Biden will survive, and the election will look much the same after the debate as before it. That is my prediction for Thursday night's debate results. 

Trump will do fine, get beat up, and nobody will care one way or the other about the three-way attacks directed at him. The media will tell everybody that Trump is a big fat Orange liar and most people will shrug. 

How can that be, you may ask, given the fact that Biden's brain is turning to mush? Well, here's my reasoning, based solely on guesses and many years of observation of how politics work in a general sense. 

Both candidates are known quantities. We know the good, the bad, and the ugly. Everybody has an opinion about Biden's decline, has seen at least a few videos of his verbal stumbles, knows that he dodders and is failing. There is very little he could do to either enhance or reverse the impressions that people already have developed. 

Even if he stumbles badly--short of a Mitch McConnell-type glitch--it will be almost expected. And, if he doesn't, people will exhale in relief--we are all expecting at least some bad stumbles--but not suddenly change our mind about his capabilities. Anybody who has had an elderly relative on the downslope already knows that there are good days and bad days. 

In any case, Biden will not be a dynamo and not suddenly display that razor-sharp mind, ability to do 100 push-ups, or the razor wit we are told he shows behind closed doors chatting with Pete Buttigieg. He will likely be more energetic than average due to all that Adderal or whatever, but there is only so much you can do. 

Trump? What is there to say? He will be Trump, perhaps a bit more muted, and perhaps exactly the same. 

He will certainly be muted by CNN in between questions, but he will be the combative personality everybody knows him to be. Trump haters will see what they always see--a dictator-in-waiting with a mystifying ability to mobilize people. He could be endorsed by Mother Teresa (God rest her soul), and they would assume she was channeling Adolf Hitler. 

No doubt Trump will revel in fighting not one but three opponents, and he will take the opportunity to aim some zingers at CNN and its fake objectivity. Many Americans will nod their heads in agreement, while many others will see a danger to democracy. 

Tell us something we don't already know. 

Debates rarely make or break anything in a campaign, and there is rarely a "winner." There can be losers, of course, coming from a serious gaffe or a viral moment--but it will be hard to find one in a debate between two incumbent presidents with four years of being in office that doesn't serve only to confirm what people already believe. 

Debates are not about issues; they are about feelings. Once you exclude the partisans who are analyzing every moment, looking for every advantage, actually interested in policy statements, or desperate for the winning "zinger," you are left with people who are trying to suss out the candidates' temperament. That's why post-debate focus groups sound so odd to political insiders--none of US is undecided; how could anybody be?

Well, this time around, everybody already knows what they want or need to know about both candidates. In the general public, almost nobody cares because there is nothing to learn. What's left is political entertainment and curiosity about whether Biden will remain fully conscious. 

Sure, a major vapor lock on Biden's part would seal his fate, but you can't predict those. All those viral videos you see online are telling, but they are also the exceptions. Biden, most of the time, is just Biden--a failing old man who is lucid sometimes and not others. Most of the time, he is just an old man. 

We already know that. So 3-5 days after the debate, it will have had no effect on the election calculus. CNN will get a ratings bump, you and I will get some fodder for discussion, and most voters will barely know or care that it happened. We will be left with the same question: how could you possibly vote for <insert candidate name here>?! Didn't you see how awful he performed?

I'd be surprised if anything different happened. 

Take comfort, though. I am always wrong when it comes to political predictions. Perhaps Biden really will implode.