I've scanned the multiverse, these are the 3 ways the Trump-Biden debate will go

Trump's lunacy is Biden's best hope

These days I find myself meditating on every possible permutation on the June 27th presidential debate live on CNN. It will feature the current president Joe Biden, his predecessor Donald Trump and a series of trap doors designed to dispose of Robert Kennedy Jr. should he try to sneak on stage.

Navigating the ever-branching paths of our metaverse, the most common possibilities fall into three buckets.

Trump tramples, Biden profits

“Are you so much of a fucking loser, you can’t tell when you’ve won?”

My greatest criticism of Donald Trump is summed up in a line from the film From Dusk Till Dawn. It’s plagued his charmed political life. It started fights with allies, alienated middle-of-the-road voters and most notably… cost him his ability to be a two-term president in 2020.

If I were to psychoanalyze Trump, I’d guess it’s his permanent view of himself as the underdog. The Queens guy rejected from Manhattan. The Real Estate Guy rejected by television. The Game Show Host rejected by the political establishment. Whenever he outgrows a pond, he immediately jumps into a larger one where he can face the same level of disrespect that motivated him in the first place.

And now we find ourselves again in Trump’s sweet spot. Aside from Grover Cleveland, no one has turned a failed re-election into an extended Gap Year. He could do it and based on nearly all available metrics, he is in position to do so.

K-Mart MAGA couldn’t take him down with DeSantis. The Never Trumpers failed with Nikki Haley. Indictments? Martyr Fuel. Trials? Excuse to campaign in NYC. Convictions? No significant poll movement.

And yet… the most Trump move of all would be make this race interesting again by acting like a total maniac during the most watched telecast before Election Day.

He did it before.

The first debate of 2020 encapsulated what America didn’t like about Trump during a time of high anxiety: he yelled and he wouldn’t stop yelling.

Joe Biden, derided then as a stage-managed, basement-dwelling dotard in 2020, hit the shot of the night when he wondered aloud if Trump could just “shut up, man.”

Every Trump fan should ask themselves with a shiver down their spine: could it happen again?

We’ve seen this game before. The weaknesses are still there.

Biden baffles, Trump profits

This is the nightmare scenario for the White House.

It would go a little something like this. The lack of an audience and mic muting essentially do for Trump on television what his self-imposed exile to Truth Social did to his online persona: make him more reasonable and less irritating. Without a crowd to excite he feels less like an unhinged lunatic and sticks to the facts. He says words like “inflation” and “Laken Riley” more than “corrupt judges” and “January 6th Patriots.” In short, it’s a regular debate, which is a disaster for Joe as he desperately needs to remind independent voters how dangerous DJT really is.

And there is a sign that Trump might have learned a lesson he’s never groked: how to act like a winner.

He walked into a room of people that don’t particularly like him and played statesman this week. He shook Mitch McConnell’s hand. He said nice things about Larry Hogan who could potentially add a rare Maryland GOP vote to a Senate majority.

All of that would be bad for Biden. But it’s not the nightmare scenario.

This is:

A misremembering of names. A slow rambling end of a sentence that ends with him looking down and muttering “anyways…” Things that Biden has done increasingly over the last few months.

In reviewing the footage from the 2020 debates, it’s remarkable how much faster Joe appeared there compared to his modern campaign stops. If you watch his 2012 debate with Paul Ryan, it’s plain that man doesn’t live here anymore.

The low bar of expectations works two ways. Joe can surpass it without much effort, but if America is looking for a doddering codger and they find one… it will be hard to forget it.

One of these moments is defining. Two of them would be irreparable.

Angry Old Men 2

The debate descends into a substance-free bicker session where both candidates are entirely living within their own echo chambers. “Obama was a gay prostitute!” bellows Trump. “At least he didn’t have a vergogna flag!” Biden responds.

The debate starts interesting enough but like real fights between old men, the novelty wears off before the altercation does.

The review from NewsMax? “Finally, a truth was told that can never be unsaid!”

MSNBC harmonizes: “Tonight, we witnessed the most stunning oration since John F. Kennedy!”

Meanwhile, America is sad.

And in that national humiliation, Donald Trump would take a large step forward to a non-consecutive White House term.

Many have theorized that Joe Biden initiated the earliest debate in American history because it was his campaign that needs a reset. It would acknowledge reality: he’s losing in most major polls and in enough swing state polls to worry. And that’s assuming the polls in the Rust Belt aren’t underestimating Trump’s unpredictable support as they did in both 2016 and 2020. If that history repeats itself then this hole is even deeper.

The key to stopping the trend is reminding voters the difference between the two men. Trump is chaos, Biden is stability.

If both are chaos then it would stand to reason nothing much would change. In that case? I’d rather be Trump.