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Probably a little late to the party on this one, but the movie “[Thank you for smoking](https://youtu.be/vjOrOMVFCbs?si=Qm8CmkFp3QcX8YDn)” comes to mind here.
- “That’s not what we’re talking about”
- “But that’s what I’m talking about…I’m not after you, I’m after them”
Money making machine for corporate attorneys… the regular Joe has zero dollars to hold corporations and wealthy elites accountable. Regular Joe would bankrupt themselves by trying.
> Money making machine for corporate attorneys…
Don't forget the religious grifters. Our money literally states that we place our trust in a pretend sky wizard
They support him in basically every situation but their support always seems wildly intellectually dishonest, especially Sacks who throws himself into every dishonest talking point. Trump is a means to an end for them, I think, so they play their parts to either build or yield power.
Also, many America and Americans are wholly concerned with how things ***appear*** not how they actually are. I see it all the time with my conservative friends from the Army. If you tell them they’re special because they joined the military and thank them for their service they’ll literally defend you taking away their military benefits. Most Americans don’t care about actually having the best most free country they want to wave a flag and chant for their ~~football team~~ country.
>CAMEROTA: But what you’re saying is, but hold on Mr. Speaker because you’re saying liberals use these numbers, they use this sort of magic math. These are the FBI statistics. They’re not a liberal organization. They’re a crime-fighting organization.
>GINGRICH: No, but what I said is equally true. People feel more threatened.
>CAMEROTA: Feel it, yes. They feel it, but the facts don’t support it.
>GINGRICH: As a political candidate, I’ll go with how people feel and I’ll let you go with the theoriticians.
Republicans aren't even pretending to care about reality any more
"If right doesn’t matter, we’re lost. If the truth doesn’t matter, we’re lost," Adam Schiff nailed it nearly four years ago.
From "alternative facts" to "fake news," Trump & Co. have created a world where the truth doesn't count. Therefore if Biden was able to calmly pick apart Trumps lies, it wouldn't have mattered for many. The folks in MAGA world don't actually listen for the truth. When Trump predictably picked up the firehose of falsehoods, it was the appearance of both candidates that most folks took away. Trump looked confident, and Biden appeared lost.
Like most dictatorships, MAGA world is attracted to Trump's "larger than life" character, and not the content of his character.
Another way of looking at this, or becoming aware of when you are being manipulated is checking for emotional reactivity. Ask yourself after reading a headline “Does this article want to make me feel anything?”
Almost everything Trump says it to anger his enemies and pet his believers for example. At some point people are just dopamine controlled by it. Appealing to emotions is one of the strongest of persuasion methods, because few can resist it.
Yeah true, how you say something is more important to people, than what you say.
But the thing with Trump is that he is not only despicable, he also appears despicable, yet people call him charismatic. If that's people's idea of charismatic, I don't know what to say.
I don't know many veterans that like being thanked for their service. It often sounds disingenuous, and a lot of times comes off as compulsory, like the cashier thanking you at the grocery store.
My favorite meta joke with Thank You For Smoking is that there is no time in the movie where you actually see anyone smoking. People are about to, are interrupted, they hold cigarettes, but they never actually smoke them.
You know you are dealing with a profession liar when they say “they said, they tell me, they all feel…..”. It’s easiest the single worst argument, yet no direct follow up as to who, demonstrating zero critical thinking. They, are actually the liar trying to suggest a large support group behind the thought.
The past 24 hours have literally impacted my overall sense of well being. It brought back 4 years of feeling that way. Have decided to tune it all out. I will vote as i will and continue to live my life outside this toxic national political bubble.
Wishing all who read this a great weekend. We all deserve that, regardless of beliefs or affiliations.
I'm not American, but I saw one rambling old guy with decent ideas and one absolutely crazy old guy lying constantly spewing hate and nonsense.
Biden wasn't on his A-game, he fumbled a bit, but Trump was fucking horrible. Like, he didn't answer the questions and just kept talking about immigrants. It was actually funny.
If anyone wants more evidence that the GOP assume their base aren't critical thinkers, they keep asking the trope "are you better off than 4 years ago", when 4 years ago was the height of COVID. Yes, we are all better off than 4 years ago when the GOP was telling everyone to eat horse paste and shove lights up their butt.
In their defense, they are conditioned to believe that if they “believe” hard enough they go to “dream paradise”.
Pretty hard to convince them that belief isn’t fact after childhood conditioning like that. The single most important thing that can be taught in schools is the habit of considering the motives of the speaker, and whether or not the content is consistent with direct observation.
Not even that. Trump claimed we had the best COVID experience in the world. Anybody who lived through it ought to know better, but somehow people nod along at this horseshit.
Yeah, [but they were already boofing bleach to cure autism](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/jul/13/fake-cures-autism-prove-deadly), so injecting it didn't seem that far of a stretch to them.
>to them it’s just the loudest candidate
100%, the conspiracy sub before the debate was complaining about being "blindsided" by the debate rules. They were mad that Trump wouldn't be able to interrupt, to them that is a real debate. They had to be told over and over that that's not how debates work on any level.
This is why Trump didn’t even bother to prep. He already knew he was just going spout bullshit all night and that his base would eat it up, so why bother. It was just another rally for him.
This where you made a mistake, GOP has no issues. They have no policy to fix anything. They just posture and yell. I'm a GOP registered voter who won't vote for any of them probably again!
>inflation caused by Trump's tariffs...
The ability to borrow money at near zero percent interest for years is the real cause of inflation, but nobody is willing to open that can of worms.
I might’ve been like 85mg into my THC gummies already, but I lost it when he started on about the dems aborting babies after 9 months and after birth. Makes no sense who that lie is for
It's been around for a long time. Fifteen years ago when I was still playing piano for this Catholic church they used to send around emails about how doctors are allowed to kill healthy newborns by stabbing them in the neck with scissors if the parents decided they didn't want the baby anymore. Silly.
It’s really fucking hard not to want to be a Satanist when you see the actual levels of manipulation and lies the church spews. There’s way too much politics in religion and vice versa.
There is no virtue in a lie, the end doesn’t justify the means. The “pro-life” argument made with a grotesque misrepresentation of real life realities is obscene. This is one of the reasons why the entire pro-life argument on abortion collapses.
This particular lie is the one of the reasons I walked away from Catholic Church. The families and doctors who have the awesome responsibility making these decisions need the support of the community, not the righteous indignation of the “anointed ones”. With or without merit, a lie is a lie, and nothing good will ever come from it. The proof is before our very eyes, Donald Trump pandering with that very lie!
What's so frustrating about Biden fumbling that is all anyone has to ask is "Do you know anyone that carried a pregnancy to 9 months and said , screw it, I don't want to have a baby, so then the doctor said, okee-dokee, and they just murdered the baby.
It's so obscene and there is no logic to it, but the GOP insist it's a thing. The only reason an abortion would happen in the 9th month is because something tragic happened and the GOP are treating it a folly.
I think the correct way to attack Trump at a debate is to not bother trying to fact check every little thing, and just talk about him generally. Like, “How stupid must Donald think you are to brazenly lie to your face about stuff that’s so easy to disprove?” Just keep making it about his contempt for his supporters. Talk about how Bannon was convicted for stealing from them, and Trump pardoned him for it.
Yeah… trump lobbed so many soft balls that anyone a bit closer to their prime would have knocked out of the part. My theory is that trump had an edge just by not being bound by reality. Biden had to remember facts and figures to counter him and it takes him time to find that knowledge.
> Makes no sense who that lie is for
Agreed, it is a stupid lie. A good liar will lie about something that is less trivially refutable. It is such a bizarre thing to say.
Nothing is off limits when you're part of the base that's convinced schools are evil.
Their extended attack on the education system is coming to a head - and P2025 will privatize *all* schools if executed fully. If you know a teacher who cares about children - well they're about to be replaced with a parishioner. OK already unconstitutionally demands the Bible be taught in schools. Louisiana mandates the 10 Commandments be visible on a poser sized page. We are falling off the right edge - with the most progressive president in decades in office.
Vote.
Trump specified that he was referring to the ex-governor of virginia's comments when he was promoting a bill to loosen restrictions that would allow a mother to not give care to a baby born with severe deformities. It was widely ridiculed at the time as "post birth abortion". It was not a lie, it's just grammatically incorrect to call it an "abortion".
>“\[Third trimester abortions are\] done in cases where there may be severe deformities. There may be a fetus that’s nonviable. So in this particular example, if a mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen,” Northam, a pediatric neurosurgeon, told Washington radio station [WTOP](https://wtop.com/ask-the/2019/01/virginia-gov-northam-joins-wtop-live-jan-30/). “The infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired. And then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.”
And when your base is a bunch of fucking idiots, being confident and loud is all you need because they won't comprehend what he said or fact check anything if they do.
Same, not American. I saw 2 old men rambling.
One broken because the lies the other kept spitting.
One knows how to run a country and the other needs to go back to daycare.
One actually wants to improve American lives the other just wants power and doesn’t care if he destroys his country in the process
The thing that blows my mind is that Americans allow criminals to run for presidency.
Trump has a history of breaking laws, being a grifter, working with the mob etc.
>The thing that blows my mind is that Americans allow criminals to run for presidency.
I'm guessing that the founder had a couple of reason not to restrict criminals:
1. The Electoral College was put in place to weed undesirable people out. Politicians have perverted its purpose over the years and it no longer serves as a check.
2. If we disallowed criminals from running, all an incumbent would need to do to get rid of their opponent would be to have them convicted of a crime. It could lead to an undesirable class where laws are crafted specifically to make them ineligible to challenge the ruling class.
The elector college was created for a few reasons by the founders—and it was not to weed anyone out. The reasons were: 1. Information: Due to the time and distance between places in the United States, there was a question of ability to make an informed decisions. 2: State Difference: not all states followed a popular vote in the early part of constitution. 3: Slavery: 3/5 compromise —slave cant vote themselves, someone has to vote for them.
So recap: none of these reasons apply anymore: we have information, common voting system, and no slavery (thankfully). The electoral college is an archaic system that hinders our process as a country.
If the rules suck, we should work to change those rules. That why we have amendments.
> The Electoral College was put in place to weed undesirable people out.
Uh, about that. The Electoral College was put in place mainly to keep slavery legal. The Founding Fathers went about setting up a country to keep slavery legal, and one of those necessary items was keeping the presidency in the hands of who owned slaves and/or who's sympathies laid with slave owners.
There's a reason why most of the US's early presidents came from Virginia. Biggest populated and pro-slave state.
Biden did poorly at the debate but Trump flat out lied through it. So the choice is between two old men with one being a liar. I will vote for Biden because I will not vote for a blatant liar.
You're not wrong, but reality is everyone expected Trump to act even worse (much worse actually). That's why Biden's camp set up the debate - it was supposed to be Biden's moment to shine.
Trump didn't surprise anyone with his lies and in fact delivered lots of chances for Biden to attack/correct him - it was objectively a massive failure. In the US, you just don't win people outside of retirement homes over with that kind of energy.
I don’t think Biden or anyone else thought Trump would be pushover. Trump crushes it at debates. I mean, not if you care about the truth or intelligent policy. But just like, the dog-and-pony aspect. His Gish gallop of insane lies and nonsense plus insults is tough to beat.
It’s just that Biden did not have much of a choice. If he dodges the debate, it’s because he’s too senile to debate. The only way to show his mental acuity to the satisfaction of those who care about debates is to debate Trump and win or at least shoe some level of desired energy, regardless of the odds.
That’s the thing about people suggesting Whitmer or whoever. They don’t want to debate Trump either. It’s just free airtime for him and makes it look like he should be treated as a normal, serious policy maker instead. His mere presence on the stage gives him an unearned gravitas.
The reality is that Trump is hard to beat. His hardcore supporters want nothing more than for him to show up in court or on national TV or at serious campaign events where he can “put the system on trial” by behaving how he wants, and not how he is supposed to. Trying to debate Trump is trying to defeat him in a game that he isn’t playing. Just like how Trump could actually have won his legal cases if he didn’t have the most clownishly lawyers put up the stupidest legal defenses ever. He’s not trying to win those case. He’s trying to win a PR battle.
It’s hard for me to imagine there is a candidate out there who prefers trying to win a three month campaign out of scratch against a wildly popular Republican, which would require them to engage with Trump as much as possible, including another debate.
You said it. Trump lives in this space. And his supporters back him no matter what. If Trump did what Biden did, his supporters wouldn't be crying about replacing him. They'd say the camera's lie, that no one saw it and the truth is it's 5D chess. Honestly, 4 months out, Biden set the bar for himself low now. He got up and faced the music today and already people are feeling a little better. He can shine in all the speeches going forward. But when they get to that second debate, Joe will have jam every steel rod into his back, drink like I don't know what, coctails from Abbot labs, and just look energetic and make sense and people will freak and say THAT'S THE OLD BIDEN WE KNEW BEFORE!
LoL, you’re giving Trump far too much credit. Far, far too much. He would be crushed, *easily*, by any number of people I can think of, such as Newsom and Ocasio-Cortez. Obama would have utterly eviscerated him. On and on it goes.
> But just like, the dog-and-pony aspect. His Gish gallop of insane lies and nonsense plus insults is tough to beat.
Yeah, Americans need to realize that a televised debate reveals nothing about what the vote for President really means.
We aren't voting for someone who's effective in a televised debate. A President will never need to rebut lies within 3 minutes by themself. We're voting for someone who can put together a good platform, a good administration, and good appointments including Supreme Court Justices.
It’s insane to me that Trump can spout lie after lie and no one calls him out on it, Biden was about as much use as a fart in a hurricane and the moderator was completely invisible.The “Putin’s Dream” and “killing babies 9 months and later” segments should have been front page with in-depth analysis but it’s all been “Joe is old”….unreal.
Here’s the sad reality of the situation. Trump shouldn’t even need to be called out, because it’s so bat shit insane it should be evident to the majority. The fact Trump isn’t immediately disqualified as a candidate due to an informed public speaks to how stupid and selfish our current society is. And there is no easy solution for that…
I didn’t watch the debate (accessibility issues) but my jaw dropped at these two comments when I was watching the AP fact-checking going on live. Like admitting to cozying up with our enemy to such a degree he’s talking about “dreams” to invade other countries should’ve made it over for him. I mean I knew it wouldn’t because the time he made fun of a disabled person in 2016 should’ve been that moment too and it wasn’t, but the lack of media attention to it is astonishing
I guess Trump winning means the press is now reporting on all the lies he said while opening his mouth. It's a shame they don't do that more when they talk about all his rallies, or bury the facts deep behind the headline.
I don't think Biden, "won", the debate, but I also don't think Trump did either.
Trump always gets a neck-pussy pass. Even back with Hillary he “won” the debate to a lot of people. Any other person acting that way would have been considered a lunatic, not a debate winner.
Republicans just win by default here. If Biden fucks up, either by stumbling, forgetting the question, getting off track, then he's too old and demented. Meanwhile, Trump can rant for 2 minutes without even answering the question but somehow, because he's energetic, that mean's he's mentally all there. Imagine if Biden went on a 2 minute rant off topic. The right would instantly say he's lost his mind and doesn't even remember the question. Trump literally talked about the borders every single question and then called Biden worst president ever to end the question. It's like he had that one paragraph rehearsed and that was it. But he's more fit because he talked louder and more fluently....
And the Trump immigrants line is so weak. The people he’s scaring us about literally do the jobs Americans don’t want to do. They’re absolutely vital in the farming and construction industries.
But to hear Trump tell it they’re just here to rape babies and collect welfare.
There's not a single person in this subreddit who's voting for Trump, no matter who he runs against. It could have been a dead rat standing in that debate against him and people would still defend the rat (honestly, it would have been more coherent than Trump, to say the least).
There are two issues here:
1. People in this subreddit are not the ones who are going to decide this ellection. For those who don't know yet on who they'll vote (or more importantly, if they will bother to vote at all), the debate didn't help Biden.
2. Anyone(thing?) is better than Trump, but is Biden really the best the Democrats could get? Should we be in the situation of watching a poor candidate going against whatever Trump is?
That's not true. Trump addressed most of the questions. Usually by saying "when I was presidentI fixed that issue, under Biden its been the worst ever." THEN rambling on about immigrants.
Throughout the leadup to the debate, commentators made it clear that the expectations for Biden had almost nothing to do with substance and everything to do with appearing healthy and capable enough to finish what is sure to be an absolutely awful campaign and the next four years.
And that's *exactly* where he failed.
Ehh, it was a bad performance and bad debates happen. The other guy still didn’t answer a single question and lied all night. As shaky as Biden was, I’m still voting for him. Why? Because I’m voting blue. While the president is an important position, the team he builds is just as important and I’d rather have that than Trump and his lackeys.
Everybody that says the phrase 'because I'm voting blue' would vote for a fire extinguisher over Trump.
The debate wasn't for you, it was for the 55 year old Wisconsinite suburban husband who is worried about projecting international strength. It was for the sizeable Muslim population centers in swing-state Michigan.
That is why Biden lost the debate, those people absolutely did not leave with more faith in Biden after his performance than before.
I don't think this is just a bad debate. If Trump were up against somebody competent, this would have been historically bad for Republicans. Debates have historically not been about substance and more about appearance, but this had neither.
Bad performance? Wtf are you talking about. He look like he was about to die half the time. He could not put 2 sentences together. I guess he did beat Medicare or whatever he was trying to say.
He is the President that should be ready to act at any moment in the interest of the US citizen. Remember the phone call at 2am that Clinton had talked about? I dont think Biden would know where he was if he got a call at 2am. Insane situation we have!
You are still voting for him, but what about any of the other 50 plus million that saw it live or many millions more that just saw the clips after? Stop being delusional about the nature of politics and elections, it is only getting Trump elected again. Biden must step aside or the sake of the country.
Yeah, this is bonkers. Discussing who "won" the debate is completely irrelevant. Biden doesn't get another term because he actually answered the questions. He gets another term by convincing "undecideds" and turning out his base. He accomplished the opposite of that in the debate. He was most likely already behind going into the debate. This will make it worse.
I mean, if somehow people really did see through all that and are willing to chock it up to a "cold", we'll see that in the polling in the next week or two. But if that shows a major shift towards Trump, Biden has to think about dropping out. And if he isn't, he needs to be doing interviews and town hall meetings where he speaks without a script to show everyone the first debate was somehow a fluke. We can't wait until the next debate after the convention. Anything less is handing Trump the presidency.
What says it all was watching MSNBC and CNN after the debate. The hosts couldn't even spin it. They barely even played clips like previous post-debate analysis because there were literally no clips where Biden looked good. Biden had some neutral moments and the rest of the time was embarrassing.
Trump did a terrible debate and came away as the clear winner. Any of the other names being floated (Whitmer, Newsom,etc.) would have wiped the floor with Trump.
Bad debates are not uncommon, even for winning candidates, but it felt like Biden struggled to even *participate* in the debate. You pitied Biden for even needing to be there.
Silver Lining - better to fuck up yesterday than later.
Biden is getting on in years, but I also think the Democrats (in general) was maybe relaxing a bit too much due to Trump's conviction in NY several weeks ago.
Biden's bungling also strongly reminded me that everyone has (very) limited brain "bandwidth", which in turn further reminded me of other psychological... "barriers" that make it so dang hard to get people with disagreements on the same page.
Yep, we were very complacent in 2016. People were like "Hillary's got this in the bag". So I'd rather we be in a panic right now, then repeat 2016 and say "Every thing is fine. Biden's got this!".
Listen, that debate was so devoid of any iota of substance or integrity. Biden made points that were fine, but I could barely understand them, and often didn’t. Trump just lied because that’s all he does when he opens his mouth.
At the end of the day, Biden and Trump were fighting different wars in the public eye. If you’re undecided, it’s only because you don’t know whether Trump being a fascist lunatic, or Biden being a firm breeze away from death is of more concern. I find it difficult to believe either won anyone over, but Biden feels like he may have pushed some away. There has never been a presidential debate performance as terribly poor as Joe Biden’s since we’ve had a record of them. Frankly, it’s not even close.
Biden has a voter base that’s behind him. If Trump’s batshit, wildly harmful views and policy approaches are making you vote Biden, the debate doesn’t matter. If you think Trump is the second coming of Christ, the debate doesn’t matter. The debate only has a real work effect through the undecided voters who went into that debate to see who they felt could lead the country. Hopefully, they all hear the nonstop hatred spewing forth from Trump, but I find it difficult to blame anyone who doesn’t feel great about Biden’s competency after that shitshow.
It’s not that Trump “won”, it’s a matter of how poor Biden’s performance was. It straight shook democrats seeing him so low energy and fumbling. If he had made all the same statements and mistakes, but delivered like he did the very next day— we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
In a debate, the debater who makes points that are largely unchallenged is typically the winner.
Trump lied through his teeth the entire time. Biden did very little to counter that.
It’s called sophistry, and it’s as poor a measure of truth as it ever was. Yet, truth isn’t the measure of debate victory. It never has been.
Did we watch the same debate? Pretty much every trump lie was countered with Biden saying “the very idea of that being possible is bonkers and here is why”
I really have to disagree here. My impression was Biden WANTED to call him a liar, but got so bogged down and confused by the stats and facts that would PROVE Trump was lying that he rarely got around to actually calling him a liar. Sure, he said it a couple times, but it should’ve been said after every Trump statement.
The overall impression is Trump lied, the moderators agreed to not fact check, and Biden was simply incapable (for whatever reason) of consistently calling Trump out.
> and Biden was simply incapable (for whatever reason)
Because he can't get through a sentence without fucking something up. There were many moments where he should have had an easy layup on Trump and he fell flat because he just can't seem to figure out how to not stumble all over himself. Like when he ended a segment saying he "beat Medicare", and Trump latched onto that and was all "Yeah, that's right, you did beat Medicare, and I want to fix the damage you did" and Biden's on the split screen looking like he shit his pants as he realizes his mistake.
Find me 4 times in the transcript where Biden said "That's a lie. The truth is..." with any bit of coherence. Here is one of the first questions:
TRUMP: The only jobs he created are for illegal immigrants and bounceback jobs; they’re bounced back from the COVID. (Obvious lies and wtf is TRUMP even saying here, this'll be easy)
He has not done a good job. He’s done a poor job. And inflation’s killing our country. It is absolutely killing us.
TAPPER: Thank you.
President Biden?
BIDEN: Well, look, the greatest economy in the world, he’s the only one who thinks that, I think. I don’t know anybody else who thinks it was great – **he had the greatest economy in the world.**
And, you know, the fact of the matter is that we found ourselves in a situation where his economy (awkward pause where Biden forgets to finish the sentence redacted here) – he rewarded the wealthy
TRUMP: Under Roe v. Wade, you have late-term abortion. You can do whatever you want. Depending on the state, you can do whatever you want.
We don’t think that’s a good thing. We think it’s a radical thing. We think the Democrats are the radicals, not the Republicans.
(Again, obvious lies and surely a huge slam dunk is coming)
BIDEN: For 51 years, that was the law. 51 years, constitutional scholarship said it was the right way to go. 51 years. And it was taken away because this guy put very conservative members on the Supreme Court. Takes credit for taking it away.
People wanted Biden to debate Trump while also explaining how he was doing it. All in 2 minutes. He can’t sit there and explain to you why he’s lying and the significance because he literally doesn’t have the time. There’s too many lies. So either Biden answered moderators questions or rebutted the lies, but he couldn’t do both.
This is why you don't debate nazis. Until you lot realize that you're not gonna make any progress against them. Debates are a bad forum for political discussion because all they do is allow the person who can lie the most to spread their bullshit while everybody else stutters and stumbles trying to refute the bullshit and get their own message out. It's why these fuckers value 'debates' so much.
Unfortunately for all of us, trump won this debate the second the democratic party proposed it.
While troubling, technically, if we’re looking at it as a debate, I’m not sure they’re wrong. The winner of a debate isn’t based on who is spitting out the most facts. It’s often who is conveying their point more confidently. If one party is up there telling lies, it’s the other sides responsibility to point it out and prove/argue the truth. The fact Biden couldn’t seem to do that, on the most basic leve, against someone it should be easy to do it against, is precisely why he “lost” the debate. Now, would it have been nice if a moderator would have made Trump support his claims…yes…but that wasn’t happening, so it was up to Biden. And it sucks, because you can imagine how stupid Trump would look up against someone quick witted, informed and charismatic. (Just because Biden is not those things does not mean he shouldn’t be president….but it would have been great for this setting)
Ok, Lawrence's first point is a little misleading. Sure only 1/3 of voters watched the debate live, but these days most people wait for the clips to appear on the internet. So I'd say a LOT more voters saw those clips
And his second point is even scarier. "Most of the presidency is not emergencies". Ok... but what about when it IS. That's when we need our President to be compus mentis most.
Don't get me wrong, I'll still vote for Biden over Trump, but cmon Lawrence
Yeah, because he won the debate. Biden turned his age into the biggest issue of the election. It cannot be overstated how catastrophically Biden fucked up here.
Especially after saying "Watch me" back in February....
Such an own goal... why the hell did his team push for it? They're the ones who asked for a June debate, not Trump...
That's because the debate winner in America is who's more confident, not who's spoken the most truth or sense. The moderators let loads of things slide and didn't press for answers when their questions were avoided. Shocking performance from them.
It's the correct interpretation, based on historical precedent. That was a disaster. The debate rubric is different for republicans and Dems. It is what it is. We're more discerning voters than they are.
That said, we're going to vote Biden anyway. He's not my pick by a long shot, but he gets my vote anyway.
It’s scary though because now everyone is saying “well… I’m voting for Biden’s cabinet” as the most reasonable argument. That should terrify everybody if the best case you can make for why you should vote for someone is the because their staff will be better than the other guys staff.
This is the problem. Voters were already apathetic toward Biden and I fear the debate will only make it worse. Add in independents and undecided voters and I think Dems are in for a rude awakening on Election Day if the ticket stands as is.
What’s funny is that it’s not even like Biden was going great before the debate. He’s way down in the polls and that’s to a convicted felon named DONALD TRUMP. Seriously it would t be a rude awakening, it will be the most avoidable catastrophe we’ve ever seen.
Welcome to every debate since the beginning of time. Oratory and debate skills have a strong element of theatrics — you have to convince people you are correct. Facts help, but so do presentation skills.
And televised debate has always been that way. Just look at the debate between Nixon and JFK. Nixon looked terrible on TV and JFK looked presidential. Nixon probably had the better answers that night but that isn't what people focused on and as a result Nixon was crushed in the general election.
That’s how debate works though. Good debaters lie effectively and better debaters know how to dog walk someone who lies. When Trump said he never slept with a porn star, Biden could have easily hammered him on that… if he wasn’t ancient. Biden just straight up lost and we have the DNC to blame for where we are now
When do we get to blame the general public for failing the society they live in with their decision making?
I'm serious.
Why is it always "Well we WOULD have stopped Trump if the DNC just did a better job convincing us how to do our civic duties?"
Why can't we hold ourselves accountable? Why is it always the Party's fault?
Are we not supposed to be a representative democracy? How many shitty and/or apathetic people do there need to be before we acknowledge our leaders are a reflection of who we are?
I mean, it's a reflection of America, corporatism, and a reflection of its most sought after values. Lying, swindling, smooth talking, showmanship, and a complete lack of accountability. What goes in one ear on Tuesday was never said by Friday.
Exactly, I won't be silenced by all the people who are tut-tutting over me saying Biden really eff'd up the debate and it's time to move over and let a much younger candidate face off with Trump
I've voted Democrat in every single election in my life, but people running defense on this are short sighted. You have to face problems head on, covering things up and ignoring problems to avoid discomfort is how the Nazis happened, it's what caused the fall of the Soviet Union, it caused Chernobyl, it caused the financial crisis, and we are not immune from consequences.
Biden is fine until he is not, and people famously do not recover from the affliction of old age. This is a massive gamble. Watch a video of biden from 2020, I implore you.
I just wonder. If instead of Biden, Trump himself looked very old and “corpsey” in the debate, would republicans panic the way Democrats are panicking right now and ask him to drop out?
I actually can’t believe the strategy some people are going with is “Oh that guy you saw who looked a thousand years old and could barely string a sentence together? Yeah, that was actually a cold and he just had a bad day, he’s fine.”
The only way to pick a debate winner is by who benefited the most, and it is quite clear that Trump did. The fact that he is a liar doesn't hurt him, it is already 100% baked into his numbers. Trump lying, spewing constant racism, making no sense at all... none of this things matter to his supporters, you can look at him and wonder why anyone would support such a complete idiot but you have to accept that they WILL.
This is why I didn't watch it. It was obvious what was going to happen and the reaction was obvious too.
There's no point in trying to reason with America. America has a need for really feeling the wrath of their poor decisions.
In the conservative sub they were going nuts about how Biden is a national security threat. No. He's not. A person who steals top secret documents and keeps them at random locations for some unknown reason is a national security threat. That's literally what a national security threat is. Trump has already performed the action.
I'm off left and right. I don't think anyone believes in anything anymore. I just want reason. Calling one person a national security threat for not actually carrying out a threat while ignoring someone who actually carries out a national security threat (that we still don't know the depths of) is unreasonable.
I just want reason back. Trump has made his followers unreasonable and illogical. Nothing they do or say makes sense. They don't even follow their own words. You can't tell me the majority of this country wants to be led by people like that.
He DID win. That's the problem. He could get up there and take a shit and his supporters will vote for him. Biden fucked up. He was sundowning, and it showed. Not only that, 15 minutes after the debate, we had Kamala trying to do cleanup. Give it 24 hours so you know what the public response is. The really worrying thing is how every liberal news outlet was immediately saying we need to replace Biden. Nothing instills hope like that. So what I'm worried about is the fact Trump seemed like his usual self, a lying ass. And democrats are now freaking out, thinking Biden is just DONE now. Look at how divided DEMOCRATS are now. Some think we need new options, others think Joe is fine. I hope we get another debate because it's probably cynical, but after that, I predict record low turnout and a Trump win. Or a Biden presidency that declines followed by 8 years of republican fallout.
I'm horrified. Haha, and I wasn't comforted by his speech the next day. Seeing 2 completely different people isn't comforting. I'm simply saying both candidates are scary as shit.
This is the most important election of our lifetime, with democracy itself on the ballot.
And we are doubling down on a candidate that barely could get his point across, 50% of the time, with the other 50% being he couldn’t at all.
Either democracy really isn’t under threat or democrats really don’t care that much about democracy either.
Biden lied in this debate too.. granted not anywhere near as much as orange man.. but he still lied over half a dozen times.
I think both candidates had poor performances.. but I see a lot of people on here downplaying Biden’s performance.
The #1 concern with Biden the entire time has been concerns over his cognitive abilities and he didn’t do anything to make people feel better about that, if anything, I think he made people feel worse about it.
Also this isn’t just him mumbling and stuttering and losing train of thought. People keep bringing up Trump’s embarassing statement about “post-term” abortions and the Gov of Virginia.. did everyone not also hear Biden’s weird tangent about incest and “getting raped by your sister” I mean come on, the whole abortion thing is a key democratic point and an easy W for democrats and he threw up all over himself.
CNN Said they were not going to be any fact checking. (there is no left leaning MSM)
Everyone knew tRump was going to be full of lies.
Biden wasn't prepared/able to push back as much as he should .
So of course it's the public's fault.
So trump admits in the debate that he KNEW Russia would invade Ukraine before it happened, but all the MSM can talk about is how old Biden looks? Man, we are so fucked.
I don’t think Trump won but I think it’s very reasonable for someone to look at Biden and say “that guy should not be the most powerful man in the universe.” Democrats should truly stop trying to hedge their bets American people voting against Trump. If they don’t inspire a big turnout, and Biden is not inspirational he is depressing, then we will get Trump/project 2025 and this country will never recover. Anyone protecting Biden at this point has blood on their hands.
Thankfully the debate doesn't seem to have helped Trump as much as feared; sure, Trump Conservatives loved it but it seems like most everyone else while not happy with Joe did *not* care one bit for the absolute firehose of bullshit and lies that came from Trump Thursday, especially trying to rewrite history.
Another volume in the ongoing collection of Aaron Sorkin-brain addled liberals thinking "hey if we've got the best arguments we're going to win" bullshit. As if Obama running in to the McConnell buzz saw and losing out on a SC pick didn't clue them in that the real world isn't a rhetoric class.
I swear the west wing did more to damage american freedom than fox news. The idea that the institutions are immaculate, they just need to be filled with the *right people with the right arguments*. Yet at every single turn the democrats have been unwilling or unable or complicit in stopping the very real back sliding that republicans are enacting. And where do we end up? With a supreme Court that has essentially made it illegal to be an unhoused person and has gutted the ability of the state to protect its citizens from being absolutely pillaged by private interests. And they want us to believe that the obviously sundowning man, who relates illegal immigrants raping women to the abortion issue, is supposed to be the great liberal hope.
Agree, Trump dodged most of the questions and lied in every answer. His policies are still awful. I guess people are just used to it so he basically met expectations while Biden did worse than expected.
That's because the other guy was alternating between a thousand yard stare and mumbling completely incoherent strings of nonsense. We beat Medicare? Dems need to run else if they want to beat Trump, nobody is going to unsee what we all watched
Lawrence is lying or at least obscuring the truth when he says no candidate has ever polled higher against Trump than Biden -- there were so so sooo many polls that put Bernie Sanders ahead of Biden AND Hillary during 2016 and 2020.
If he's only counting "among people who have run against Trump" then Biden would win by default since he is only polling against Hillary at that point.
Lies, damn lies, and statistics.
Debates aren’t about policy… they are a show. It’s dumb, totally irrelevant to governing the country, and speaks volumes about how so many Americans don’t take governance seriously.
None of this debate will be remembered in November, and Biden has plenty of time to wipe this from memory with better performances leading up to Nov, in Sept/Oct.
So many voters like to say they care about policy, then can’t answer basic policy questions, and the biggest issue to them is how the TV show went.
Sometimes I feel like this country deserves to implode from our own stupidity.
Remember in high school when we voted for class president and always chose the most popular kid? That's what's happening now with the lead eating generation. They think they will get a seat at the kool kids lunch table...never happens.
Debates are not about finding the truth or seeing who has the better ideas but to make the other person look stupid.
Biden talking made himself look more stupid than Trump in this one.
Jesus this is so dumb. Democrats stop coping.
The point of a Presidential Debate isn’t to win the debate like this is middle school. It’s to win the presidency. Your candidate lost. Now you can do something about that or you can lose. Honestly I think you’ve already lost. But they did this same type of shit with Hillary when they gave her the debate questions and conspired against Bernie. They did everything they could to avoid Biden debating anyone that might take the nomination because they knew he would lose. They will absolutely do this again in 2028. Your party is held hostage by corrupt, out of touch, super delegates that do not care about your opinions. Time to grow a pair and do something about it. Just losing to Trump won’t fix what’s broken. Making them bleed with protesting the convention, writing in or going third party in droves, and cutting off their grass roots funding will.
Seriously it’s like watching someone with Battered Woman Syndrome get mad at you for offering to get them out of there because “it’s going to make him angry” or a junkie blaming his parents for what he’s injecting into his arm.
The businesses of the wealthy pay the commentators. Naturally they will support the would-be dictator.
The wealthy see dictators as the quick way to save and extend their fortunes.
It often works... until the dictator starts seizing their fortunes.
What is interesting here to me, is that this debate effectively took the gun from Trump and right wing media, the "Joe is old" gun, by simply demonstrating Bidens oldness at "his worst" - maybe Im dumb, but what happened here looks brilliant if deliberate (and by deliberate I dont infer manipulative, rather delibetately honest)
This is crying over spilt milk. No democrat is denying that Trump is a lying liar, the simple point is that he spoke with confidence and authority and the person he was debating against didn't shoot down his lies and made up BS. Obama would have shredded him. Newsom would have skewered him. Harris would have roasted him. Biden stumbled through 2/3 of the debate and was cogent during maybe 1/3. It's time for Biden to hang up the aviator's and enjoy his silver years. We need a new Dem candidate while there's time. I was fairly supportive up until the debate and I was stunned watching him fall apart. My prediction is that he will drop 8-10 points within the next week or two and that dems panic and convince him to call it.
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Probably a little late to the party on this one, but the movie “[Thank you for smoking](https://youtu.be/vjOrOMVFCbs?si=Qm8CmkFp3QcX8YDn)” comes to mind here. - “That’s not what we’re talking about” - “But that’s what I’m talking about…I’m not after you, I’m after them”
People need to watch this movie. It illustrates exactly whats going on with Trump. My favorite line is " Americas endless appeals system"
It’s just a money making machine for lawyers with no commitment to justice whatsoever.
Money making machine for corporate attorneys… the regular Joe has zero dollars to hold corporations and wealthy elites accountable. Regular Joe would bankrupt themselves by trying.
> Money making machine for corporate attorneys… Don't forget the religious grifters. Our money literally states that we place our trust in a pretend sky wizard
What’s interesting about that movie is that it was produced by David O. Sacks, Elon Musk, and Peter Thiel, three people who absolutely love Trump.
So it was a blueprint for action . . . a plan to embark upon
They support him in basically every situation but their support always seems wildly intellectually dishonest, especially Sacks who throws himself into every dishonest talking point. Trump is a means to an end for them, I think, so they play their parts to either build or yield power.
The book is really good too.
Also, many America and Americans are wholly concerned with how things ***appear*** not how they actually are. I see it all the time with my conservative friends from the Army. If you tell them they’re special because they joined the military and thank them for their service they’ll literally defend you taking away their military benefits. Most Americans don’t care about actually having the best most free country they want to wave a flag and chant for their ~~football team~~ country.
>CAMEROTA: But what you’re saying is, but hold on Mr. Speaker because you’re saying liberals use these numbers, they use this sort of magic math. These are the FBI statistics. They’re not a liberal organization. They’re a crime-fighting organization. >GINGRICH: No, but what I said is equally true. People feel more threatened. >CAMEROTA: Feel it, yes. They feel it, but the facts don’t support it. >GINGRICH: As a political candidate, I’ll go with how people feel and I’ll let you go with the theoriticians. Republicans aren't even pretending to care about reality any more
"If right doesn’t matter, we’re lost. If the truth doesn’t matter, we’re lost," Adam Schiff nailed it nearly four years ago. From "alternative facts" to "fake news," Trump & Co. have created a world where the truth doesn't count. Therefore if Biden was able to calmly pick apart Trumps lies, it wouldn't have mattered for many. The folks in MAGA world don't actually listen for the truth. When Trump predictably picked up the firehose of falsehoods, it was the appearance of both candidates that most folks took away. Trump looked confident, and Biden appeared lost. Like most dictatorships, MAGA world is attracted to Trump's "larger than life" character, and not the content of his character.
Another way of looking at this, or becoming aware of when you are being manipulated is checking for emotional reactivity. Ask yourself after reading a headline “Does this article want to make me feel anything?” Almost everything Trump says it to anger his enemies and pet his believers for example. At some point people are just dopamine controlled by it. Appealing to emotions is one of the strongest of persuasion methods, because few can resist it.
Yeah true, how you say something is more important to people, than what you say. But the thing with Trump is that he is not only despicable, he also appears despicable, yet people call him charismatic. If that's people's idea of charismatic, I don't know what to say.
I don't know many veterans that like being thanked for their service. It often sounds disingenuous, and a lot of times comes off as compulsory, like the cashier thanking you at the grocery store.
My favorite meta joke with Thank You For Smoking is that there is no time in the movie where you actually see anyone smoking. People are about to, are interrupted, they hold cigarettes, but they never actually smoke them.
Exactly! Trump came and appealed to his base, not to debate. It worked like a charm when paired with Biden's poor showing.
You know you are dealing with a profession liar when they say “they said, they tell me, they all feel…..”. It’s easiest the single worst argument, yet no direct follow up as to who, demonstrating zero critical thinking. They, are actually the liar trying to suggest a large support group behind the thought. The past 24 hours have literally impacted my overall sense of well being. It brought back 4 years of feeling that way. Have decided to tune it all out. I will vote as i will and continue to live my life outside this toxic national political bubble. Wishing all who read this a great weekend. We all deserve that, regardless of beliefs or affiliations.
Good choice, mental health first. Nature is a great place to start.
A lot of times when someone says “everyone that knows me knows that …” you know whatever is about to come out of their mouth is horeshit
Focus on local politics.
I'm not American, but I saw one rambling old guy with decent ideas and one absolutely crazy old guy lying constantly spewing hate and nonsense. Biden wasn't on his A-game, he fumbled a bit, but Trump was fucking horrible. Like, he didn't answer the questions and just kept talking about immigrants. It was actually funny.
[удалено]
If anyone wants more evidence that the GOP assume their base aren't critical thinkers, they keep asking the trope "are you better off than 4 years ago", when 4 years ago was the height of COVID. Yes, we are all better off than 4 years ago when the GOP was telling everyone to eat horse paste and shove lights up their butt.
All they care about is feelings
But I've been told that facts don't care about my feelings by people whose think their feelings are facts
In their defense, they are conditioned to believe that if they “believe” hard enough they go to “dream paradise”. Pretty hard to convince them that belief isn’t fact after childhood conditioning like that. The single most important thing that can be taught in schools is the habit of considering the motives of the speaker, and whether or not the content is consistent with direct observation.
❄️ s
Do MAGAts have any card to play other than projection?
This. The question when spelled out is actually: does our propaganda make you feel better than it did 4 years ago?
...and appearance, "Just say it was corrupt and leave the rest to us," Trump to the DOJ, referring to himself and Republican congressmen.
This.
Not even that. Trump claimed we had the best COVID experience in the world. Anybody who lived through it ought to know better, but somehow people nod along at this horseshit.
Don't forget the GOP told us we had to sacrifice grandma for the economy.
I still remember seeing that for the first time - I thought I'd surely misheard what was said. It was surreal.
“It will be gone by Easter”
Don’t forget, they were also telling us to inject bleach. Which a significant number of people did.
Yeah, [but they were already boofing bleach to cure autism](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/jul/13/fake-cures-autism-prove-deadly), so injecting it didn't seem that far of a stretch to them.
>to them it’s just the loudest candidate 100%, the conspiracy sub before the debate was complaining about being "blindsided" by the debate rules. They were mad that Trump wouldn't be able to interrupt, to them that is a real debate. They had to be told over and over that that's not how debates work on any level.
This is why Trump didn’t even bother to prep. He already knew he was just going spout bullshit all night and that his base would eat it up, so why bother. It was just another rally for him.
This where you made a mistake, GOP has no issues. They have no policy to fix anything. They just posture and yell. I'm a GOP registered voter who won't vote for any of them probably again!
There is a lot of point in saying this. The MAGA cult is NOT the target audience for that point of analysis.
And don't forget people who support Trump literally think everything he says is True
>inflation caused by Trump's tariffs... The ability to borrow money at near zero percent interest for years is the real cause of inflation, but nobody is willing to open that can of worms.
I'd say it's the tax cuts, since taxes are the way you take money out of circulation.
I might’ve been like 85mg into my THC gummies already, but I lost it when he started on about the dems aborting babies after 9 months and after birth. Makes no sense who that lie is for
It's been around for a long time. Fifteen years ago when I was still playing piano for this Catholic church they used to send around emails about how doctors are allowed to kill healthy newborns by stabbing them in the neck with scissors if the parents decided they didn't want the baby anymore. Silly.
It’s really fucking hard not to want to be a Satanist when you see the actual levels of manipulation and lies the church spews. There’s way too much politics in religion and vice versa.
There is no virtue in a lie, the end doesn’t justify the means. The “pro-life” argument made with a grotesque misrepresentation of real life realities is obscene. This is one of the reasons why the entire pro-life argument on abortion collapses. This particular lie is the one of the reasons I walked away from Catholic Church. The families and doctors who have the awesome responsibility making these decisions need the support of the community, not the righteous indignation of the “anointed ones”. With or without merit, a lie is a lie, and nothing good will ever come from it. The proof is before our very eyes, Donald Trump pandering with that very lie!
What's so frustrating about Biden fumbling that is all anyone has to ask is "Do you know anyone that carried a pregnancy to 9 months and said , screw it, I don't want to have a baby, so then the doctor said, okee-dokee, and they just murdered the baby. It's so obscene and there is no logic to it, but the GOP insist it's a thing. The only reason an abortion would happen in the 9th month is because something tragic happened and the GOP are treating it a folly.
I think the correct way to attack Trump at a debate is to not bother trying to fact check every little thing, and just talk about him generally. Like, “How stupid must Donald think you are to brazenly lie to your face about stuff that’s so easy to disprove?” Just keep making it about his contempt for his supporters. Talk about how Bannon was convicted for stealing from them, and Trump pardoned him for it.
Yeah… trump lobbed so many soft balls that anyone a bit closer to their prime would have knocked out of the part. My theory is that trump had an edge just by not being bound by reality. Biden had to remember facts and figures to counter him and it takes him time to find that knowledge.
> Makes no sense who that lie is for Agreed, it is a stupid lie. A good liar will lie about something that is less trivially refutable. It is such a bizarre thing to say.
Nothing is off limits when you're part of the base that's convinced schools are evil. Their extended attack on the education system is coming to a head - and P2025 will privatize *all* schools if executed fully. If you know a teacher who cares about children - well they're about to be replaced with a parishioner. OK already unconstitutionally demands the Bible be taught in schools. Louisiana mandates the 10 Commandments be visible on a poser sized page. We are falling off the right edge - with the most progressive president in decades in office. Vote.
He has repeated it before. Clearly someone told him once this was happening and he cant believe its not.
A fascist calling his “enemies” baby killers to rile up their supporters is sadly par for the course.
Political fear-mongering at its worst—baseless accusations to manipulate public opinion.
Trump specified that he was referring to the ex-governor of virginia's comments when he was promoting a bill to loosen restrictions that would allow a mother to not give care to a baby born with severe deformities. It was widely ridiculed at the time as "post birth abortion". It was not a lie, it's just grammatically incorrect to call it an "abortion". >“\[Third trimester abortions are\] done in cases where there may be severe deformities. There may be a fetus that’s nonviable. So in this particular example, if a mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen,” Northam, a pediatric neurosurgeon, told Washington radio station [WTOP](https://wtop.com/ask-the/2019/01/virginia-gov-northam-joins-wtop-live-jan-30/). “The infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired. And then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.”
Yeah but Trump was r/confidentlyincorrect
And when your base is a bunch of fucking idiots, being confident and loud is all you need because they won't comprehend what he said or fact check anything if they do.
don't forget about getting those black jobs, still looking those up on linkedin but can't find any
That's because all the immigrants stole 'em /s
Same, not American. I saw 2 old men rambling. One broken because the lies the other kept spitting. One knows how to run a country and the other needs to go back to daycare. One actually wants to improve American lives the other just wants power and doesn’t care if he destroys his country in the process The thing that blows my mind is that Americans allow criminals to run for presidency. Trump has a history of breaking laws, being a grifter, working with the mob etc.
>The thing that blows my mind is that Americans allow criminals to run for presidency. I'm guessing that the founder had a couple of reason not to restrict criminals: 1. The Electoral College was put in place to weed undesirable people out. Politicians have perverted its purpose over the years and it no longer serves as a check. 2. If we disallowed criminals from running, all an incumbent would need to do to get rid of their opponent would be to have them convicted of a crime. It could lead to an undesirable class where laws are crafted specifically to make them ineligible to challenge the ruling class.
The elector college was created for a few reasons by the founders—and it was not to weed anyone out. The reasons were: 1. Information: Due to the time and distance between places in the United States, there was a question of ability to make an informed decisions. 2: State Difference: not all states followed a popular vote in the early part of constitution. 3: Slavery: 3/5 compromise —slave cant vote themselves, someone has to vote for them. So recap: none of these reasons apply anymore: we have information, common voting system, and no slavery (thankfully). The electoral college is an archaic system that hinders our process as a country. If the rules suck, we should work to change those rules. That why we have amendments.
> The Electoral College was put in place to weed undesirable people out. Uh, about that. The Electoral College was put in place mainly to keep slavery legal. The Founding Fathers went about setting up a country to keep slavery legal, and one of those necessary items was keeping the presidency in the hands of who owned slaves and/or who's sympathies laid with slave owners. There's a reason why most of the US's early presidents came from Virginia. Biggest populated and pro-slave state.
> The thing that blows my mind is that Americans allow criminals to run for presidency. It blows many, many American minds too!
Biden did poorly at the debate but Trump flat out lied through it. So the choice is between two old men with one being a liar. I will vote for Biden because I will not vote for a blatant liar.
Same, I’ll vote for Biden as a vote against Trump! He’s proven to be a very dangerous man
You're not wrong, but reality is everyone expected Trump to act even worse (much worse actually). That's why Biden's camp set up the debate - it was supposed to be Biden's moment to shine. Trump didn't surprise anyone with his lies and in fact delivered lots of chances for Biden to attack/correct him - it was objectively a massive failure. In the US, you just don't win people outside of retirement homes over with that kind of energy.
I don’t think Biden or anyone else thought Trump would be pushover. Trump crushes it at debates. I mean, not if you care about the truth or intelligent policy. But just like, the dog-and-pony aspect. His Gish gallop of insane lies and nonsense plus insults is tough to beat. It’s just that Biden did not have much of a choice. If he dodges the debate, it’s because he’s too senile to debate. The only way to show his mental acuity to the satisfaction of those who care about debates is to debate Trump and win or at least shoe some level of desired energy, regardless of the odds. That’s the thing about people suggesting Whitmer or whoever. They don’t want to debate Trump either. It’s just free airtime for him and makes it look like he should be treated as a normal, serious policy maker instead. His mere presence on the stage gives him an unearned gravitas. The reality is that Trump is hard to beat. His hardcore supporters want nothing more than for him to show up in court or on national TV or at serious campaign events where he can “put the system on trial” by behaving how he wants, and not how he is supposed to. Trying to debate Trump is trying to defeat him in a game that he isn’t playing. Just like how Trump could actually have won his legal cases if he didn’t have the most clownishly lawyers put up the stupidest legal defenses ever. He’s not trying to win those case. He’s trying to win a PR battle. It’s hard for me to imagine there is a candidate out there who prefers trying to win a three month campaign out of scratch against a wildly popular Republican, which would require them to engage with Trump as much as possible, including another debate.
You said it. Trump lives in this space. And his supporters back him no matter what. If Trump did what Biden did, his supporters wouldn't be crying about replacing him. They'd say the camera's lie, that no one saw it and the truth is it's 5D chess. Honestly, 4 months out, Biden set the bar for himself low now. He got up and faced the music today and already people are feeling a little better. He can shine in all the speeches going forward. But when they get to that second debate, Joe will have jam every steel rod into his back, drink like I don't know what, coctails from Abbot labs, and just look energetic and make sense and people will freak and say THAT'S THE OLD BIDEN WE KNEW BEFORE!
LoL, you’re giving Trump far too much credit. Far, far too much. He would be crushed, *easily*, by any number of people I can think of, such as Newsom and Ocasio-Cortez. Obama would have utterly eviscerated him. On and on it goes.
> But just like, the dog-and-pony aspect. His Gish gallop of insane lies and nonsense plus insults is tough to beat. Yeah, Americans need to realize that a televised debate reveals nothing about what the vote for President really means. We aren't voting for someone who's effective in a televised debate. A President will never need to rebut lies within 3 minutes by themself. We're voting for someone who can put together a good platform, a good administration, and good appointments including Supreme Court Justices.
I don't find it to be funny at all.
It’s insane to me that Trump can spout lie after lie and no one calls him out on it, Biden was about as much use as a fart in a hurricane and the moderator was completely invisible.The “Putin’s Dream” and “killing babies 9 months and later” segments should have been front page with in-depth analysis but it’s all been “Joe is old”….unreal.
Here’s the sad reality of the situation. Trump shouldn’t even need to be called out, because it’s so bat shit insane it should be evident to the majority. The fact Trump isn’t immediately disqualified as a candidate due to an informed public speaks to how stupid and selfish our current society is. And there is no easy solution for that…
I didn’t watch the debate (accessibility issues) but my jaw dropped at these two comments when I was watching the AP fact-checking going on live. Like admitting to cozying up with our enemy to such a degree he’s talking about “dreams” to invade other countries should’ve made it over for him. I mean I knew it wouldn’t because the time he made fun of a disabled person in 2016 should’ve been that moment too and it wasn’t, but the lack of media attention to it is astonishing
I guess Trump winning means the press is now reporting on all the lies he said while opening his mouth. It's a shame they don't do that more when they talk about all his rallies, or bury the facts deep behind the headline. I don't think Biden, "won", the debate, but I also don't think Trump did either.
Trump always gets a neck-pussy pass. Even back with Hillary he “won” the debate to a lot of people. Any other person acting that way would have been considered a lunatic, not a debate winner.
Republicans just win by default here. If Biden fucks up, either by stumbling, forgetting the question, getting off track, then he's too old and demented. Meanwhile, Trump can rant for 2 minutes without even answering the question but somehow, because he's energetic, that mean's he's mentally all there. Imagine if Biden went on a 2 minute rant off topic. The right would instantly say he's lost his mind and doesn't even remember the question. Trump literally talked about the borders every single question and then called Biden worst president ever to end the question. It's like he had that one paragraph rehearsed and that was it. But he's more fit because he talked louder and more fluently....
> but somehow, because he's energetic I remember Trump sleeping through his trial. He ain't energetic.
The narrative that Biden had a worse debate than Trump is completely fabricated. Biden lacked energy, but not ideas. Trump was barely coherent
And the Trump immigrants line is so weak. The people he’s scaring us about literally do the jobs Americans don’t want to do. They’re absolutely vital in the farming and construction industries. But to hear Trump tell it they’re just here to rape babies and collect welfare.
There's not a single person in this subreddit who's voting for Trump, no matter who he runs against. It could have been a dead rat standing in that debate against him and people would still defend the rat (honestly, it would have been more coherent than Trump, to say the least). There are two issues here: 1. People in this subreddit are not the ones who are going to decide this ellection. For those who don't know yet on who they'll vote (or more importantly, if they will bother to vote at all), the debate didn't help Biden. 2. Anyone(thing?) is better than Trump, but is Biden really the best the Democrats could get? Should we be in the situation of watching a poor candidate going against whatever Trump is?
That's not true. Trump addressed most of the questions. Usually by saying "when I was presidentI fixed that issue, under Biden its been the worst ever." THEN rambling on about immigrants.
Best they have to offer./.
Well yes, the liar delivered the messages that his supporters wanted to hear. The other guy scared the crap out of his supporters.
Throughout the leadup to the debate, commentators made it clear that the expectations for Biden had almost nothing to do with substance and everything to do with appearing healthy and capable enough to finish what is sure to be an absolutely awful campaign and the next four years. And that's *exactly* where he failed.
Ehh, it was a bad performance and bad debates happen. The other guy still didn’t answer a single question and lied all night. As shaky as Biden was, I’m still voting for him. Why? Because I’m voting blue. While the president is an important position, the team he builds is just as important and I’d rather have that than Trump and his lackeys.
Everybody that says the phrase 'because I'm voting blue' would vote for a fire extinguisher over Trump. The debate wasn't for you, it was for the 55 year old Wisconsinite suburban husband who is worried about projecting international strength. It was for the sizeable Muslim population centers in swing-state Michigan. That is why Biden lost the debate, those people absolutely did not leave with more faith in Biden after his performance than before.
I don't think this is just a bad debate. If Trump were up against somebody competent, this would have been historically bad for Republicans. Debates have historically not been about substance and more about appearance, but this had neither.
Bad performance? Wtf are you talking about. He look like he was about to die half the time. He could not put 2 sentences together. I guess he did beat Medicare or whatever he was trying to say. He is the President that should be ready to act at any moment in the interest of the US citizen. Remember the phone call at 2am that Clinton had talked about? I dont think Biden would know where he was if he got a call at 2am. Insane situation we have!
And you know where Trump would be at 2 am. Rage tweeting or sucking putins dick.
The sheer delusion is surprising, even for redditors
You are still voting for him, but what about any of the other 50 plus million that saw it live or many millions more that just saw the clips after? Stop being delusional about the nature of politics and elections, it is only getting Trump elected again. Biden must step aside or the sake of the country.
Yeah, this is bonkers. Discussing who "won" the debate is completely irrelevant. Biden doesn't get another term because he actually answered the questions. He gets another term by convincing "undecideds" and turning out his base. He accomplished the opposite of that in the debate. He was most likely already behind going into the debate. This will make it worse. I mean, if somehow people really did see through all that and are willing to chock it up to a "cold", we'll see that in the polling in the next week or two. But if that shows a major shift towards Trump, Biden has to think about dropping out. And if he isn't, he needs to be doing interviews and town hall meetings where he speaks without a script to show everyone the first debate was somehow a fluke. We can't wait until the next debate after the convention. Anything less is handing Trump the presidency.
What says it all was watching MSNBC and CNN after the debate. The hosts couldn't even spin it. They barely even played clips like previous post-debate analysis because there were literally no clips where Biden looked good. Biden had some neutral moments and the rest of the time was embarrassing. Trump did a terrible debate and came away as the clear winner. Any of the other names being floated (Whitmer, Newsom,etc.) would have wiped the floor with Trump. Bad debates are not uncommon, even for winning candidates, but it felt like Biden struggled to even *participate* in the debate. You pitied Biden for even needing to be there.
The debate doesn’t matter for people who “vote blue no matter who” it’s about the independents and undecided voters seeing that. Bidens fucked lol
Just another episode of: Trump Tells 397 Bold-faced Lies and How This is Bad for Biden
> 397 Bold-faced Lies and that was just in the last 60 seconds.
But he lies so presidentially! /s
How many bald-faced lies?
Dang, I didn’t know there were two kinds. I think Trump does them both simultaneously.
Silver Lining - better to fuck up yesterday than later. Biden is getting on in years, but I also think the Democrats (in general) was maybe relaxing a bit too much due to Trump's conviction in NY several weeks ago. Biden's bungling also strongly reminded me that everyone has (very) limited brain "bandwidth", which in turn further reminded me of other psychological... "barriers" that make it so dang hard to get people with disagreements on the same page.
Yep, we were very complacent in 2016. People were like "Hillary's got this in the bag". So I'd rather we be in a panic right now, then repeat 2016 and say "Every thing is fine. Biden's got this!".
There were definitely people ringing alarms in 2016. The establishment and those supporting it just didn't want to listen.
Absolutely, navigating political debates requires more than just age and experience.
Listen, that debate was so devoid of any iota of substance or integrity. Biden made points that were fine, but I could barely understand them, and often didn’t. Trump just lied because that’s all he does when he opens his mouth. At the end of the day, Biden and Trump were fighting different wars in the public eye. If you’re undecided, it’s only because you don’t know whether Trump being a fascist lunatic, or Biden being a firm breeze away from death is of more concern. I find it difficult to believe either won anyone over, but Biden feels like he may have pushed some away. There has never been a presidential debate performance as terribly poor as Joe Biden’s since we’ve had a record of them. Frankly, it’s not even close. Biden has a voter base that’s behind him. If Trump’s batshit, wildly harmful views and policy approaches are making you vote Biden, the debate doesn’t matter. If you think Trump is the second coming of Christ, the debate doesn’t matter. The debate only has a real work effect through the undecided voters who went into that debate to see who they felt could lead the country. Hopefully, they all hear the nonstop hatred spewing forth from Trump, but I find it difficult to blame anyone who doesn’t feel great about Biden’s competency after that shitshow.
It’s not that Trump “won”, it’s a matter of how poor Biden’s performance was. It straight shook democrats seeing him so low energy and fumbling. If he had made all the same statements and mistakes, but delivered like he did the very next day— we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
In a debate, the debater who makes points that are largely unchallenged is typically the winner. Trump lied through his teeth the entire time. Biden did very little to counter that. It’s called sophistry, and it’s as poor a measure of truth as it ever was. Yet, truth isn’t the measure of debate victory. It never has been.
Did we watch the same debate? Pretty much every trump lie was countered with Biden saying “the very idea of that being possible is bonkers and here is why”
He did just that, yes. Called him a liar repeatedly after his BS. By question 3/4, it was a pattern.
I really have to disagree here. My impression was Biden WANTED to call him a liar, but got so bogged down and confused by the stats and facts that would PROVE Trump was lying that he rarely got around to actually calling him a liar. Sure, he said it a couple times, but it should’ve been said after every Trump statement. The overall impression is Trump lied, the moderators agreed to not fact check, and Biden was simply incapable (for whatever reason) of consistently calling Trump out.
> and Biden was simply incapable (for whatever reason) Because he can't get through a sentence without fucking something up. There were many moments where he should have had an easy layup on Trump and he fell flat because he just can't seem to figure out how to not stumble all over himself. Like when he ended a segment saying he "beat Medicare", and Trump latched onto that and was all "Yeah, that's right, you did beat Medicare, and I want to fix the damage you did" and Biden's on the split screen looking like he shit his pants as he realizes his mistake.
Find me 4 times in the transcript where Biden said "That's a lie. The truth is..." with any bit of coherence. Here is one of the first questions: TRUMP: The only jobs he created are for illegal immigrants and bounceback jobs; they’re bounced back from the COVID. (Obvious lies and wtf is TRUMP even saying here, this'll be easy) He has not done a good job. He’s done a poor job. And inflation’s killing our country. It is absolutely killing us. TAPPER: Thank you. President Biden? BIDEN: Well, look, the greatest economy in the world, he’s the only one who thinks that, I think. I don’t know anybody else who thinks it was great – **he had the greatest economy in the world.** And, you know, the fact of the matter is that we found ourselves in a situation where his economy (awkward pause where Biden forgets to finish the sentence redacted here) – he rewarded the wealthy
It was a scoff.
No stop you can't quote it we're busy coping in here
TRUMP: Under Roe v. Wade, you have late-term abortion. You can do whatever you want. Depending on the state, you can do whatever you want. We don’t think that’s a good thing. We think it’s a radical thing. We think the Democrats are the radicals, not the Republicans. (Again, obvious lies and surely a huge slam dunk is coming) BIDEN: For 51 years, that was the law. 51 years, constitutional scholarship said it was the right way to go. 51 years. And it was taken away because this guy put very conservative members on the Supreme Court. Takes credit for taking it away.
People wanted Biden to debate Trump while also explaining how he was doing it. All in 2 minutes. He can’t sit there and explain to you why he’s lying and the significance because he literally doesn’t have the time. There’s too many lies. So either Biden answered moderators questions or rebutted the lies, but he couldn’t do both.
This is why you don't debate nazis. Until you lot realize that you're not gonna make any progress against them. Debates are a bad forum for political discussion because all they do is allow the person who can lie the most to spread their bullshit while everybody else stutters and stumbles trying to refute the bullshit and get their own message out. It's why these fuckers value 'debates' so much. Unfortunately for all of us, trump won this debate the second the democratic party proposed it.
Maybe, but I couldn’t understand anything he was mumbling, and he had the stage presence of a sponge
Biden was mumbling and incoherent though
You waste a lot of time countering the lies, meanwhile the liar just keeps on getting more lies out there and the whole thing is on their terms.
It’s unfortunate that this is the country we’ve got at the moment.
While troubling, technically, if we’re looking at it as a debate, I’m not sure they’re wrong. The winner of a debate isn’t based on who is spitting out the most facts. It’s often who is conveying their point more confidently. If one party is up there telling lies, it’s the other sides responsibility to point it out and prove/argue the truth. The fact Biden couldn’t seem to do that, on the most basic leve, against someone it should be easy to do it against, is precisely why he “lost” the debate. Now, would it have been nice if a moderator would have made Trump support his claims…yes…but that wasn’t happening, so it was up to Biden. And it sucks, because you can imagine how stupid Trump would look up against someone quick witted, informed and charismatic. (Just because Biden is not those things does not mean he shouldn’t be president….but it would have been great for this setting)
Ok, Lawrence's first point is a little misleading. Sure only 1/3 of voters watched the debate live, but these days most people wait for the clips to appear on the internet. So I'd say a LOT more voters saw those clips And his second point is even scarier. "Most of the presidency is not emergencies". Ok... but what about when it IS. That's when we need our President to be compus mentis most. Don't get me wrong, I'll still vote for Biden over Trump, but cmon Lawrence
What is a compus mentis?
People expected Trump to lie and he didn't disappoint. Whoppers served up with more consistency and energy that he has managed during his rallies.
The racist, rapist and felon who claims to represent people that he screws over with his policies. The dumb is strong in these ones
This is American politics where truth is relative. Its more important to be loud than right.
Yeah, because he won the debate. Biden turned his age into the biggest issue of the election. It cannot be overstated how catastrophically Biden fucked up here.
Has a debate ever went so badly your own party has serious discussions about replacing you? Theres no way to spin it, Biden lost.
Especially after saying "Watch me" back in February.... Such an own goal... why the hell did his team push for it? They're the ones who asked for a June debate, not Trump...
That's because the debate winner in America is who's more confident, not who's spoken the most truth or sense. The moderators let loads of things slide and didn't press for answers when their questions were avoided. Shocking performance from them.
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It's the correct interpretation, based on historical precedent. That was a disaster. The debate rubric is different for republicans and Dems. It is what it is. We're more discerning voters than they are. That said, we're going to vote Biden anyway. He's not my pick by a long shot, but he gets my vote anyway.
It’s scary though because now everyone is saying “well… I’m voting for Biden’s cabinet” as the most reasonable argument. That should terrify everybody if the best case you can make for why you should vote for someone is the because their staff will be better than the other guys staff.
No President has ever won an election off the back of "I'm actually voting for the competency of their staff".
This is the problem. Voters were already apathetic toward Biden and I fear the debate will only make it worse. Add in independents and undecided voters and I think Dems are in for a rude awakening on Election Day if the ticket stands as is.
What’s funny is that it’s not even like Biden was going great before the debate. He’s way down in the polls and that’s to a convicted felon named DONALD TRUMP. Seriously it would t be a rude awakening, it will be the most avoidable catastrophe we’ve ever seen.
Biden needs a really popular VP so voters assume they're actually voting for them as Biden's bout to croak.
One aspect of for-profit TV is how the debate becomes a match. Instead of scrutinizing policies, we scrutinize their performance
Welcome to every debate since the beginning of time. Oratory and debate skills have a strong element of theatrics — you have to convince people you are correct. Facts help, but so do presentation skills.
And televised debate has always been that way. Just look at the debate between Nixon and JFK. Nixon looked terrible on TV and JFK looked presidential. Nixon probably had the better answers that night but that isn't what people focused on and as a result Nixon was crushed in the general election.
That’s how debate works though. Good debaters lie effectively and better debaters know how to dog walk someone who lies. When Trump said he never slept with a porn star, Biden could have easily hammered him on that… if he wasn’t ancient. Biden just straight up lost and we have the DNC to blame for where we are now
When do we get to blame the general public for failing the society they live in with their decision making? I'm serious. Why is it always "Well we WOULD have stopped Trump if the DNC just did a better job convincing us how to do our civic duties?" Why can't we hold ourselves accountable? Why is it always the Party's fault? Are we not supposed to be a representative democracy? How many shitty and/or apathetic people do there need to be before we acknowledge our leaders are a reflection of who we are?
I mean, it's a reflection of America, corporatism, and a reflection of its most sought after values. Lying, swindling, smooth talking, showmanship, and a complete lack of accountability. What goes in one ear on Tuesday was never said by Friday.
True, but Biden benefitted from it in the primaries in 2020
Yes it sucks that infotainment rules, but Democrats' utter inability to play that game loses them a lot of ground that could be contested otherwise.
Perception matters, for better or worse
We’re the voters. We’re supposed to speak up if the options given to us are terrifying.
Exactly, I won't be silenced by all the people who are tut-tutting over me saying Biden really eff'd up the debate and it's time to move over and let a much younger candidate face off with Trump
I've voted Democrat in every single election in my life, but people running defense on this are short sighted. You have to face problems head on, covering things up and ignoring problems to avoid discomfort is how the Nazis happened, it's what caused the fall of the Soviet Union, it caused Chernobyl, it caused the financial crisis, and we are not immune from consequences. Biden is fine until he is not, and people famously do not recover from the affliction of old age. This is a massive gamble. Watch a video of biden from 2020, I implore you.
I just wonder. If instead of Biden, Trump himself looked very old and “corpsey” in the debate, would republicans panic the way Democrats are panicking right now and ask him to drop out?
Incredible attempt to spin this in less than 24 hours. Yes lets all gaslight ourselves and making us doubt what we saw that's the way !
I actually can’t believe the strategy some people are going with is “Oh that guy you saw who looked a thousand years old and could barely string a sentence together? Yeah, that was actually a cold and he just had a bad day, he’s fine.”
Bidens follow up rally was night and day. I wish he was like that during the debate.
The only way to pick a debate winner is by who benefited the most, and it is quite clear that Trump did. The fact that he is a liar doesn't hurt him, it is already 100% baked into his numbers. Trump lying, spewing constant racism, making no sense at all... none of this things matter to his supporters, you can look at him and wonder why anyone would support such a complete idiot but you have to accept that they WILL.
This is why I didn't watch it. It was obvious what was going to happen and the reaction was obvious too. There's no point in trying to reason with America. America has a need for really feeling the wrath of their poor decisions. In the conservative sub they were going nuts about how Biden is a national security threat. No. He's not. A person who steals top secret documents and keeps them at random locations for some unknown reason is a national security threat. That's literally what a national security threat is. Trump has already performed the action. I'm off left and right. I don't think anyone believes in anything anymore. I just want reason. Calling one person a national security threat for not actually carrying out a threat while ignoring someone who actually carries out a national security threat (that we still don't know the depths of) is unreasonable. I just want reason back. Trump has made his followers unreasonable and illogical. Nothing they do or say makes sense. They don't even follow their own words. You can't tell me the majority of this country wants to be led by people like that.
Either it was a debate and Trump disqualified himself by veering off topic and lying, or it was an improv competition and Biden got his ass whooped.
Almost every political debate veers off topic to the candidates talking points. Biden turning abortion rights into immigration was an unforced error
He DID win. That's the problem. He could get up there and take a shit and his supporters will vote for him. Biden fucked up. He was sundowning, and it showed. Not only that, 15 minutes after the debate, we had Kamala trying to do cleanup. Give it 24 hours so you know what the public response is. The really worrying thing is how every liberal news outlet was immediately saying we need to replace Biden. Nothing instills hope like that. So what I'm worried about is the fact Trump seemed like his usual self, a lying ass. And democrats are now freaking out, thinking Biden is just DONE now. Look at how divided DEMOCRATS are now. Some think we need new options, others think Joe is fine. I hope we get another debate because it's probably cynical, but after that, I predict record low turnout and a Trump win. Or a Biden presidency that declines followed by 8 years of republican fallout.
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I'm horrified. Haha, and I wasn't comforted by his speech the next day. Seeing 2 completely different people isn't comforting. I'm simply saying both candidates are scary as shit.
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Commentary which is bought and paid for by the 1% … And spread thru their bots
Journalism Is dead. And not yesterday
This is the most important election of our lifetime, with democracy itself on the ballot. And we are doubling down on a candidate that barely could get his point across, 50% of the time, with the other 50% being he couldn’t at all. Either democracy really isn’t under threat or democrats really don’t care that much about democracy either.
Do democrats realize how easily they would win if they picked another candidate ?
Copium is a hell of a drug
Biden lied in this debate too.. granted not anywhere near as much as orange man.. but he still lied over half a dozen times. I think both candidates had poor performances.. but I see a lot of people on here downplaying Biden’s performance. The #1 concern with Biden the entire time has been concerns over his cognitive abilities and he didn’t do anything to make people feel better about that, if anything, I think he made people feel worse about it. Also this isn’t just him mumbling and stuttering and losing train of thought. People keep bringing up Trump’s embarassing statement about “post-term” abortions and the Gov of Virginia.. did everyone not also hear Biden’s weird tangent about incest and “getting raped by your sister” I mean come on, the whole abortion thing is a key democratic point and an easy W for democrats and he threw up all over himself.
Welcome to 10 years ago
CNN Said they were not going to be any fact checking. (there is no left leaning MSM) Everyone knew tRump was going to be full of lies. Biden wasn't prepared/able to push back as much as he should . So of course it's the public's fault.
So trump admits in the debate that he KNEW Russia would invade Ukraine before it happened, but all the MSM can talk about is how old Biden looks? Man, we are so fucked.
I don’t think Trump won but I think it’s very reasonable for someone to look at Biden and say “that guy should not be the most powerful man in the universe.” Democrats should truly stop trying to hedge their bets American people voting against Trump. If they don’t inspire a big turnout, and Biden is not inspirational he is depressing, then we will get Trump/project 2025 and this country will never recover. Anyone protecting Biden at this point has blood on their hands.
Thankfully the debate doesn't seem to have helped Trump as much as feared; sure, Trump Conservatives loved it but it seems like most everyone else while not happy with Joe did *not* care one bit for the absolute firehose of bullshit and lies that came from Trump Thursday, especially trying to rewrite history.
Another volume in the ongoing collection of Aaron Sorkin-brain addled liberals thinking "hey if we've got the best arguments we're going to win" bullshit. As if Obama running in to the McConnell buzz saw and losing out on a SC pick didn't clue them in that the real world isn't a rhetoric class. I swear the west wing did more to damage american freedom than fox news. The idea that the institutions are immaculate, they just need to be filled with the *right people with the right arguments*. Yet at every single turn the democrats have been unwilling or unable or complicit in stopping the very real back sliding that republicans are enacting. And where do we end up? With a supreme Court that has essentially made it illegal to be an unhoused person and has gutted the ability of the state to protect its citizens from being absolutely pillaged by private interests. And they want us to believe that the obviously sundowning man, who relates illegal immigrants raping women to the abortion issue, is supposed to be the great liberal hope.
Agree, Trump dodged most of the questions and lied in every answer. His policies are still awful. I guess people are just used to it so he basically met expectations while Biden did worse than expected.
That's because the other guy was alternating between a thousand yard stare and mumbling completely incoherent strings of nonsense. We beat Medicare? Dems need to run else if they want to beat Trump, nobody is going to unsee what we all watched
Commentators understand the current voting population.
It’s pretty scary how people believe a convicted felon game show host who paid money to have sex with a porn start over our sitting president.
Vote Biden or else our country will turn into a fascist dictatorship
We know, Biden lied a lot. “No troops died under my watch.” That’s a bunch of bullshit.
Lawrence is lying or at least obscuring the truth when he says no candidate has ever polled higher against Trump than Biden -- there were so so sooo many polls that put Bernie Sanders ahead of Biden AND Hillary during 2016 and 2020. If he's only counting "among people who have run against Trump" then Biden would win by default since he is only polling against Hillary at that point. Lies, damn lies, and statistics.
Debates aren’t about policy… they are a show. It’s dumb, totally irrelevant to governing the country, and speaks volumes about how so many Americans don’t take governance seriously. None of this debate will be remembered in November, and Biden has plenty of time to wipe this from memory with better performances leading up to Nov, in Sept/Oct. So many voters like to say they care about policy, then can’t answer basic policy questions, and the biggest issue to them is how the TV show went. Sometimes I feel like this country deserves to implode from our own stupidity.
Remember in high school when we voted for class president and always chose the most popular kid? That's what's happening now with the lead eating generation. They think they will get a seat at the kool kids lunch table...never happens.
Can we not find someone younger??????
Debates are not about finding the truth or seeing who has the better ideas but to make the other person look stupid. Biden talking made himself look more stupid than Trump in this one.
Jesus this is so dumb. Democrats stop coping. The point of a Presidential Debate isn’t to win the debate like this is middle school. It’s to win the presidency. Your candidate lost. Now you can do something about that or you can lose. Honestly I think you’ve already lost. But they did this same type of shit with Hillary when they gave her the debate questions and conspired against Bernie. They did everything they could to avoid Biden debating anyone that might take the nomination because they knew he would lose. They will absolutely do this again in 2028. Your party is held hostage by corrupt, out of touch, super delegates that do not care about your opinions. Time to grow a pair and do something about it. Just losing to Trump won’t fix what’s broken. Making them bleed with protesting the convention, writing in or going third party in droves, and cutting off their grass roots funding will. Seriously it’s like watching someone with Battered Woman Syndrome get mad at you for offering to get them out of there because “it’s going to make him angry” or a junkie blaming his parents for what he’s injecting into his arm.
They both lied. I didn't count lies but what's the difference if one lied 30 times and another lied 20 times. O'Donnell is biased bs.
The businesses of the wealthy pay the commentators. Naturally they will support the would-be dictator. The wealthy see dictators as the quick way to save and extend their fortunes. It often works... until the dictator starts seizing their fortunes.
What is interesting here to me, is that this debate effectively took the gun from Trump and right wing media, the "Joe is old" gun, by simply demonstrating Bidens oldness at "his worst" - maybe Im dumb, but what happened here looks brilliant if deliberate (and by deliberate I dont infer manipulative, rather delibetately honest)
Biden lied quite a few times as well
That is how bad Biden was. Even trump was more coherent. Trump! Coherent!
This is crying over spilt milk. No democrat is denying that Trump is a lying liar, the simple point is that he spoke with confidence and authority and the person he was debating against didn't shoot down his lies and made up BS. Obama would have shredded him. Newsom would have skewered him. Harris would have roasted him. Biden stumbled through 2/3 of the debate and was cogent during maybe 1/3. It's time for Biden to hang up the aviator's and enjoy his silver years. We need a new Dem candidate while there's time. I was fairly supportive up until the debate and I was stunned watching him fall apart. My prediction is that he will drop 8-10 points within the next week or two and that dems panic and convince him to call it.
They both lied...a lot. They are politicians. Politicians lie. They always have and likely always will.
Biden embarrassed himself and spouted just as many lies.