Several weeks have passed since last month's televised debate between U.S. President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, who was just formally nominated as the Republican Party's official candidate. Many longtime observers and self-appointed experts of U.S. elections, both in the United States and abroad, seem perplexed and a bit bewildered by this year's race.
I suspect that many U.S. political commentators feel both happy and sad as if they are looking through a so-called political kaleidoscope, the landscape of which is changing from day to day. I, for one, have left CNN running all day long in my study to help me better understand what has been going on since the debate.
The first astonishing development that jumped out at me was Biden's lackluster performance in the debate, which resulted in calls for the incumbent president to step down from the race.