Could Trump temper his loutishness? Could Biden sustain semi-acuity for 90 minutes? No, and no.

Follow this authorGeorge F. Will's opinions

Biden, who has at most a one-track mind, yet again insinuated that the political and judicial institutions of America’s democracy would crumble like papier-mâché constructs under the onslaught of a reelected Trump. But three days before Thursday’s debate, Biden was yet again found to have shredded a constitutional norm.

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Two Obama-appointed federal judges on two courts said another of Biden’s student debt-forgiveness plans exceeds statutory authority. Since 2023, Biden has been giving Trump a tutorial on anti-constitutional grandiosity in the presidency: Ignoring the Constitution’s appropriations clause (Congress controls spending), Biden has tried to unilaterally shower $400 billion in loan forgiveness on the debt-owing minority of the minority of Americans who are college graduates.

Biden has bragged that the Supreme Court’s attempt to thwart his executive highhandedness “didn’t stop me.” Yet he will not stop pretending that his insouciant disregard of legality, unlike Trump’s, is virtuous.

Biden and Trump also are two peas in a pod — Trump is perhaps the marginally worse pea — in embracing the nation’s bipartisan consensus that favors permanent fiscal incontinence. The invaluable Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (wouldn’t it be fun if Congress had such a committee?) says Trump approved $4.8 trillion in new 10-year federal borrowing (excluding pandemic relief spending), whereas Biden in his first three years and five months approved $2.2 trillion (excluding pandemic relief).

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The slender reed on which Biden’s reelection hopes now lean is that 129 post-debate days of continuing good economic news will percolate into the consciousness of voters whose minds snapped shut against him in 2022, when inflation peaked at 9.1 percent. And Trump might pick a reassuring running mate, improving the odds that........

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