The Day After: After the squabbling mess that passed for a debate Tuesday night, there’s a lot to talk about the President’s fantastical claims about voter fraud, the rules of debate engagement, and Trump’s failure to condemn the white power movement, which is a good place to start.

  Tuesday night, Trump ignored an easy opportunity to denounce a white supremacist group called the Proud Boys and said instead, “Proud Boys, stand back and stand by,” which the Proud Boys quickly turned into a motto. “But I’ll tell you what. I’ll tell you what,” Trump then continued, “Somebody’s got to do something about antifa and the left because this is not a right-wing problem. This is a left-wing problem.”

 Never forget that in his early years as a New York landlord, Trump refused to rent apartments to black people. Given a second chance yesterday on the Proud Boys, Trump told reporters, “I don’t know who Proud Boys are, but whoever they are, they have to stand down, let law enforcement do their work.” He still did not condemn the white supremacy movement.

  One exchange with a reporter went like this:

R: So Mr. President, let me follow up. White supremacists, they clearly love you and support you. Do you welcome that?

President: “I want law and order to be a very important part. It’s a very important part of my campaign. And when I say that, what I’m talking about is law enforcement has to… Police have to take care, and they should stop defunding the police like they’ve done in New York.” 

The Fraud About Fraud: It can’t be said enough that voter fraud is rare. It happens, but the bigger problem in American elections is that not enough people vote.

  Even so, President Trump is carrying on this season about what he says is a massive voter fraud initiative designed to deprive him  of a second term. He said during the debate, “They’re sending millions of ballots all over the country. There’s fraud. They found them in creeks. They found some, just happened to have the name Trump just the other day in a wastepaper basket. They’re being sent all over the place.” 

  It is true that millions of mail ballots are being issued this year, as they are every election, just more this time because of the coronavirus pandemic. Sloppy things happen every time, but incidents of fraud can be counted in the tens, not the millions.

  Trump and his associates are whipping up his followers into what could be a massive effort at voter intimidation. He said, “I’m urging my supporters to go in to the polls and watch very carefully, because that’s what has to happen. I am urging them to do it.”

  A NY Times story says, “Voting rights groups fear that effort could veer toward voter intimidation. But the question is how far Mr. Trump’s supporters will take the exhortations to protect a vote the president has relentlessly, and baselessly, described as being at risk of widespread fraud.”

New Rules: Following that show passing for a debate Tuesday night, the Commission on Presidential Debates is considering changing the rules, one of which could be cutting the microphone of a candidate who just won’t shut up. President Trump interrupted Joe Biden more than 70 times.

  The commission is considering limits on the open discussion rounds and possibly giving a candidate more time to speak if the opponent takes his time with interruptions.

  “Last night’s debate made clear that additional structure should be added to the format of the remaining debates to ensure a more orderly discussion of the issues,” the commission said in a formal statement. “The C.P.D. will be carefully considering the changes that it will adopt and will announce those measures shortly.”

  They might also want to consider a trap door.

A Cup of Joe: Former Vice President Joe Biden never dominates a debate and stayed true to form Tuesday night. In those brief moments in which he managed to speak between the word flak of Donald Trump, Biden managed to demonstrate that at age 78 he’s not senile, not on performance-enhancing drugs as the President has claimed, and able to stay awake and focused for 100 minutes.

  Proof that Biden held his own was that the day-after conversation was about Trump’s craziness, not Biden’s acuity.

Ask Any Martini: Clare Bronfman, an heiress to the Seagram’s liquor fortune, was sentenced to nearly seven years in prison for crimes committed during her involvement with the NXIVM self-improvement and sex cult out of Albany, NY.

  She was accused of falsifying visas for foreign members and using her wealth to fight lawsuit filed against the organization.

  Bronfman had described herself in a court pleading as “self-loathing” until she joined NXIVM — pronounced “Nexium” — and greatly improved her life. The judge said at her sentencing,  “I don’t know how many other multimillionaires are out there, ready to devote the limitless resources at their disposal to supporting pyramid schemes run by dangerous criminals.”

Cancel Culture: Following the disastrous presidential debate Tuesday night, the former reality television star  who’s now President was promoting how great the television ratings were. “HIGHEST CABLE TELEVISION RATINGS OF ALL TIME,” Trump tweeted. “SECOND HIGHEST OVERALL TELEVISION RATINGS OF ALL TIME. Some day these Fake Media Companies are going to miss me, very badly!!!”

  Others were saying “cancel the remaining debates.”

  Conservative columnist George Will wrote, “The national interest — actually, national security — demands that the other two scheduled mortifications, fraudulently advertised as presidential debates, should be canceled: When a nation makes itself pathetic, the response of enemy nations is not sympathy.”

 NY Times columnist Frank Bruni wrote, “Giving him more time in front of a national television audience isn’t a route to clarity. It’s an expressway to autocracy, because his performance on Tuesday night proved that he will use these showcases to subvert democracy.”

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