Alright, let us begin.

The final debate of the 2020 election cycle.

My final live-tweet of an event in this presidential term.

There will be much drinking and little spell-checking.

Refresh your beverages. We have miles to go before we sleep.

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While tonight’s moderator, Kristen Welker, settles in...

It has been a long four years. I have done many of these. Debates, press conferences, rallies.

No matter what may come, tonight feels like the closing of a chapter.

We have been through much, I’m not going to lie, the realization that this was the last of these before the election left me a little wistful today.

For the youngsters, that’s an olde tyme word meaning “full of wist”.

I don’t know what “wist” means.

I went to the liquor store to buy a suitable ale but, per the above, this feels like an occasion.

I was going to buy some Miller High Life. It is well documented as the champagne of beers.

But, no, I deserve better...

So, I bought a bottle of Prosecco.

It is the beer of champagnes.

I will drink it all.

So, off we go.

First question is about COVID.

Trump begins with a dizzying fusillade of utter bullshit about how he didn’t kill 220,000 people; he saved 1.8 million.

This, in epidemiology circles, is called “dumfuckery”.

Biden parries by dropping the truth about Babyfingers’ bungling.

Trump looks tranquilized. They might have stirred a crushed up Xanax or six into his pudding cup.

He looks beaten.

Thanks to the muting of microphones, there is no interrupting.

That has neutered Trump.

In place of his rabid frothing are two-minute filibusters that are just word salads of disconnected thoughts - each bearing little relationship to the prior.

“I take full responsibility. It’s not my fault... that it came here.”

An actual quote.

Commander Babyfingers is a towering ignoramus. A King King of ignorance.

His brain is a sad, lonely place where neurons wait for a call that will never come. There is no fire in that place.

As a side note, this Prosecco is a delight. Lively and effervescent with hints of peach on the finish.

I read that on the little shelf tag.

My $9 feels well spent.

Much back and forth on COVID.

I don’t see a real value in transcribing the specifics because none of it thus far has had enough punch to be quotable let alone meaningfully impactful.

Well, other than Kong’s bumbling nonsense.

e.g. “New York is a ghost town.”

It would seem to me a lie is somewhat undermined by the presence of 8,000,0000 eyewitnesses to its falseness.

New York, sirs and madams, is most certainly not a ghost town.

It is a vibrant city pleased to have rid itself of its worst resident: President Donald J. Fuckopotamus.

We’re 30 minutes in.

The window of opportunity for Trump had all but closed long before tonight.

And the opportunity in this debate is slipping away by the second.

Trump needed a 12-run home run. He’s still trying to scratch out a single.

I have sat through so much of this insufferable popinjay’s moronic prattle.

Four years of it. From the hate rallies in Alabama for Roy Moore to the Boy Scout Jamboree in West Virginia where he bragged about getting laid on boats...

Oh, I glory in the darkening of this day.

Trump is blathering on, throwing bullshit left and right.

He is the abominable snowman after Hermey pulled out his teeth.

It is the desperate lawn sprinkler of a man unmoored.

It lacks coherence let alone persuasiveness.

Trump throwing random smears about Hunter, etc.

Biden counters with “The only guy who got in trouble in Ukraine was this guy... for trying to bribe someone to cook up dirt on me.”

Ouchie ouch.

Welker asks about Trump’s bank account in China.

Trump motormouths through a “me thinks he doth protest too much” answer - some of which is already rebutted by what is known.

The faster Babyfingers speak, the more certain he is lying.

Trump is now losing his composure.

Ranting about how great a job he did being tough on China.

Repeats his usual butchery of the concept of tariffs and who pays for them.

Biden zings him over US taxpayers getting stuck w the bill. Trump sees red.

Trump held it together for 45 minutes.

Now whatever tranq they loaded into his apple sauce is apparently wearing off because he is getting visibly heated and interrupting again.

T-Minus 2 minutes until he gets mad at Welker.

Trump tried to brag about meeting with Kim Jong Un when he never meet with Obama.

Biden, paraphrasing very heavily here, replies with the equivalent of “Yeah, because they knew Obama wasn’t a punk-ass b**** they could roll like a bowling ball.”

Now on to healthcare.

Trump again undermines his myriad prior lies by repeatedly saying what he wants to do is “come up with something better.”

Umm, you said it was already so close to done, it was 2 weeks away 180 weeks ago.

Trump rambles and dissembles about how he wants to have a great healthcare program which will be great by making it great which he wants to do because it will be great believe me.

It remains mystifying that there are humans who think this idiot is smart.

Trump getting saltier. Biden now openly laughing at him more.

Inside, Trump is steaming.

He is a bully who no one fears.

Or even takes seriously.

It’s a spectacle of failure.

Trump tries to rail against Bernie (??)

Biden says, and I quote:

“He’s a very confused guy. He thinks he’s running against someone else. He’s running against me. Joe. Biden.”

LOL.

For Trump, the failure to dominate is emasculating.

He is being castrated publicly for now the second time in a debate.

It is humiliating to Trump to brag endlessly about his strength and dominance and then barely stay afloat in a war of words.

Biden be like:

Trump now reflexively arguing against whatever Biden says...

...which led him headlong into angrily bashing the idea of raising the minimum wage.

During an economic crisis.

While most states still have minimums miles below livable.

That’ll land with a thud with his base.

Heated exchanges re: border separations.

Biden flashes earnest outrage at what was done to families.

That’ll make the morning recap.

Family separations are a vulgar affront to human decency. Hugely unpopular with voters. Biden’s heat puts it back in the spotlight.

Trump: “No one has done more for the Black community than Donald Trump... with the possible exception of Abe Lincoln.”

I suspect that statement may not be accurate.

We are nearing the finish of both this debate and this entire presidential cycle of coverage-worthy events.

I have consumed half a bottle of Prosecco.

This pleases me both because I’ve already had a half bottle and because I still have a half bottle.

That’s nice.

I am going to drop in the link to my Prosecco fund all casual-like and nonchalant.

If the spirit moves you to help me buy some spirits, I would rejoice in your largesse. https://ko-fi.com/therealhoarse 

Trump tries to throw in the crazy Hunter Biden laptop shtick.

Biden smacks it around like a beach ball.

Trump got nowhere with his big play.

Trump: “I am, like, the least racist person.”

Biden: “Yeah, Abraham Lincoln over here... pours gasoline.”

Oof. That missile landed.

That Gettysburg found Trump’s address.

Sorry. That was terrible. Yet, not terrible. Maybe that’s the wine talking.

I believe we are poised to wind down.

Feel free to linger for the after-party while I polish off this bottle.

This is the end of an era. No matter what lies ahead, it is the end of an era.

God willing, it will be the last event I ever live tweet with Trump as President.

I like our chances.

I was in my place of worship earlier and offered a small prayer: please let Biden win so as to shine upon us the light of renewal.

Okay, technically I’m agnostic and it was a Wendy’s drive-through but I’m willing to become gnostic. I can do that.

Trump just claimed he knows a lot about wind.

Do me a favor. Google “Trump ‘I am the evidence’”

As it turns out, that very same claim made him the laughingstock of Scottish Parliament.

Side note:

I could not possibly rouse a greater hatred for the way Dumdum McGrammarless pronounces the word “industry”.

In—duss—tree.

It’s indiss-tree, you language-murdering fucking pox.

And with that, we have finished and the candidates have adjourned.

Again, I feel some wist here.

If I may detour for a minute...

I joined Twitter at a friend’s asking in 2016. I expected none of this: Still being here four years later. Having sent 125,000 tweets. Having the undeserved honor of your readership.

It has been a ride I signed up for but also didn’t.

We’ve banded together and gotten through so many of these.

We paid attention because we must; catalogued every terrible moment; laughed to survive...

Our little thing here has been a shared rowboat through choppy waters.

These take a lot out of me. They leave me wired and sleepless. I can never sleep after.

But after a miserable November night in 2016 when four years away seemed like an eternity away, we somehow endured every one of these and, at last, are here. At last.

It is necessary for me to think back on the worst of these live-tweets. Rally in Alabama. Roy Moore running for Senate.

The hate crackled in the air like static electricity jumping between poles.

It simmered and boiled, barely contained.

I seriously feared that we might have reached a point where the fire could not be contained and would rage hotter and higher until there was nothing left.

But we didn’t let it.

And as the last four years have worn on, that fire has lost heat.

It has become easier to mock and lampoon them - and not as a gallows humor coping strategy for maintaining a brave face while it all goes to shit.

The would-be fascist lost his sway. Little by little, he lost it.

Trump’s rallies have become tepid, nostalgic revues for fans who liked the original.

It’s over for Trump though.

We have walked through fire to get here and we’d crawl over glass to finish this.

And finish it, we will.

It’s been a long road.

Thanks for riding shotgun on my live threads...

I appreciate y’all.

And with that, I have a little bit of Prosecco left... and I’m going to go stand in the cool night air and drink it.

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