Last night’s debut of the brotherhood of traveling adolescent senile old men seasoned our screens and provided viewers with unnecessary and cringe-worthy content. The first of three political debates between President Donald Trump and Vice President Joe Biden was a ghastly sight for already sore eyes. The breakout star, for me, might have been last night’s moderator Chris Wallace, who you could not help but feel bad for after having to parent the two candidates on debate procedure far too many times to count. 

The debate structure called for six, fifteen-minute, sections with two minutes for each candidate to answer the question posed by the moderator with the remaining time open for rebuttals. However, our president felt last night that the rules did not apply to him, again. What ensued was several trivial debates between President Trump and Wallace. For the most part, Wallace won and Trump only succeeded in looking childish. 

With 35 days until Nov. 3, these debates are intended to lock in voters on either candidate. But, I don’t think any minds were changed last night because neither candidate adequately or coherently answered a single question that would change any voter’s mind at this stage. 

Looking back at President Trump’s performance last night you can’t help but wonder if he’s purposefully trying to anger millions of voters or if it’s all just an “oops” moment. But, there are no take-backs in politics and definitely no “oops coupons”. The more endearing moments last night was when President Trump repeatedly referred to Covid-19 as the “China plague”, constantly broke the debate procedure by constantly talking over everyone, refused to denounce white supremacy, randomly brought up Joe Biden’s dead and recovered addict son to make Biden look bad. Trump also attempted setting the record straight on his federal income tax history even though we have the receipts from news sources and something ain’t adding up. It was a night to remember and will stay in America’s heart and mind forever, to say the least. 

On a completely different hand, we have Joe Biden who in my opinion would not make a good president. To be completely transparent, Biden’s stance and ideology is something I could get behind. But, I predict that under his administration nothing will change due to, in my opinion, lack of political drive to ensure change. I don’t think he knows what’s going on when he speaks and most of the time I just feel bad for the geezer. However, it was entertaining to see him get peppered with questions that he just could not adequately answer.

I feel it is my due diligence to point out Biden’s counter thought to Trump saying that he would release his taxes returns to prove once and for all that he pays his fair share by responding with “Inshallah”. This is a term of endearment in Arabic. Being Middle Eastern and having heard my family use this word millions of times to family members and friends, I could not help but cringe. Other languages should not be picked apart and used as token vocabulary words to manifest an idea in voter’s minds that you are cultured. I am amazed how he thinks he can just pawn words from other languages and more importantly other cultures to try and impress the viewer. The Middle Eastern community is not impressed, Mr. Vice President.

I believe that in the current hyper-polarizing political climate, Americans need a president who can appeal to both sides of the spectrum. But, I also believe that neither candidate presented satisfies. The reality is that politics today is as much for show as it is for political discourse. It is unlikely that we will ever have a president with central libertarian stances on economic and social issues due to hyper-polarization and radicals on both sides. Both President Trump and Vice President Biden do not appeal to me as candidates who will generate positive changes to our current economic, environmental, or social dilemmas. 

 For the best or for the worst, I will not be 18 on election day so I will not get the chance to cast my vote for this imperative election. But, a part of me is not too upset about it because being completely candid, I would not know who to vote for. Nevertheless, if you’re reading this and you are eligible to vote this Nov., in all seriousness our future is in your hands: educate yourself and make your vote count.