Hey y’all,
How many of you made the mistake of watching the debate last night?
For your sake, I hope you were smarter than me and picked anything else to put on TV.
It was brutal. I was left genuinely sad that this is where our country has gotten to.
It feels like a million years ago, but there were substantive, policy-focused Presidential debates in America in my lifetime.
Obama vs. McCain, even Obama vs. Romney, despite some pointed barbs, felt like two people with differing visions for the country trying to prove that theirs was better.
Trump vs. Harris felt like two people with massive egos trying to embarrass and humiliate their opponent.
The only moment of policy I remember from the whole debate was Harris’s first remarks, about the tax deductions on families and small businesses. But those were quickly swallowed up by a debate that resembled two Kindergartners saying “nanny, nanny, boo-boo” at each other for 90 minutes.
Trump was a trainwreck. He bit on every piece of bait offered to him like the last worm in the great blue ocean. He followed rabbit trails like a loyal beagle. He failed to execute what should have been his only objective: tying his opponent to the policies and results of the last 3.5 years that polls show are deeply unpopular with Americans.
Harris was much better by comparison. But she wasn’t pressed. She didn’t have to get on the defensive. She lobbed very obvious red balloons at Trump and he chased every one of them. Her side will be very happy with how the debate turned out.
People will talk about it all a ton today. But I think in a week or two, the news cycle will have turned over and most folks will have forgotten this debate.
But there’s one thing I think everyone should focus on from last night’s debate…
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Republicans all over Twitter have been complaining about how this was a 3-on-1 debate, that the moderators were an embarrassment to the concept of independent journalism.
Two things can be true at once:
First, the fact that that’s what Republicans are focused on can indicate pretty strongly that they lost the debate — and they did.
… But they can still be correct. And they are.
Last night, the moderators were shameless in their open one-sidedness. They repeatedly and antagonistically fact-checked former President Trump in real-time, with some of their offered clarifications being either subjective or outright false.
How often did they live fact-check Vice President Harris? Not once.
And in 2024, if anyone believes that’s simply because this Presidential candidate was being honest with every word she spoke, I have a bridge in Brooklyn I want to sell them…
This isn’t good for the American people. And to be clear, I’m not trying to make a political statement here.
You might be an enraged Trump supporter, you might be a thrilled Harris supporter, but either way, you need to recognize that the media isn’t impartial.
And this matters to everyone, not just the politicos in the audience. Because the same thing is just as true in the financial media.
If there is still any semblance of an impartial media source in the U.S., I don’t know where it is. And it certainly isn’t on CNBC or FOX Business.
Everyone is trying to spin a narrative that makes sense to them, that fits their worldview, that confirms their priors.
Whether that narrative is political, financial, medical, or otherwise, there is always a narrative.
So you need to be careful who you trust, and more importantly, you have to develop the skills to figure out the truth for yourself. Because the media is only gonna do fact-checks for you when they want to.
The rest, you’re gonna have to figure out for yourself. But that’s why our experts are here to help!
To your Prosperity,
— Stephen Ground
Editor in Chief, ProsperityPub
P.S.: It’s a heavy anniversary for many people, made heavier by the sadness so many of us have after last night’s debate. But it was nice to see that this morning, just for a moment, the political bickering was put aside, and Trump, Vance, Harris, and Biden joined forces and stood side-by-side at the 9/11 Memorial Ceremony in New York. Some things are bigger than partisan, political bickering, and as Americans, there really is more that unites us than divides us. So let’s never forget the lives lost nearly a quarter-century ago on this fateful day. I’ll be praying today for everyone to whom that tragedy still looms as a large and painful memory.
