Joe Biden’s horrific debate performance casts his entire candidacy into doubt
The president had one job and he utterly failed at it
- 主标题
- horrific 可怕的；极其糟糕的
- 程度递减 horrific horrible terrible awful
- cast … into doubt 使 … 遭到怀疑（质疑）
- e.g. The new discovery casts the old theory into doubt.
- candidacy 候选人资格（或身份）
- horrific 可怕的；极其糟糕的
- 副标题
- utterly 完全地，彻底地
- completely thoroughly
- fail at 在某事上失败；尝试做某事但最终失败了
- utterly 完全地，彻底地
The mission for Joe Biden in the presidential debate held in Atlanta on June 27th was clear: to prove his critics wrong, by showing that he was mentally fit and thereby reverse the polling deficit that makes Donald Trump the favourite to win the American election in 2024. Unfortunately, his performance was an unmitigated disaster—perhaps the worst of any presidential candidate in modern history. The president, who is 81 (and would be 86 by the end of a second term in office), stammered indecipherably, struggled to complete his lines of attack and proved his doubters completely correct. Although Mr Trump was in his typical form—meandering, mendacious, vindictive—he somehow appeared the more coherent and lucid of the pair. Mr Biden’s decision to seek re-election rather than standing aside for a younger standard-bearer now looks like a reckless endangerment of the democracy he claims to want to protect.
- critics 评论家；批评者；吹毛求疵的人
- mentally fit 精神健康：指一个人的心理状态良好，能够应对生活中的各种挑战和压力
- and thereby 从而
- e.g. You have to exercise more and thereby keep healthy.
- reverse 逆转，彻底改变（决定、政策、趋势等）
- polling deficit 民调赤字
- poll 民意调查，民意测验；选举投票，计票；投票数；投票点（the polls）
- deficit 亏损，赤字，不足额
- unmitigated
- term in office 任期：指某个公职人员担任某个职位的时间段
- tenure 任期，任职；（尤指大学教师的）终身职位，长期聘用
- stammered
- indecipherably
- struggled to
- form
- 表，表格；类别，种类；形状，外形；体形；（存在的）形态，形式；（尤指艺术作品或文章的）结构；体能，良好的健康状态；良好表现；词形；惯常做法，习俗；（英国的）班级，年级；不礼貌的行为
- typical form 典型风格，一贯形式
- meandering
- mendacious
- vindictive
- somehow
- coherent
- lucid
- seek re-election
- stand aside
- standard-bearer 旗手；领导人
- reckless 鲁莽的，不计后果的；粗心大意的
- endangerment 危害，受到危害
Merely quoting Mr Biden’s rhetorical bumblings does not do them justice, but they do give a sense of the shambles. Consider one of his lines at the very start of the debate, the first indicator that the president was in poor form: “Making sure that we continue to strengthen our health-care system, making sure that we’re able to make every single, solitary person eligible for what I’ve been able to do with the…uh, covid…excuse me, dealing with everyone we had to do with… look, if we finally beat Medicare…” The moderator interrupted before further damage could be done, one of several coups de grâce graciously administered.
- rhetorical
- bumblings
- do … justice 给 … 以公平；这里指不能完全体现，不能展示全貌
- e.g. The scene is very beautiful，but it can’t do the nature justice.
- shamble 蹒跚；摇晃的脚步
- indicator
- solitary
- eligible
- moderator
- coups de grâce 法语词，致命的一击
- 经常与 administer 连用，administer 取实施、给与的意思
- e.g. He administered the coups de grâce with the knife.
- graciously /ˈɡreɪʃəsli/ 和蔼地；仁慈地；雅致地
- administer 管理，治理；执行，实施；给予（药物或治疗）
Despite nearly a week spent huddled with his advisers, Mr Biden was unable to deliver his rehearsed attack lines even on the issues where he should have been most powerful, such as on establishing a right to abortion, yanked away by Supreme Court justices appointed by Mr Trump. What came out was this: “I support Roe v Wade, which had three trimesters. First time is between the woman and the doctor. Second time was between the doctor and an extreme situation. The third time is between the doctor, I mean between the woman and the state.” A direct question to Mr Biden about his capacity to do the job given his age—one that he ought to have been completely prepared for—earned only a half-hearted response that quickly veered into a discussion of computer chips and South Korea.
That is not to say that Mr Trump was anything like presidential. He lied inveterately. He would not promise to accept the results of the election in November, in effect threatening a repeat of the attack on the Capitol that his supporters staged on January 6th 2021 (for which he blamed Nancy Pelosi, then the Democratic speaker of the House). He was loutish and undignified, forced to say “I did not have sex with a porn star” and then accusing his opponent of being a “Manchurian candidate” who receives money from China (of course, without any evidence).
- That is not to say 这并不是说
- that is to say
- inveterately
- in effect
- threaten
- the workers threatened to strike.
- the Capitol
- stage
- speaker of the House
- loutish
- undignified
- accuse sb of doing sth
- Manchurian candidate
- 意为傀儡
On the serious policy matters that would face a future president, Mr Trump was evasive. His responses to questions about the war in Ukraine and Gaza were identical: the conflicts would not have happened if he were president, due to the force of his personality. When pressed on his environmental policy, Mr Trump said: “I want absolutely immaculate clean water. I want absolutely clean air and we had it. We had h2o, we had the best numbers ever.” Pupils in secondary school can give more serious answers than that. But Mr Trump at least had the distinction of appearing vital.
- evasive /ɪˈveɪsɪv/ 闪烁其辞，不坦率的，模棱两可的；逃避的，规避的
- identical 完全相同的；同一的
- force 暴力，武力；力，力量；自然力
- press 敦促，逼迫；坚持，竭力要求
- immaculate /ɪˈmækjələt/ 完美的；洁净的；无瑕疵的
- secondary school 中学
- primary school 小学
- distinction 差别，区分；杰出，卓越；特点；荣誉
- vital /ˈvaɪt(ə)l/ 至关重要的，必不可少的；生机勃勃的，充满活力的
- vitality 活力，热情；生机，生命力
There is some irony to that. Ahead of the debate, Mr Trump tried to raise expectations for Mr Biden by suggesting, baselessly, that the president would be on stimulants to try to juice his performance. One of his allies in Congress even sent a letter demanding that Mr Biden take a drug test. None of those pre-emptive attacks proved necessary.
But all of this is standard-issue Trumpian chaos. For the American voters who did suffer through the debate—and the millions who will watch clippings of it later—the most distinguishing feature will be Mr Biden’s unsettlingly poor performance. It is a marked deterioration not just from his past debates (those against Mr Trump in 2020 show a doppelganger seemingly a decade younger) but even from his state-of-the-union address a few months ago.
- clipping 剪辑；剪下物；剪报
- clip（电影、电视节目等的）片段
- distinguishing 有区别的
- unsettlingly 让人不安地
- marked deterioration 明显恶化
- marked 明显的，显著的
- deterioration /dɪˌtɪriəˈreɪʃn/ 恶化
- doppelganger /ˈdɑːplɡæŋər/ 分身；外表非常相似的人
- state-of-the-union 国情咨文
- address 演讲，演说
Before the debate had even ended, Democratic elites were starting to panic. On current trends, Mr Biden is not favoured to win. He is trailing in the swing states needed to secure re-election. Debates tend not to have huge effects on public opinion, because the American electorate is deeply polarised and generally hard to persuade, but a performance as dismal as this (and one so early in the election cycle) might do grave harm to Mr Biden’s poll numbers. Immediately after the debate, betting markets registered a marked decline in the chance that Mr Biden would in fact be the party’s nominee.
- elite
- panic
- on current trends
- be favoured to
- trail
- swing states 摇摆州
- secure
- public opinion
- hard to persuade
- hard to be persuaded
- dismal
- do harm to
- grave
- betting markets
- register （仪器上）显出，显示
- <常用>登记，注册
- nominee 被提名者，被任命者
If the president were to abandon his re-election bid, it would be a seismic event—perhaps even more consequential than Lyndon Johnson’s decision to drop out of the presidential race in 1968 because of his Vietnam-war-induced unpopularity. Mr Biden had flirted with the idea of being a single-term bridge to a new generation of Democrat, but the allure of a second term seemed impossible to resist, and no one within the party was able to persuade him to make way. Doing so this late would be chaotic.
- abandon 放弃
- re-election bid
- seismic 地震的，地震引起的；影响深远的，重大的
- consequential
- drop out of 退出；辍学
- e.g. Left-behind children are more likely to drop out of high school.
- Vietnam-war-induced
- unpopularity
- flirt with 考虑做某事，但并不认真，或者对某事短暂地感兴趣；调情
- allure
- make away
- chaotic
Mr Biden has accrued almost all of the delegates needed to secure the party’s nomination in August in Chicago (also the site of the chaotic Democratic convention of 1968). That means that it is too late for anyone other than Mr Biden himself to change the top of the ticket. Under convention rules, these delegates would then become “unbound”, free to vote for whomever they wished. The next Democratic nominee would, in effect, be selected by party grandees rather than the usual drawn-out democratic process. Mr Biden and his allies have already raised hundreds of millions of dollars for his campaign and spent much of it on pre-booked television advertisements.
- accrue accumulate
- delegate
- nomination
- too … to …
- other than
- convention
- unbound
- grandee
- bigwig
- drawn-out
- ally
- pre-booked
Jettisoning him from the top of the ticket would be an extreme measure, ensuring deep schisms within the party and leaving it weakened ahead of a contest with Donald Trump. Yet after a performance this bad, Democrats might feel they have no other option but to break glass.
- Jettison（为减轻重量而从行驶的飞机或船上）投弃；摆脱，处理掉；放弃
- schism 分裂
- contest 比赛；竞争；争论
- have no option but to …
- e.g. Under the pressure of life, they have no option but to leave their hometown.
- break glass
- e.g. In such a emergency，the team have no choice but to break glass.
