Dingus of the week: Whoever watched the debate

It’s me

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Last night, America witnessed two men more forcefully arguing about who was better at golf than about how to make child care more affordable.

Good thing they’re not running for president.

Actually, sorry, just getting word, that is exactly what they are doing. And America is cooked. Broiled. Burnt. Grilled. Broasted.  

Last night’s debate was a battle between the softly spoken and incomprehensible and the loudly spoken and incomprehensible. Between forceful lies and mumbled, rambling rebuttals. To be fair, it’s harder to be comprehensible when you are bound by facts and reality. Which only one candidate is. But no one won last night and we are all the losers for it. 

More useful than the debate, which was less a debate and more a parallel talk-a-thon, would be simply seeing if either of the candidates know how to close out of an iPhone app or turn down the screen brightness. 

Here are some things that would have been more informative than the debate:

• Have both candidates shake their fist at the clouds for 90 minutes

• Slap fight

• Presidential cheese-rolling competition

• Ask them to convert a .docx file to a PDF

• Real Housewives reunion where the candidates are just grilled by Danielle Cabral

• Forget golf, how are they at pickleball?

One highlight was when the candidates talked about Black jobs. What are those? Do we know? I assume they are probably just jobs but they pay you 75 percent of what you ought to make.

Fentanyl machines were discussed, too. Those are something else I am unclear on, but I would really like to hook myself up to one after watching the debate.

And apparently Donald Trump is talking about abortions after birth. That is literally not a thing, but after watching the debate, I would simply love to experience one. Abort me out of here. 

Here are some things less stressful than watching two men fight about golf handicaps so they can hold the nuclear codes:

• Giving a knife to a toddler

• Watching Uncut Gems

• Owning a daycare during the Satanic Panic

• Cutting off your own arm

While Biden and Trump limply jousted, RFK was having a livestream where he edited himself into the debate, which honestly was the only thing that made sense last night.

The good news is it’s only June. No normal voter watches debates. And we have plenty of time to start a few more distracting proxy wars before the election. The other good news is that what happens during a debate simply doesn’t matter much. Every moment and sound bite will be cut down, clipped, processed, run through the memeification, social media quip, and political analysis spin machine until whatever was said or communicated will turn into a Rorschach test of stupefying proportions. 

Winning elections has never been about logic or policy, but about what fiction you could package and sell about America and what it was or could be. Which story is the most compelling and which one is shouted the longest, loud enough to make it last until the election.

And what strikes me so often is how little these moments matter. That in just a few days the incomprehensibility of fentanyl machines and “Black jobs” will be disappeared into the giant maw of our media appetite – gone with the Steve Forbes presidential bid and that time everyone got mad at Obama for talking about salads. We are all political pundits now. Pontificating about how debate prep should have gone or what people should have said as if we’d ever been in those rooms or will ever be in those rooms. All spinning the narratives we want to see. 

If you like Biden, you will simply be appalled at Trump’s lies. If you like Trump, you will be simply gleeful over Biden’s incomprehensibility. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. And we get to do it all again in September. Unless we can start another proxy war.

I know this election is important. But watching this debate last night made me feel like people are feverishly sandbagging to stop a tsunami. 

And now for something good

This newsletter community raised over $8,100 for Iowa Abortion Access Fund and Iowa Trans Mutual Aid during Relay Iowa. Thank you all for your support! It’s nice to know we are all still committed to making the world a better place.

The New York Public library system got its budget back, proving that it is always a good idea to bully your mayor.

Biden pardoned LGBTQ veterans convicted under the gay-sex ban.

Travis Kelce got on stage and performed with Taylor Swift in a moment that will be remembered long after we memory-hole this debate, and you know what? That’s great.

Imagine being so evil that even the Supreme Court takes a break from restricting rights, flying Jan. 6 flags, and taking money from billionaires to tell you to be less evil.

What I am drinking

On Monday, I realized that I had failed to procure my traditional box of white wine for my fridge. Or summer water as I like to call it. I remedied that oversight this week with a large “Black Box” of Pinot Grigio. I don’t like Chardonnay, I decided. And anyone who tells me “Oh, you haven’t had the right one,” please. If 90 percent of the versions of you have the aura of the rotting apple at the bottom of the fruit drawer in your fridge, something is fundamentally not working. 

I love a little wine spritzer on my porch this time of year. What a delight.

This week marked one of my favorite nights of the summer – the night my daughter swims at the Country Club swim meet and I get to go to the club in jorts and order wine and chicken tendies while my daughter swims.

I put on my best jorts and trashy tank top and went to watch the meet. But 30 minutes into the meet, the tornado alarms went off, and we had to huddle inside the various country club buildings while a large funnel cloud hovered over our heads. I don’t live far away, so I bundled my kids up and we headed home.

I did not get my wine or my chicken. So I will have to fix that this weekend.

Enjoy yourselves this weekend. It’s still Pride month. And it is still summer and that means there is still white wine, Caesar salad, and a side of fries to enjoy on a patio somewhere.