But those blaming the President for the tone of the debate, asserts Senator Marco Rubio, may be better off looking closer to home.
In an appearance on Thursday’s Hugh Hewitt radio show, the second-term Republican said the debate was a “mirror” that reflected the country more than the participants.
“I think politics follows culture, not culture following politics,” Rubio said, describing the debate as a “mirror that sort of showed us what we look like as a nation and as a people in which we’re all talking at each other and over each other, but not to each other.”
Rubio went on to assert that the Biden/Trump clash ” perfectly captured the state of American politics in society today.”
The Senator also made the case that winning an election isn’t a zero sum game, as governing afterwards is essential.
Rubio said “there is no such thing as a successful America that leaves 35 or 40% of the country not just unhappy, but angry.”
“Total victory in politics in a republic ultimately leaves you with a fundamental question – what’s the point of winning the right to govern if there’s no country to govern after you win?”
For Rubio, “when the debates or when the arguments over these things become an impediment to action… or when we spend a lot of time talking about the process and not the actual results is where it really becomes detrimental.”
Concerns are especially heightened in what Rubio refers to as “a time of great crisis.”
“The pandemic has been a great crisis, but there are greater crises that potentially loom where you’ve got to bring the nation together. And if people don’t view themselves as fellow countrymen, you won’t be able to do that no matter who the adversary is or what the crisis is,” Rubio said.
The Senator did not suggest how the eventual winner of the presidential election will bring the nation together, but expectations are for an anxious post-Election Day period as ballots are tabulated (and likely contested.)
This article first appeared at Florida Politics.
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This article appears in Best of the Bay 2020.