Jack of Harts

I’ve been going over the debate since it ended, and especially studying the beginning to see how it went so bad. And I’ve come up with an interesting conclusion. Trump did not start the slugfest. Biden did.

Don’t get me wrong. Trump was ready and eager to fight. He had one of the guys who had sabotaged his campaign and his presidency right here on the ropes for one and a half hours. He wanted to beat the guy. And he did. He even called Biden out on what Biden and his former boss did four years ago.

But what turned the debate so quickly? Well. Biden did.

The first two segments went really smooth. Trump said his thing. Biden said his thing. And then Biden decided it was time to start interrupting Trump. Yeah. Watch the debate again. Just the first twenty minutes if you don’t want to go all the way down. You’ll see.

Biden started it. Trump was talking and doing his thing and Biden jumped in and started interrupting him. Several times in fact. And when Trump started returning the favor? That was when Wallace started jumping in to stop him and make sure Biden could talk.

Biden also started the insult train by calling Trump a liar. Multiple times. He called Trump a clown, and told him to “keep yapping.” All in the first twenty minutes. This was long before Biden called him a racist and Putin’s puppy in the last half of the debate. Way before Trump insulted his intelligence.

It makes me wonder if Biden planned to do that all along. To make the debate go so low with insults and attacks that everybody would be disgusted. If so, he succeeded.

Though I think he and liberals in general don’t realize just how angry they make everybody Americans when they brandish insults like that. Americans have seen those insults for decades now, and they no longer carry the weight they use to. In fact, far more often, they are bouncing back on those who use them.

Don’t get me wrong. Trump did not do himself many favors in this debate. And he failed in more than one place to seal the deal. But I think Biden did himself a LOT of damage when he started the insult and interrupt campaign.

Jack twisted his stick and thrusters flared them around a few pieces of tumbling wreckage. Jack slammed the throttle forward, and engines roared tongues of blue fusion flame behind him. They accelerated towards the British vanguard, and Jack smiled with approval as their point defenses engaged every incoming enemy missile.

Jack found the Spitfire he was looking for at the very head of the vanguard. No surprise there. He tapped a button on his communications display to start transmitting. “Hey, Lance, old buddy. You’re looking a little lonely out here.”

“Not lonely at all,” Lance answered a second later, and his smiling face appeared on one of the displays. “Ivan’s giving us a warm welcome, in fact!”

“What did I tell you about trusting Russian vodka?” Jack asked as the range closed, pulling the throttle back to match speed with Lance’s squadron.

Displays flashed as Betty logged them back into the British networks. A whole new universe of fire plans and point defense options filled his cockpit. Laser turrets and missile pods realigned, thrusters burned to shift them into optimal angles, and gravitic cannons hummed to life as their capacitors achieved maximum power.

“Don’t,” Lance said with a chuckle. “It can give you a real headache in the morning.”

And then Jack’s little squadron of Avengers fired in time with the British vanguard. Grav beams and missiles reached out to smash one Russian ship, and wreckage filled his vision. Pieces of former warships drifted around them. Surviving point defense lasers fired at each other in fitful spurts of otherworldly destruction. Jack accelerated them through the flashing wreckage, trusting the deflection grids to deflect anything too small to dodge, trusting Betty to avoid anything too large to deflect, and really hoping none of those point defenses took a personal disliking to him.

“We have incoming fighters,” Betty reported, pulling his attention away from wreckage.

Jack glanced at the displays to see nearly a hundred Russian fighters closing with them.

“Ignore them,” Jack ordered and focused on the battleship he wanted so very much dead. “Stay on target.”

“Staying on target,” Betty acknowledged.

They shot out of the wreckage in time to the screaming duet of rock and roll guitars and opened fire with every weapon they had left.

***

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