Friday's presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump sent shudders through Democratic headquarters and for good reason.
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While Trump was his usual bombastic self, Biden stumbled, mumbled and was at times unintelligible. Suddenly, his advanced age became an even bigger problem.
As the prospect of a second Trump presidency suddenly has reason to loom larger on the horizon, Australians should have cause for concern.
From a distance, the choice between a man who may be too old and frail to run a country, and a convicted criminal with a tendency to lie brazenly, looks dire.
Imagine, then, the view from within a country so deeply divided. As one commentator put it, with Biden's raspy voice and incoherent answers being the news of the day, Trump's business-as-usual approach had the appearance of the best one.
In a country so neatly split, a small change in cadence and inability to answer questions could be more than enough to tip the scales.
Here in Australia, we should take the debate, and its ominous potential consequences, as a warning against tying ourselves too tightly to our allies.
![The poor choices facing the US have far-reaching implications for the rest of the world, including Australia. Picture Shutterstock The poor choices facing the US have far-reaching implications for the rest of the world, including Australia. Picture Shutterstock](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/RXMuw2JbrrS7ELSxSY9rkR/60cc6a87-0329-4afc-9693-8fa50c24ec70.jpg/r0_373_6000_3760_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
The deeply personal nature of some of the discourse throughout the debate, with both grown men trading barbs relating to each other's families and private associates, is a reminder of how far away the country has drifted from our own public values, and how starkly different our political systems are.
In fact the debate, with its sprinklings of simplistic and folksy utterings from both sides - Biden's "alley cat" and "malarky", and at one point Trump describing the economy under his watch as "rocking good" - is downright amusing, in much the same horrifying way as a video of someone falling over, or an avoidable but irreversible newsprint gaffe.
We're used to America seeming both familiar and remote; we still have choice of whether or not to engage with their internal struggles.
But we should remember what the world stands to lose should Trump win the next US election, and why it's ever more important Australia stands on its own two feet when it comes to foreign policy.
At one point, Trump accused Biden of leading a government that had declined on the world stage. But Biden was having none of it.
"No one thinks we're weak. No one wants to screw around with us. Nobody," Biden said.
But the country is becoming ever harder to admire, much less actually envy, and harder to see the American population being faced with a genuine choice.
Nations like ours will need to brace for a disaster that may well eventuate.
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