Joe Biden is taking his turn at the televised town hall thing Thursday night on CNN, and unlike Donald Trump earlier in the week, Biden is unlikely to respond to a woman mentioning her mother’s cancer death by attributing it to COVID-19. The former vice president is also unlikely to claim that the virus “is going away” because the U.S. will develop “herd mentality.”
In short, Biden is going to do better than Trump as long as the grading is fair. Unfortunately, we all know that the two candidates’ performances will be graded on a curve to normalize Trump’s callousness, incoherence, and lies. (So many lies.) But Biden will once again show that he is sharper and more knowledgeable than the Trump campaign is working so hard to portray him as, showing yet again the major flaw in that strategy.
As we’ve seen, voters often ask more substantive questions than professional journalists, so Biden may actually get to talk about some of his many substantive policies. Like his plan to impose a tax penalty on corporations that offshore jobs. Or his ideas for reopening schools safely. Or his plan to advance racial equity through economic investment.
If one of the voters asking a question mentions the loss of a loved one—to COVID-19, cancer, or anything else—we know Biden will offer the kind of compassion and empathy Trump couldn’t muster if it was his own friend talking about a loss. If climate change comes up, he’ll acknowledge it as a crisis and talk about following the science and creating green jobs, not exploding trees.
Will Biden say something a little goofy, or abruptly redirect a sentence to avoid a stutter? Quite possibly. And if he does, the Trump campaign and probably a whole lot of Russian trolls will work to ensure it racks up millions of views on social media. But it’s the things he won’t do—lie recklessly, show contempt for human life, ignore policy except to use it to divide the nation—that will truly set him apart from Trump.
The town hall will air on CNN at 8 PM ET. It’s being held in Moosic, Pennsylvania, in a parking lot, with attendees in their cars to ensure social distancing.