Tonight's dueling town halls were the logical, ripened extension, to borrow a phrase from Ken Kesey, of the dueling realities that currently cut through what is often referred to, through gritted teeth, as the "national dialogue".
Has ever such a dialogue even existed? I suppose there was a time when a man could tell another man who he was voting for without getting punched in the throat or shot, but those days now feel like the domain of soporific costume dramas and stifling, high school civics classes. These days, it's a dry, open field of opposing armies and even suburban mothers are packing lead pipes.
Social media, for years now, has slyly been cultivating a schism in the collective psyche through algorithms tailoring news feeds to each individual, creating a constant feedback loop that finally, at long last, cracked the nation into two realities; not mere political realities of opposing ideology or principle - but two realities like repulsing magnets; so divided, that the concepts of fact and fiction have become meaningless, left to go down like a twilight sun writing its will on the rug. The Right lives in their world, the Left lives in theirs and the Mythic Middle — they’re just trying to find a seat on the sea-saw.
So it makes diamond-center-sense that at this point in the 2020 election, that rather than having a debate where two minds clash in an arena, we've arrived at both candidates, in their own walled arenas, fighting themselves, at the same time, on separate networks. What better metaphor for the state of this culture of divided realities than diametrically opposed town halls, where the American voter, starving for a dialogue, is stuck with a remote or a mouse, clicking back and forth between the two, hearing half-answers to half-questions? It fits so sublimely into the narrative of the year, a script-doctor would empty their red pens and take up pointillism.
In terms of the actual town halls: Trump, leaning forward on the edge of his chair, wild-eyed, jaundiced and near-psychopathic, flapped his syphilitic maw like a playing card in a bike spoke. Biden, by contrast, was so sincere, it was almost painful. Sincerity is a hard thing to watch these days; it's practically a nostalgic experience. Biden took questions from voters and answered in expanding logic and often in structured paragraphs and (somewhat elliptical) essays. His answers were empathetic, soaked in policy agenda and rarely, if ever, evasive. He answered directly and when he couldn't answer directly, he gave a reason for not answering directly. Voters who started off with a challenging glint in their eye could be seen visibly wilting and soon raising a reluctant smile. You could see them recognizing authenticity and measured intelligence, calm and compassion - and remembering what that feels like.
We all felt that recently. For exactly three days, when Trump was holed up at Walter Reed, choked with plague, the sulfur left the air for a while. You could feel yourself breathing again. The air tasted better. You could feel it in the ends of your fingers, the country beginning to re-set.
Tonight, the sulfur was back - and the ugly, dark, gut-wrenching horror show of the man was on full display, again. But it was the separateness of the events that at once, stood out and felt perfectly aligned with our divided culture, where two realities continue to grow, at different paces and in different forms. Both candidates, at the exact same time, both existing in their own sets, in their own time and space but with both facing the same America — a generation of survivors, unknown to each other, with eyes half-closed, drowsily flipping between them.
One of them stayed for over-an hour past the end, talking to voters and learning their names.
The other, gripping his phone, disappeared into the darkness.