I’ll start off by admitting that I did not watch all of the debate. I did see enough to know that just about every analysis I have seen is accurate.

Biden got steamrolled by a massive river of non-stop lies. It did not matter that he was equipped with a library of facts, he was unprepared and unsteady in the face of Trump’s stream of back-to-front bullshit. How he could not have been ready for this is a mystery. Had his prep team and those intimately involved in his campaign been unable to predict that Trump would just stand there and lie no matter what? He’s only been doing this since even before 2015. Was anyone paying attention?

Heather Cox Richardson very succinctly articulated what Trump was doing:

…This was not a debate. It was Trump using a technique that actually has a formal name, the Gish gallop, although I suspect he comes by it naturally. It’s a rhetorical technique in which someone throws out a fast string of lies, non-sequiturs, and specious arguments, so many that it is impossible to fact-check or rebut them in the amount of time it took to say them. Trying to figure out how to respond makes the opponent look confused, because they don’t know where to start grappling with the flood that has just hit them.

It is a form of gaslighting, and it is especially effective on someone with a stutter, as Biden has….

This is something Trump has a LOT of practice with. All he was doing in the debate was running the same spiel he uses at all of his rallies. Only there he has a flock of brainwashed fools applauding every lie. Again, hasn’t anyone on the Biden team been paying attention?

Lucian Truscott’s analysis calls for the firing of everybody involved in his campaign and their cousins. I tend to agree. I don’t think these people really understand the stakes here, at least their work does not reflect it.

I think one of the best ways to understand where we are as a country is to watch the excellent Netflix docuseries, Hitler and the Nazis: Evil on Trial. When you watch this series, the parallels between then and now are stark and obvious and leave nothing to the imagination. These parallels are not called out by the producers. They don’t need to be, they are that obvious.

This is the history Trump’s backers seek to repeat. Sure he is an incompetent buffoon. That does not matter. Hitler was just as incompetent, even more so. But he could motivate crowds with strings of lies like no one else.

Both were utterly useless at creating policy. But today especially, that matters very little because the latter-day Nazis and Fascists at places like the Heritage Foundation have already taken care of it with their Project 2025. These guys HAVE learned from history and fully plan to repeat it.

Fumbling the ball in this election is not an option. If Trump wins—as incredulous as the idea of a convicted criminal, rapist and fraudster gaining access to the highest levels of government sounds—there will not be anymore elections at a national level.

Trump has already promised to build camps in which to round up people who crossed him, to what end is only implied. But remember, the first concentration camps in Germany were not used for Jews but rather Hitler’s political enemies.

Biden needs a team around him that fully understands these stakes. The cacophony of people calling for him to step down, pull in Newsome and other silly ideas play directly into the hands of the crook running for office. Not helpful.

The Biden team needs to take on the attitude of dedicated pugilists and if they are too inured with being polite, replace them with fighters.

We saw a paradox in this debate of a successful, competent office holder being put on the defensive by a liar who is the exact opposite. Trump is nothing more than a two-bit bully. And the tried-and-true method of dealing with a bully is to put HIM in the defensive. And boy does this guy have a lot to be defensive about.

Politically, there is only one posture that will lead to success in this situation and this is relentless and continuous attack. But let’s get this done now and before we end up in some future where this country has to be invaded and destroyed to get rid of a rampant Nazi regime.

The lesson of history that Trump’s backers and enablers have refused to learn is that Nazism and Fascism do not work and lead to the utter destruction of their practitioners. We can help teach them that this November.