The recent commentary regarding the first post-primary Presidential debate has led me down a side path while in the middle of an explainer series on the steps toward open guerrilla warfare. As we well know, Tuesday’s debate has had a wide range of receptions. conservatives like our own Joe Cunningham, referred to the debate as, absolute insanity, writing:

Neither candidate “lost” on Tuesday night. I expect the polling won’t change much over the next week, though I could easily envision a scenario where the polling swings in either direction. But while neither lost, I can’t say that either won. It was an absolute trainwreck from start to finish, and that’s the truth here.

Read: The Absolute Insanity That Was the Fox News Debate

While over at American Thinker, Andrea Widberg writes:

With 24 hours having passed since the first presidential debate, it’s becoming clear that Trump won in a big way. It wasn’t an apparent victory, but it was a real one: He showed his base and ordinary Americans that he will always fight while forcing Biden to disavow both his hard-left base and the last of the old-fashioned Democrats who still support him.

Read: The Trump debate decoded: He won, and he won big

The purpose of this piece isn’t to compare and contrast varying conservative opinions abut the debate as seen in these United States. Today I’d like to look at it from the point of view of some of the bad state actors I pointed out in my series on the road to guerrilla war. To do so, we need to more closely examine the use of the term, Presidential.

I’ve heard that a lot since Donald J. Trump flogged Hillary Clinton to a fare thee well in 2016. A huge part of that was candidate Trump’s refusal to act Presidential in such a manner as others, mostly the left defines that term, thus hamstringing Republicans while Democrats feel no obligation to act in such a manner. Trump went after Clinton and hard. My personal belief that the tipping point for him, the point when heretofore demoralized conservatives said to themselves, ”We got us a fighter, a Paladin!” occurred when in one exchange, Clinton opined snarkily with words to the effect of, “It’s a good thing someone of your temperament is not in charge of the law in this country.” Donald J. Trump, the fighter, immediately and with zero hesitation and in a flat tone of voice responded, “Because you’d be in jail,” then turned away from her. All that was missing was the mic drop.

Here’s a quick YouTube of that classic moment:

That moment was for domestic consumption, targeted at the conservative Republican base. But of course, there were other folks watching as well…the bad actors I referred to earlier. We’ll get to them in a moment. Let’s look back at one of the Presidential debates between then-incumbent President Barack Obama and his Republican challenger, Governor Mitt Romney.

During the exchange, Governor Romney accused the Obama administration of refusing to call the attack on our Benghazi compound a terrorist attack, instead calling it a spontaneous demonstration to an internet video. The moderator, Candy Crowley, came to President Obama’s defense, while Romney almost meekly, went silent. The Republican candidate, the man who was supposed to fight for our team, went from widely believed to have won the previous debate, to a chastened little boy smacked down by the corpulent Crowley. Crowley was later determined to have twisted the truth to assist Obama. Watch the entire exchange below and compare it to Donald Trump’s 2-3 second skewer.

Now fast forward to Tuesday’s event. Yes, it was definitely not a long form, Lincoln-Douglas type debate or discussion. If you want one of those, I suggest you tune in to Mark Levin’s Life, Liberty and Levin on Sunday nights. I believe President Trump was sending multiple messages to multiple audiences. First, was as always to his base and to Democrats long abandoned by the Democrat party. Yes. I am still your defender. I am your Paladin. I will defend you and not cower in fear of the press, come what may. But there were others listening and Trump was sending a message to them too.

That’s why the President had to put Chris Wallace in his place. Wallace insisted on interrupting him and asking leading questions with a false premise built-in, such as when he brazenly equated White Supremacist groups with civilian militia groups. Trump’s active and directed response to Wallace bothered certain folks who are allegedly Republicans. A number of my Academy classmates, more than a few of them combat vets, were disturbed that the President was rude to Wallace. That’s the same, McCain, Romney and other RINOs’ attitude that is more concerned about being liked by institutions like the DNC and a hostile press than carrying forth your party’s standard.

My military buddies expressed serious concern that the World was laughing at Trump and by extension, the United States last night. Let me tell you, they are certainly not laughing at Trump. As I mentioned in my earlier pieces, what concerns the World, both our friends and our enemies, is the Democrat fomented chaos in our streets. Our friends are concerned that we might not be focused enough to uphold our commitments. Our enemies are hoping that comes true. Trump’s brazen challenge to Wallace as the moderator was reminiscent of Reagan firing the Air Traffic controllers, and likely had the same effect on foreign intelligence agencies monitoring and assessing for their political masters, This guy (still) means business.

At this point, you have to ask yourself who the Russians and our real threat, the Chinese, would rather face across the negotiating table. Would they prefer Biden, a corruptocrat who has been a denizen of DC politics for almost 5 decades, whose daily schedule has to be tightly managed because he ”sundowns,” and can barely manage to stay on his feet for 90 minutes?

On the other hand, does anyone really believe bad state actors would prefer President Donald J. Trump, a man who well understands just which country’s interests he’s supposed to be looking after? Does anyone truly believe they want to deal with this cat that no one, I mean no one, can predict what he’ll do next? Tuesday’s debate had a lot of interested parties listening in. The Chinese have made it well known that they prefer Biden. Tuesday’s performance by both candidates is just one more reason why. with this minor side road explored, my series on the steps to open guerrilla warfare picks up again this Saturday. Stay tuned.

Here are the first 3 Articles in the Guerrilla War series:

Opinion: The Steps Towards Revolution or Hostile Takeover From Within (Part I, Introduction)

Opinion: The Steps Towards Revolution or Hostile Takeover From Within (Part II, What Is Happening?)

Opinion: The Steps Towards Revolution or Hostile Takeover From Within (Part III, Cui Bono?)