(1). 1:Mr Biden also tried to lay out the traditional policy case, including, by his flubby standards, with some half-decent answers on policing and climate-change policy. 2:For his part, Mr Trump made a handful of disjointed, mostly defensive, claims for his administration’s achievements: on the subject of insulin pricing, for example, he said “I’m getting it for so cheap it’s like water.” 3:But he did not describe any policy or future plan wholly or in detail.
(2). 1:Was there a strategy to this beyond his usual refusal to be constrained by rules and need to dominate? 2:Maybe not; those urges explain most of what Mr Trump does. 3:But the strategic implications of his thuggery look no less dire for being, in all likelihood, unplanned. 4:Ahead of an election he appears on course to lose, he is telling his supporters that Democrats are not merely hostile opponents but somehow illegitimate. 5:He also repeated in Cleveland his unfounded claim that the election will “be a fraud like you’ve never seen”. 6:Asked to condemn the violent white supremacists who have already taken to the streets on his behalf, in Oregon and elsewhere, he failed to do so. 7:None of this seemed likely to help his electoral prospects. 8:It is the kind of behaviour that has turned a small majority of Americans against him. And yet over 40% are still with him to the hilt.