping and lock arms with the person got more done in his the years than anybody since LBJ. Don’t believe the polls Trump has never gotten more than 47% and has share has shrunk Biden will get the same 51% hr got last time. What the focus should be is on the House and Senate control
There YOU – like many other folks – go again!
Too many people mistakenly equate ‘falsehood’ with ‘lie’, and equate uttering a falsehood with lying.
A falsehood need NOT be a lie, and its utterer need not be lying. A person lies only when all three are true: (1) He utters a falsehood. (2) He knows or anyhow believes that it is false; (3) He intends his utterance to mislead people, or has every reason to believe that this utterance will materially mislead people.
In these days of general info-overload and first-cut errant headlines, how many folks check out everything, or even a lot, of the stuff they read and hear every day? Show me even a single person (e.g. politician or other) who gabs a lot but who doesn’t at least inadvertently speak falsehoods which aren’t actually lies.
To boot, the boundary between ‘lie’ and ‘exaggeration’ is often vague or fluid – especially when the statement makes a quantitative approximation, and the utterer – like too many of us – is next to innumerate. For instance, a former Long Beach mayor (and now congressperson) once bragged (in effect) that the Port of Long Beach annually handles millions of dollars worth of cargo: a less misleading statement would have used the word ‘billions, not ‘millions’.
Well Joe, i guess you caught me in a falsehood! I was trying to use a synonym for lie and of course I relied on google to provide me with the misinformation (or is it disinformation as I know there is a difference between the two, one being intentional and the other coming from ignorance) I thought of using prevaricate, but it didn’t sound right. In any case, although I thank you for your correction, it really does not substantially change the meaning the blog delivers because indeed we can both unmistakenly say Trump’s comments contain both lies and falsehoods though, granted it might be difficult to parse them out as he spouts them both out most rapidly.
But please continue to respond with your comments and again I’m most sorry about the falsehood you uncovered. I try to avoid them as much as possible.