This past Sunday, Biden and Bernie had their first one on one debate with each other. We are all very aware of how different former vice president Biden and Senator Sanders are. All of the other Democratic candidates dropped out just before this debate. Therefore, I feel like this is a good thing, so we can finally see how they compare and contrast on each issue. And maybe finally the United States can unify on which Democrat they would like to pick as the Democratic presidential nominee.
One of the first issues that they debated was healthcare. Both candidates agreed that Trump’s approach to the coronavirus crisis was deplorable. Also, because of this, they also decided to talk about economics, as the coronavirus is causing our economy to plummet. With this debate happening during the pandemic, Biden cited Italy’s current state to prove that Bernie’s universal single-payer healthcare would not prevent the spread of the virus.
However, Senator Sanders fought back by saying Vice President Biden was too ready to compromise with Republicans and corporations. In addition, he grilled Biden on his former voting habits and use on abortion, gay rights, foreign wars, bankruptcy regulation, and retirement-security programs. Biden shot back with attacking Bernie on his former opposition to gun control legislation.
Frequently, both men seem to get flustered as they exclaimed, “Joe” or “Bernie” at each other. This has probably been one of the more aggressive debates from the Democratic primary. I believe this is because there are fewer candidates, and there’s only two of them now so that way they can finally answer questions and actually debate with each other. One of Joe Biden’s strategists compared Bernie to a political demonstrator and said Joe was used to dealing with that during his campaign events.
I feel like a bad thing about this is that the debate between Joe and Bernie started to remind me of Hillary and Trump’s 2016 presidential debates. It only makes me wonder how heated and aggressive the presidential election can get with whoever wins the Democratic nomination. We already saw how the 2016 election turned out, so it worries me that Donald Trump has a very likely chance of winning again, especially because Joe Biden is in the lead right now.
Moreover, due to the coronavirus talk during the debate, it made me consider the fact that both Bernie and Joe are in their late 70’s. Both candidates have switched to online meetups with their supporters, as they both are at higher risk for contracting the coronavirus and even dying from it. It makes me wonder if we should even be voting for people that are at such a high risk for dying or getting sick at any moment. It honestly makes me wish that a younger candidate could have gotten this far, as I feel a younger candidate would have a way higher chance of beating Trump in the presidential election. However, I am personally looking forward to seeing the next democratic debate.