Actually, I found it a little weird too. I was wishing that one of the debate rules was that each debator would be referred to as “Mister.” As in, “Mister Trump” and “Mister Biden.” No “President” or “Former President” anywhere.
This one is easy peasey.
We’ve got Trump because he has normalized retaliatory win-at-any-cost politics, and that veneer of decency that more Americans wear than we like to admit turns out to be a lot thinner and a lot easier to discard than we like to admit. We got Biden because he (at this time) is our best chance to at least partially keep a lid on the coming shitstorm.
Personally, I liken it to a debate between Alfred and The Joker. Yeah, Alfred is old and tired…but the other guy is the fucking Joker, and to concentrate on the stumbling of the former and pretty much ignore the hate-filled lies of the latter because he lies with verve and vigor either misses the point, or tells me the point to a lot of voters is to win.
The American Revolution and the French Revolution were both actions taken to move things forward. The latter even had a working model to look at and emulate.
Normal, rational people will agree with you on the right moves forward. They’re not opposed to things like improving health care, coming up with a fair immigration system, improving equity, etc. But the implementation is going to be slower, take a series of half measures, and build a body of evidence that can sell the negative nancies.
When the chance is made, though, it will stay.
Obamacare was rescinded. Trump’s “universal prosecution” of immigrants was rescinded. NAFTA may have been renamed to USMCA but it’s still there and largely unaltered, and that’s because it was done properly by serious folks with wide support.
You move forward by picking people who are skeptical, discerning, and caring. If there’s a there there with what you want, they will move on it and make it happen. Picking the loudest, most vociferous cheerleader gets you Robespierre. It doesn’t get you what you want, except in the most temporary and worst form.
While avoiding answering the moderators’ questions, you mean.
I think this made them both look bad, in different ways, but in ways almost everyone expected. Biden did look “too old”, and Trump just emphasized that he literally has no answers, just complaints.
Who “won”? Neither, both, Putin.
I do not know.
It seems it is one of two things:
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No one talked about it and each person had a different notion of the proper way to address Trump. The idea that you refer to a former president (or whatever) as “president” is common, if wrong.
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They did talk about it and decided the people watching would know or not know. So, split the difference. One refers to Trump one way and the other does it the different way. Don’t piss off MAGA.
You’d have to ask the moderators to know for sure. I’d expect them to both know the proper form though. They are professionals at the top of their profession…I would assume they would know better.
The current UK media view:
- Biden sounded old and frail and was difficult to understand.
- Trump sounded loud and confident but rambled on about his usual talking points
- Why the fuck were they arguing about golf?
Upthread I wagered that Trump would get frustrated with the muted mic and try to shout or get attention or even get closer to Biden’s mic, when it wasn’t his turn.
I haven’t watched the whole debate yet (it was on at 3am my time) but apparently nothing like that happened.
So admitting I was wrong is another disappointing aspect of all this…
Read past the headline. It’s an early signal and certainly less than conclusive, but it talked me off the ledge a bit. This may be a lost opportunity but not an unrecoverable disaster. That will not prevent the normal Democratic panic.
Biden did look feeble, but there really s no choice. It is obvious that if it were not for the Trump threat Biden would not run. In some ways I wish Biden was on those magic drugs Trump claimed he would be that woudl give him his top of the game speech.
Trump was just obnoxious and just magnifying himself regardless of any truth. So puffed up with his hubris that he was unwatchable and I had to end early. Also it was disgusting how Trump slammed our nation with his lies, things like the southern US boarder is the most dangerous place in the world.
It also seemed like Trump had more time and I do suspect Trump rigged the debate and payed some people off as is his usual pattern.
If Trump says his opponent is on drugs it almost certainly means he is.
A complete, comprehensive, disaster and defeat for President Biden.
Agreed.
He looked worse than I could have imagined. We turned it off shortly after he stumbled to “We defeated Medicare.”
I can’t imagine why his advisors allowed that to happen.
Sure, he is by far a better choice than Trump. But after that performance, I’m bracing for 4 years of Trump - and the considerable legacy of that.
Biden didn’t look like he could do the job for the next 4 years.
And Trump looked like he shouldn’t be allowed to.
It’s a sad state of affairs, to be sure.
It’s hard to beat mortal fear, as described, repeated, and inculcated ad nauseum by DJT.
Love this quote from “The American President:”
We have serious problems to solve, and we need serious people to solve them. And whatever your particular problem is, I promise you, [Donald Trump] is not the least bit interested in solving it. He is interested in two things and two things only: making you afraid of it and telling you who’s to blame for it. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you win elections. You gather a group of middle-aged, middle-class, middle-income voters who remember with longing an easier time, and you talk to them about family and American values and character. And wave an old photo of the President’s girlfriend and you scream about patriotism…
The very best possible version of Joe Biden would have had his hands incomprehensibly full with the pure Gish Gallop of unmitigated bullshit that Trump spewed without having to tackle the FUD/fear and faith aspect of his tirades.
And that version of Joe Biden never took the stage.
I absolutely have no idea what to do next except to calmly watch the polling data and see if/which way/how much the needle moved.
I haven’t read this all the way through yet–I’m about 450 posts in.
Has anyone else had the fleeting and conspiracy-ish notion that this horrible performance by Biden was by design? Could this be the best plan they could think of to get away with replacing Biden on the ticket? (With Biden approving of the idea).
The debate appearance confirms that Biden has declined significantly in the past 4 years. He was noticably better in Sept 2020 and that wasn’t particularly a great debate.
Trump didn’t really score either. He just didn’t stumble.
I don’t know where the Democrats go from here. They will probably scramble and push forward a different candidate. But Who? I can’t think of anyone with the prominence to run last minute. Harris is just too unpopular.
There is about a zero chance the candidate will be anyone other than Biden.
Thank you. This is the only cheerful thought I’ve had today.
Looks like Biden fooled y’all, just as he fooled trump. This is the first debate. Biden held back, playing the old rope-a-dope. He let his opponent pound on him all night, knowing this will lead to an overconfident situation for the second debate.
Biden is expertly playing the long game.
Just wait till September. Biden will bite a piece of ear off.