In this election, America has already lost

American presidential elections are sometimes won, or lost, in what is later perceived as a single moment of brilliance — or blunder. In the 1984 presidential debate, an ageing Ronald Reagan — in hindsight a youthful 73 at the time compared to the 160 years split between Joe Biden and Donald Trump — allayed concerns about his advancing years with a joke that made even his relatively young opponent, Walter Mondale, 55, laugh: “I will not make age an issue in this campaign because I don’t want to use my opponent’s youth and inexperience against him.”
In 1988, a solitary mistimed, mismatched image tanked Michael Dukakis’s presidential campaign when he was 15 points ahead of George Bush Sr: a photo of him atop an Abrams tank, looking midget-y and fidgety.