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You had one person trying to listen, keep track and respond earnestly to each point of a serial liar, and struggling to do it.
The serial liar would make one statement making light of the last thing that was said and then confidently go off on whatever they wanted.
We’ve seen before that Americans want a confident but evil self-serving idiot over a tepid but smart, compassionate leader.
Next morning Edit: My one hope is that the news of Grants Pass, EPA SCOTUS decisions show the real consequences of electing Trump.
a tepid but smart, compassionate leader.
Is that really what you saw on that stage tonight? I saw a guy who lost his car keys because he was so angry at those kids on his lawn. Whether or not the narrative on Biden is fair, he just totally legitimized it.
I get what you’re saying about debating with Trump, or any Republican really. Debate is a lot easier when you care nothing for the truth. Overcoming that is the Democratic candidate’s job. That’s what Biden signed up to do. That’s what the Democrats picked him to do. A candidate who can’t function in that situation has no business on that stage. There are a great many Democrats who could have wiped the floor with Trump.
There are a great many Democrats who could have wiped the floor with Trump.
AOC would fucking shred him
I like AOC. Unfortunately the majority of people, due to innate racism or misogyny, won’t vote for her. One of the only reasons Biden is there is they know he’s the most likely to get votes from all over the country.
Kamala is the backup the party leadership chose.
And what a fuckin poison pill that bitch is. Honestly feel like Sarah Palin is more palatable.
I also think she wouldn’t win the vote. For similar reasons as AOC.
As can be seen by the first person to reply to your post.
She’s also a cop with a very unpalatable record. But yes, misogynoir is also a huge hurdle for her, as per that other comment
Yes, he is smart, and showed great intelligence, but in this instance severely underperformed in his ability to communicate clearly, like someone having a panic attack at a presentation. If you read a transcript of the debate it would be clear who is a leader and who is a clown. The raspy cold voice compounded things but those are all superficial elements, not on the substance (which Trump had nothing but lies and snide remarks).
I agree this isn’t what any Democrat including Biden wanted in the debate and AOC, Sanders would be way better orators. I’m saying regardless of tonight, Americans have picked before a charismatic comic in Reagan over a tepid, but smart, compassionate leader like Carter.
See also: Bush vs Gore (though Republicans still had to cheat to win) and Bush vs Kerry. One candidate makes intelligent, considered points while the other throws out cheap bullshit soundbites. The bullshit soundbites guy wins the election every time.
I’m confident half of my highschool debate team could wipe the floor with Trump, including the ones who quit because it was boring to them.
But can they wipe the floor, AND get elected?
The sad reality is that is our choice.
Eat a shit sandwich, or let the entire house get set on fire.
There’s a secret third option, but most are too comfortable with their lives. ✊✊🏻✊🏽✊🏿
I saw a guy who didn’t just lose his car keys. He shouldn’t be allowed to drive period. America is so fucked and thus so is the rest of the world.
You told on yourself here.
The first part of your response is illustrative of the bigger issue, Americans just can’t focus on substance over style. We’re solely fixated on tonality, body language and facial expressions… Like a still-developing toddler… Or a dog.
Gish Gallop, I don’t know why they even try against that crap
Biden used to be really good against that tactic, it’s why he won the debate in 2012 against Paul Ryan. Ryan gish galloped and Biden responded with a simple ‘POPPYCOCK!’. It worked.
I didn’t watch the debate, but this is exactly what I expected. There was never a reason to have this debate. The democrats are so fucking stupid.
Honestly I don’t know how much better I could do than biden in an argument with trump. His look of just complete confusion as trump just continued to say complete nonsense was pretty much the same look I had listening to it.
really fair, it’s certainly an uncommon skill but it’s definitely a skill we should be able to expect of our literal leaders
Imagine downvoting “I think the President should be good at public speaking”
Fine line. We want “enough” charisma, but we don’t want demogoguery.
I would have been fine with both of them having proxies for the debate and sitting in, with the proviso that they could chime in if their proxy said something they don’t approve.
we don’t want demogoguery.
You sure about that? Could have fooled the rest of the parts of the world where people are legally allowed to even acknowledge demagoguery…
Buddy, then it’s you and me against the world. I’ll be your campaign manager, you’re the charismatic one.
Nah, I’m way too ideologically consistent to be a politician lol. Plus my hypoactive ADHD and social anxiety combo doesn’t lend itself well to public office 😄
I really shouldn’t have dump statted CHA. Where’s Withers…
Obama spoiled us. Hell, even dubyuh was more articulate than either of the geriatrics we have now.
the ratio got better overnight while the DNC was asleep and eurobros had the floor but i expect it to get worse from here on out
Imagine if Trump had been debating John Stewart
That’s pretty much been the playbook since day one, just shotgun blasts complete bullshit left and right, it’s the equivalent of verbal chaff. Misdirect, confuse, and trip up the opponent so that they have to waste time refuting your BS than actually talking about the facts.
It’s really clear to me that that was trumps entire playbook. He more of his time attacking Biden and spouting lies and bullshit than answering the questions. It went exactly how I expected.
I had really hoped that Biden would find his public speaking voice. He’s competent but not a great speaker.
The man couldn’t even properly answer the abortion questions, I seriously hope you’d do better than that.
He did OKAY on the abortion question, but then incoherently rambled for a few seconds and somehow brought immigration up. Still better than Trump’s response.
But this was bog-standard Trump for his entire political career. Gish galloping is what he does. This shouldn’t have been a surprised Pikachu moment.
I think you can do a lot better than he did, any of us could. Just look at the transcript here. ctrl+f for “golf”. You’re gonna tell me you don’t have a better response than Biden here?
I’m just gonna come up with 5 things right now Biden could’ve said:
- “I don’t think the American people care how good my opponent’s golf game is. They care if he can run the country, and as you can tell from his answer he doesn’t even remember what that involves.”
- “Again with the cognitive tests. No one asked whether you took a cognitive test Donald. But if you wanna brag about it, at least release them to the public so we can see if you actually passed.”
- “I think everyone’s seen enough from both of our 4 years in the white house - they can see I’m focused on the economy and foreign policy, while he was focused on golf as he still is.”
- “I’ll fully concede that he’s a better golfer than me. After all, he spent so much of his last administration practicing.”
- “This guy claims he won two club championships at the age of 82? Does anyone seriously believe that? This guy is delusional folks.”
Instead Biden talked about his height (which he didn’t mention) and challenged him to a driving contest. WTF. I recognize how bad this would’ve sounded before yesterday, but literally any random person we pick from this thread has better odds than Biden at this point.
Trump did absolutely horribly. His answers can be fairly described as completely and transparently delusional. But Biden managed to make him look good.
Thank fuck I’m not American. Now, if you’d excuse me, I must get ready for the potential imminent arrival of fascism in about 2 days in my country (France). Can’t wait to see the US fall as well! Wow! What a wonderful fucking world awaits us, huh? 💀
Shall we both bring out the guillotines? Or should start at setting things on fire? As an American, I’m not sure how your French protesting works, but I’m willing to learn.
As someone living in the UK, I’d also like to learn from the French
First you wait for an event that pulls a lot of media to your country like the Olympics, then you start fucking shit up
omg twinningggggggg 👯♀️
We still kind of owe you for everything you guys did in the revolutionary war.
Tell you what: when the time comes to fight the fascists again we’ll send your resistance movement munitions if you send us dope “uniforms” for ours.
Spoken like a true Englishman.
Everybody said the same thing when the Swedish Democrats got into power in Sweden or when Meloni got into power in Italy or the Finns party in Finland… and every time nothing happened. In the Western world and it’s close allies, there have only been 3 examples of a right wing movement going rogue: Trump in the US, Orban in Hungary, and Netanyahu in Israel. If you consider Turkey a part of the West then Erdogan definitely fits into this category. Even then, it’s a stretch can any of these 4 fascist when considering the actual definition of the word. I highly doubt Le Pen is going to do anything. She’ll most likely be Meloni 2.0.
We are in the 4th turning. History repeats. The end of the 4th turning is a crisis. Call it mysticism but things are looking like a repeat of the 4 turnings in the past. Usually ends with war, disease, and famine before revolution.
cynically i feel the DNC might just dig in their heels and hope people memory hole this. because jesus fuck i sure want to, that was horrifying
At this point what I think is happening is Joe has one of those old age bugs except this one specifically makes the brain to mouth communication issues that come with a stutter a lot worse.
Because communication seems to always be this guy’s biggest stumbling block, if this were just a report card comparison there wouldn’t be a race, he’s obviously still a competent guy as old as he is, the problem is that something’s going on that makes it way harder for him to adequately communicate that whenever he needs to.
That’s really the only way I can self reason why he then proceeded to be completely fine in the much lower pressure environment of his after debate rally.
Edit: report card not credit card, although personally I’m willing to bet that Joe’s credit score is way better than Donny’s too
Yeah, good thing all that matters for a president is the ability to have good ideas, and there is no need to be able to convey these ideas to other humans.
Speaking is not the only means of communication, and I’d be surprised to find out that Biden doesn’t rely on email and memo communication behind closed doors to make his job easier.
Thinking about it more I’d have probably still have been surprised at most points in his career. Not slipping back into stutter is something that requires a lot more focus than a politician really gets to commit to it at all times. Could be that Joe became mr. compromise because helping people get along lowers the amount of times he has to leave a conversation to reset his voice and get his focus back.
Having recently been committed to bedrest I know what it’s like to get creative with your personal work environment in order to compensate for what you’re not able to do right now.
It’s embarrassing even when everyone around you is as supportive and non judgemental as they can be, for a president, I could see the history books recording this as an echo of Roosevelt’s efforts to hide just how far his polio had actually progressed from the press. Even if not for ableist questioning of his legitimacy and ability to do the job, there’s still the personal embarrassment of having everyone know your chronic medical struggles and even picturing what your worst days must be like.
I don’t even need Biden to be competent. Just surround himself with a competent cabinet. Which he has, and is why we’ve gotten so many wins and why Trump did so horribly in his first term.
They’ll tell us that Joe did great, and that anyone thinking otherwise is being subliminally influenced by Russian propaganda.
He had a decent performance. I understand more about his policies and called trump a felon and a fat loser. That’s what I wanted out of it. Trump literally could not answer half of the questions because he was still rambling about the previous question.
Biden had a hoarse throat from a cold and a bit of a stutter but he turned on a dime when he was asked different questions. Both dudes are old af. The choice is: do you want senile grandpa who can’t answer the question or the guy who has a soft voice?
Biden’s clearly still with it but slower, and trump is clearly still nuts, possibly moreso. I choose Biden because he’s the only one who occasionally says things that make sense.
could you reference one better understanding of a policy you got out of it? Looking at it from the lens of undecided/independent voters, I didn’t get any information out of it but an upcoming golf game.
I only got to see the closing statements. Biden looked worn down. Unconfident. Soft spoken. I could barely understand what he was saying and I had to turn on closed captioning.
Then Trump starts talking…and it’s all bullshit, but God if he doesn’t sound good spewing it.
America is fucked. The world is fucked. We’re all gonna die. Buckle in.
I listened to about half an hour, as long as I could bear in any case. Your description fits all of what I saw, and probably the whole thing.
People will memory hole it IF Biden does better in the future. The last thing that happened is always the only thing that matters in US elections.
To anyone thinking, “We surived one term of Trump. How bad can another one be?”
Very bad, as John Oliver points out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYwqpx6lp_s
He said he’d be a dictator in day 1. How many dictators ever gave up power voluntarily? He’s going full fascist jan 21 if he wins.
This could literally be the last real election the US ever has.
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please add /s
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Cincinnatus would.
Video not available outside the USA, and yes, the rest of the world is very worried about Trump getting back into power.
It’s available in my non-US country. Probably there’s some local deal wherever you are (edit: using a restrictions checker app, the link is only blocked in Canada, UK, Australia, NZ, and Iceland, and available everywhere else)
They also go out of their way to put up whole episodes for non-US viewers (these are not available in the US) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCRySbsLKiA
Thanks for checking. I’m in NZ, and the link you posted is also blocked here.
I guess it’s because Sky TV ( branded as ‘neon’) owns the rights to that show in NZ so if you want to watch it you have to pay them money
https://www.neontv.co.nz/series/last-week-tonight-with-john-oliver
Just… Why? Why make it avait everywhere EXCEPT Canada, UK, Australia, NZ… I hate regional blocking, fuck everything about it. Yeah, yeah, VPN might fix that, but why do I need to fuck arout to get the same as everyone else?
Usually it’s because they have a distribution deal with a local TV station in that country where the deal prohibits them from distributing it themselves. The local station wants you to watch it on their own streaming service. That would also explain why it’s mostly English-speaking countries since nowhere else would carry an English-centric news show like this.
His voice is too annoying for me to listen too, unfortunately.
That’s a shame cause he is by far the best legacy from Jon’s Daily Show and HBO money lets him do all kinds of wacky shit
Yeah I’m so glad HBO gives him so much room. He’s able to go after people who would otherwise keep him tied up in court. I always miss the Colbert Report but this guy, who is definitely Bill Maher, is my other favorite.
Who is pretty much the opposite of Bill Maher you mean?
The only Maher I like is Skid from Glass Cannon
It was a joke on the Indian Elections ep of Last Week Tonight about Modi/'s people going after anyone criticizing Modi.
It might be a smart people thing
To anyone thinking “we survived one term of Trump, how bad can another one be?”
Read this:https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias
And then read this:https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2022/dec/us-maternal-health-divide-limited-services-worse-outcomes
A lot of us straight up didn’t survive one term of Trump
To be fair Biden has had a stutter for all his life. How quiet he was and with everything going on it didn’t look good though. I wish we could have different candidates. I’m not sure if this will change anyone’s vote or not though.
It for sure will, republicans have been ripping critical thinking out from the educational system since Reagan. In fact, it looks like they got a hold of journalists first.
it looks like they got a hold of journalists
Republicans understood that that they must control the news in order to control the people. Problem is that they made the “news” into a dumpster of lies. They are now going after education. Idiocracy, here we come.
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To be fair Biden has had a stutter for all his life.
That gets repeated a lot, but I think the people who think that’s a good enough excuse have not actually seen middle aged Biden speak.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_v00iGJCLY
The Biden of that video has some incredible charisma, but he has nothing to do with the person today.
Can you imagine a president like that, even Obama wasn’t close to that level of eloquence and charisma. Every president in my lifetime has been a joke, to mirror the circus in every tent in DC.
It is obvious age has effected his ability to communicate. I suppose it’s just something to keep in mind, not an excuse. Like I said before, I wish we had younger candidates on both sides. I think most people didn’t want this rematch. The person in that video would have been great, but we only have what’s left of that now.
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I was considering voting for Biden. I’ve never voted before. I think after seeing all this though the only way I’ll vote for Biden is if my dad votes for Trump just so I can cancel his vote out lol
Voting for Biden is not voting for the man, it’s voting for an ideology, for hope, for a future less grim. Vote for Biden.
Those are the same reasons people use to vote for Trump. I’m around it all the time. People on both sides are voting out of fear of the other side. Reason and reality are no longer relevant in politics. Only fear.
“I wouldn’t be affected by project 2025 so there’s no reason for me to care”
Just be honest dude.
Again. That was my point! Fear is controlling us.
Buddy you can go read it yourself. You won’t, because you erroneously think it won’t affect you, but you can.
Okay, but one side uses fear to roll out voting rights while the other takes those same rights away. Fear isn’t controlling all of us because it is up to us in how we respond.
“roll out voting rights”, definitely agree with your other statement about the other party taking voting rights but I haven’t seen sources for “rolling out” voting rights from the Dems. They may fight gerrymandering which hurts their election chances but I don’t see actual democracy being expedited.
And the left uses fear to say the polls are too close for Biden to have such a miserable debate performance to risk democracy… and what do the Trump supporters do? They say… no Biden is your only option against Trump.
And are you not afraid? I fucking am
That was my point.
Because they have a very public plan to completely restructure the government to make Trump a dictator and the US a theocracy. This isn’t normal. They’re openly telling us they’re going to do that.
If you’re not afraid, you’re either trying really hard to not pay attention, or you just hate America and want it to fall.
Of course I’m afraid. Probably more realistically than everyone responding as if I wasn’t. I don’t see a way to stop America from sinking further into a dark age.
It blows my mind how anti-intellecualism is so strong when we have so much information at our finger tips. The greedy takeover of Reddit is painful. Like a lobotomy. Finding sources and more perspectives was never easier than what had been built on that site. This last year has made it indistinguishable from other forms of media.
We are perpetually getting dumber and more afraid. And before I am questioned again, “we” includes me.
Okay, what does that have to do with voting?
In current politics: Fears=Votes.
That is the American way. If that is not clear, I can elaborate. But I’m pretty sure you can see it in every comment telling you why to vote a certain way.
Honestly that’s overselling Biden and their own pitch is you are voting against ending democracy. Biden isn’t going to make the future less grim (unless we protest), but Trump would certainly make it worse.
He absolutely is making the future less grim. The industry news I read for my work in the energy industry is full of progress in environmental regulation. It’s a fight vs Republicans and Biden is really making progress.
What progress will you have to make if Biden who has been polling 40/40 or 39/41 loses to Trump? It may be less grim (if he can win) but it is much more likely to be grim if Democrats don’t take their heads out of the sand and consider nominating someone actually able to handle a debate against Trump.
If you like the ability to vote then there’s only one choice my man.
I’ve got more uncles than my siblings and I can cancel out - wanna help us? :P
Please consider just doing it either way.
You should vote regardless if your dad does or who your dad votes for.
I love the part where the democratic leadership made sure there were no viable alternatives during the primary.
How did they do that?
Biden is the incumbent so obviously the only one that can possibly win. Crush all other prospects and tell them to wait their turn
furthermore any challengers are just giViNg tHe eLeCtIoN to trump
Nobody stopped people from running, though. In fact people did run they just lost like primaries are supposed to work?
I get so tired of seeing people hand-wave away democracy like it’s some kind of amateur sport. This is not how fair and impartial primaries are ran. We can recognize the tech-monopolies and the unfair practices (and untold wealth) they use to squash competition but when it comes to elections? shrug
Even Bernie Sanders could’ve run again if he wanted to, but he chose not to. Nobody at the DNC “forced” him to not run as was suggested.
more hand-waving, “anyone can make a video platform”. No, you need infrastructure, SEO attention, Creators, etc etc. You don’t just “decide” to run in elections, the bar for entry is beyond anything a citizen or even most politicians can accrue. Bernie Sanders fell in line a long time ago with the same party he openly said was unfairly treating elections. Vote Biden if that’s your choice and I fully support that, but we need to stop sugar coating and pretending everything is A-ok in the DNC if we ever want an elected official who represents the average voter in the party.
More hand-waving, indeed.
Bernie Sanders whose convictions and experience are without question understands the game better than anyone here, I suspect.
I’m okay with saying the DNC has poor strategy. But that is independent from claiming they prevented anyone from running. So I say again, NOBODY FORCED anyone to NOT Run, and zero evidence to the contrary has been provided. This is an obvious wedge-driving issue that originates from right-wing and foreign operatives intending to wedge-drive the Democratic coalition. Please, don’t drink the kool-aid.
Aside from his age being an issue for him just as much as Biden, he knew that challenging the Democrat incumbent would just split the support he desperately needs further.
Pretty sure they dropped out one by one due to political pressure
Really? They didn’t drop out because of lackluster polling? Can you point to them rapidly rising in national approval ratings?
No candidate would ever win a primary against an incumbent president. Which is why the right decision would’ve been for Biden not to run.
Name one real option the democrats has promoted.
The fact is that the democratic Party went all in on Biden early one and has refused to promote anyone else
Yes there’s been a few candidates, but they are all largely unknown and no effort has been made to seriously bring them up.
It’s news to me that “democrats” (???) have to promote a candidate as opposed to a candidate running and captivating the primaries electorate… You know… As Barack Obama did in 2007.
Yes there’s been a few candidates, but they are all largely unknown and no effort has been made to seriously bring them up.
Well I’m sorry but beggars can’t be choosers.
You could’ve run; why didn’t you?
But this beside the point, considering the goalpost has moved a mile from “The DNC didn’t allow anyone else to run.” lol. People here need a lesson in basic civics, clearly.
Name one real option the democrats has promoted.
Monkey paw curls a finger
DNC: We’re please to announce Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic Presidential Nominee!
Didn’t have a primary in FL at all.
Okay, and? What is your point?
This is just a misunderstanding of how primaries work and basic civics. There are Democratic primaries in FL. For Senate seats, House seats, etc. Those primary dates differ state-to-state, and Florida’s just so happen to take place in August. Nobody met the requirements to be submitted on the Florida ballot in time, and second to that, it wouldn’t have made a difference ultimately as we would come to find out since nobody achieved any competitive results in earlier primaries or in national polling.
There wasn’t a Primary for President because those who voluntarily threw their hat in the ring either (a) dropped out, (b) did not meet the minimum ballot requirements, or © Biden already earned enough votes for it to be irrelevant. Florida was never make-or-break for anyone else who, again, voluntarily threw their hat in the ring.
I was referring to the presidential primary (as that is the topic of discussion in this thread). Florida did not have one.
As was I, which I explained why it did not happen. Please read more closely.
Basic civics.
The “explanation” doesn’t change that it did not happen. My previous comment did not require a qualifier.
Basic reading comprehension.
Ok, cool? I simply gave context showing your factoid contributes nothing meaningful to the conversation.
None of these kids ever seem to know what they’re talking about. And the moment you point it out with any proof- they disappear to go post their shit elsewhere having not learned a thing.
It’s why I don’t bother anymore trying to persuade them with facts. I just call them out and move on.
For one thing, they didn’t have a primary candidate debate, which would have helped the challengers get some exposure.
Its ok they’ll be back in a few decades having learnt nothing.
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To everyone who has downvoted me both here and on Reddit for saying “I think Biden is too old to run in 2024”, I have two things to say: the first of them is “I hope you take advantage of this opportunity to wake up to your own biases”, and the second one is “Fuck you”.
You have been eating up every single tought-terminating cliche put in circulation by the elites of your party and parroting it online not just when it did serve your ideology or your electoral success, but also when it was just a cover for incompetent fools looking over their own asses and the hierarchies they form a part of. Many tried to warn you that just because 90% of every Conservative talking point was cooked in a meth lab by a blind monkey doesn’t mean you should also close your ears when they said that the sky was blue or that Biden is old. Yes, Trump is old too, yes, THEY were arguing in bad faith, but you still were morons for refusing to even consider that it might have been a problem.
I don’t have the misfortune of living in the US, but even as someone who just cares for the general stability of the world, I hope you can get the fuck out of this mess, if nothing else because contemporary Democrats don’t collaborate with Latin American golpists noawadays, and because Republicans are a walking menace for green energy transition, but for the love of everything that is holy PLEASE LEARN SOMETHING from yesterday’s disaster.
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Biden went to the 2020 primaries under the premise that he would be a single-term president, specifically to kick Trump out, and it was immediately used as a hammer against internal critics. Once president, his policies couldn’t be criticized in any way (not even in a constructive one), because it was “ammo for the republicans”, or else “but he’s doing good things too!” (never mind that the positive Biden policies, positive as they were, were always patchworks, and never structural reforms); once the time for primaries was getting closer, the mantra became “saying that Biden is too old is a Republican talking point”, and “you can’t run primaries in a party with a sitting president”. And perhaps there was well intentioned people who took all of these ideas at face value and believed in them, but they always refused to see the subtext: “do not question the official Democrat party line”, regardless of its blind spots and conflicts of interest.
Well, what are you going to do now that the official party line has crushed all opposition year after year and the Democrats have suddenly discovered themselves in front of the abyss, sacrificing all possible alternatives for the sake of electoral success when even the people most ideologically aligned with the Old Guard are scared? Are you going to continue justify all the bad decisions that took you to this place, or are you going to analyze what the hell is wrong with the party to start reforming it immediately after the elections? I understand not wanting to have an open-air debate immediately before the presidential elections, but if you guys refuse to work it out right next, I’m just going to assume that the USA is just going to be a fascist country by 2033.
Also, when Marianne Williamson tried to challenge Biden for the Democrat nomination, the white house press secretary openly mocked her in a white house press conference.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Hm1-Ef8Lxns
(My favourite thing about this clip is that the press secretary has obviously been coached to mock Marianne Williamson for having a crystal ball, but she doesn’t know what a crystal ball is and confuses it with a magic 8-ball.)
My impression is that Biden said he would step aside in the hope that a viable alternative would present itself. It did not. It was also hoped that a Trump loss might push the GOP away from him and off the path of pure fascism. It did not. I think he ran more because he didn’t want fascists in power than because he wanted the power himself.
I was under the impression that he was supposed to be handing off the role to Kamala, which was meant to be a shift towards a young(er) leader, woman and person of color that they hoped would check enough boxes for younger voters to make them think she was an actual progressive. That plan seems to have been nixed once they realized she has so little appeal across the board, she could probably lose a popularity contest to any number of infectious diseases, and Kamala 2024 got scrubbed.
They potentially could have found other viable alternatives, but they would have represented an actual shift in party leadership rather than bowing down to the party orthodoxy, so the DNC would never actually support them.
What they really want is another candidate like Obama that is charismatic and can talk in a way that convinces voters who don’t feel represented by the current Democratic party to say, “This is the candidate who can deliver on reshaping the party in line with my views,” while having no intentions of meaningfully deviating from the party line. I think the experience with Obama is still fresh enough in the minds of these voters that they are on guard against the same sort of deception a second time.
Do you really think there is no alternative? Isn’t it more a matter of making place for an alternative, and then it will turn up?
My God man we still have at least 4 viable alternatives from the 2020 primaries. If we’d held real primaries we could have avoided this easily.
People need a reality check on Biden’s senility. Some of us saw it earlier than others who continued to live in a silo. I am willing to vote for Joe but I also knew he’s a liability with no strength versus Trump under these circumstances.
And we both had options and have options right now. Convention is 8 weeks away. Democrats can still jump ship and I can think of 6 alternative, younger, more charismatic candidates to win this stupid fucking popularity contest with ease.
People need a reality check on their reality checks. Biden has been living with a stutter since he was young - it has nothing to do with age or senility. Those high-pressure, fast-paced debates just aren’t a good platform to measure people up unless they’re a showman. I feel confident in my own opinions, but I still freeze up in fast-paced debates where I can’t look things up.
Haha this is some serious copium bullshit. Stutters don’t cause you to jump from abortion to immigration stories mid-sentence.
And if you want proof of that, go watch VP Biden debate Paul Ryan. After you do that, re-watch last night and tell me that’s his stutter.
Biden isn’t a new inexperienced politician. People like you have been telling me that Biden’s experience should prepare him to have debates like this, which should ve even easier when lacking an audience. Shit it wasn’t even as good as his 2020 debates.
Shit, the 2020 debate against Trump is available and it’s Day and Night.
We could have told him it was time to retire. Instead we gaslit an octogenarian into thinking he had to give up his retirement.
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It’s been a group project. You get the same grade as the rest of us.
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The voters could have made it clear in the primary.
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Statistically both these men should be dead. Biden beat Reagan as oldest president. Trump would be second oldest president behind Biden and beating Reagan if he won, with Trump already being older than Reagan when he left office.
This is ridiculous. They belong on an iceberg but there aren’t any left.
Stealing that last bit!
There’s nothing we can fucking do about it at that level of government. The party caucuses make it very difficult to decide who our presidential candidate should be. Remember how Bernie tried running back in 2016 and the entire DNC conspired against him in favor of their insider Hillary? Trump managed to win the nomination because he understands he can make the Republican base eat shit off his hand and have them demand more, even with the RNC doing everything they could to avoid him. Let’s face it, the average American is a confused, exploited, poorly educated bigot who would latch on to any hateful speech to blame harmless parts of the population for their problems. There are even highly educated people who believe in his nonsense because they want to pay fewer taxes.
Between regulatory and judicial capture by major corporations, our future isn’t gonna be a bright one any time soon. Project 2025 will also cause irreversible damage to all sectors of the government in which only Republican party loyalists can work. We’re getting really close to how Germany was in the mid 1930s.
We’re so fuckin cooked lmao
Trump is the perfect representative of the US tourists we see here in Europe.
Not all, of course, because you don’t notice the quiet / decent ones. (Hey, just like the election , huh)
The quiet/decent ones all claim to be Canadian
I’m currently visiting Greece, the Americans don’t seem to be any more clueless than the rest of us. The only difference is that they use taxis instead of public transport.
I wouldn’t call them clueless. Just obnoxious.
No, we’re clueless lol our media makes it so.
Democrats are handing Trump another term on a silver platter. But I don’t expect them to do much soul searching if it happens. I expect them to just shift the blame onto everything else.
Swing voters and those who haven’t decided yet often make the difference. I don’t believe for a second they will turn out in droves for Biden. He is not the guy. If he’s like this now, what’s he going to be like in 4 years time?
If the Dems had a young firebrand type as a presidential candidate who could really take Trump to task, I think they’d walk the election.
2016 part two
I’m confused why people don’t consider the idea of Kamala taking over if Biden does win and steps down. I know she’s not popular, but it’s like everyone forgets our system can handle the president being incapacitated.
She also does not excite voters tho. Don’t get me wrong, better than trump sure, but no one wants a cop in the white house.
The president is like one of the highest ranking cops in government.
Probably doesn’t help that the administration has used Kamala as the bearer of bad news. Any time bad news gets released, it’s coming from Kamala instead of Biden. Because the administration wants to keep Biden’s nose clean, but that comes at the expense of Kamala.
Would Kamala beat Trump in the election?
I don’t think she has polled well, but who knows. Drives me fucking insane that a convicted felon that staged an attempted coup is polling better than anyone to begin with
She self-imploded her own primary campaign, so no.
If Trump wins there could be a major realignment of parties in the near future.
Yo, what kind of sick joke are y’all forcing your elderly from the closed ward to participate in?
Just ease their life for as long as viable and take care of them.
It’s starting to feel like elder abuse.
Elders are supposed to scroll, not make policies for next generations when their cause of death could legitimately be listed as ‘old age’.
Bidens so old any disease he gets would still be listed as natural causes. For Trump hes so unhealthy the same applies in addition to the fact that hes a fascist so even bullets would be considered natural causes for him.
[in yo mamma so fat style]:
Your politita so old, he remembers paying 94% income tax!!
Lol yeah pretty much. Just got round to watching the highlights today and what a joke. Nobody even bothers to mention democracy or freedom any more because now its pure politics. It’s been perfected to the point that it finally bears no resemblance to human nature whatsoever.
Well, to be fair, you said you only watched the highlights.
I guarantee you that none of the normal question and answer sections made it into the highlights reel.
Both candidates said plenty of substance through the night.
Trump’s words were definitely a substance. A smelly, viscous, substance usually used for fertilizer.
Poor plants.
“Both”, “plenty”, “guarantee”, etc.
I’m getting the impression you have barely a passing understanding of what these words actually mean.
Plenty here means that most of the time was spent saying stuff, and the rest was the highlights everyone is passing around.
The whole debate was designed to generate clips. One minute responses is a terrible format. All the responses were just high energy rapid fire buzzwords with no real substance.
Should we have them just explain their platforms for an hour each uninterrupted? Kinda like campaigning?
This whole night was so many layers of exhausting, but probably not for the reasons you think… No rational, serious person was expecting Biden to Willy Wonka front somersault into this debate? it was going to be what this was, the only true surprise was probably the volume of his voice (which they chalk up to a cold, okay fine, I guess) and actually how well he did quickly processing and responding to trump’s gish gallop and unchecked stream of consciousness mistruth firehose with little help from the impotent moderators for the majority of the night.
The people in this country, in their immediate reaction to this debate, demonstrate that they just fundamentally lack the focus, empathv and frankly basic intelligence to process the substance of this or any debate. On average, we respond solely to voice pitch, tonality, body language and facial expressions, like a still developing toddler… Or a dog.
I don’t know if you missed the part where he brought up “rapist immigrants” when trying to answer a question about abortion that should have been a layup and was absolutely key to this debate being meaningful to voters who are confused, apathetic, or considering voting 3rd party, especially those in swing states.
That was also very unexpected, highly disappointing, and totally unrelated to his tone or volume. No amount of moderation could have helped that.
That’s part of the point, the gettable “swing voter”, who was hanging on this debate and nothing else to get their confidence just isn’t real… If that was the case, why didn’t the fucking SOTU seal it for them (again that’s if they even exist, as I challenge your basic premise).
People generally know where they stand, with these two especially. And if they do exist and they are truly that “confused”… They are actually just ashamed to be 98% trump leaning and just waiting for any strong fart to push them towards him with " justification’ ( if it wasn’t this, they would have sought something to fill that need between now and election).
I don’t think any swing voter is “gettable” or “hanging on this debate” though. Pretty significant misrepresentation of my position there so hope this helps. Lot of time till November.
I do, however, believe there are a) left leaning voters in swing states who are turned off from voting blue by the Democrat defense of Israel and capitulation to the conservative framing of the border, and b) right leaning voters in swing states who see that Biden brings up immigration in order to support his abortion position and feel hugely vindicated and double down on their intent to vote MAGA.
Maybe I shouldn’t have used the term “swing voter,” I’ll to back and edit that.
IMO there’s also a contingent of people who are demotivated to participate. Lack of participation hurts Biden more than trump.
Despite the danger, Trump doesn’t feel like an imminent threat to most people. He’s not motivating enough alone to bring out Democratic voters. However you do have a bunch of shit demotivating those voters. Gaza, money, immigration. The only big motivator is abortion, and Biden kinda flubbed that.
A Dem win will be on abortion alone at this point, unless something huge changes.
On average, we respond solely to voice pitch, tonality, body language and facial expressions, like a still developing toddler…
You wouldn’t believe how close you are.
[…Researches] recruited 684 Swiss students and asked them to rate pairs of politicians who had run against each other in the 2002 French parliamentary elections. Based solely on black-and-white photos of the candidates, they had to say who was more competent and by what degree. There were 57 pairs in all, and each volunteer rated just one.
They found that the students’ competence judgments predicted the actual winners of the run-offs with a 72% accuracy.
[A] group of children would be able to predict the outcome of elections in another country, based only on photos of the candidates […] is exactly what a recent study in the journal Science has found.
Swiss children as young as five years can predict which candidates are more likely to win French parliamentary elections.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-look-of-a-winner/
The children were just as good at predicting election results as the grown-ups were;
(first article again)
People were expecting state of the union Biden. Instead we got Magoo. We don’t need a strong man to lead, we just need more than what Biden currently is. The DNC is out to fucking lunch and probably handed Trump an easy win. Does this stop me from eating a shit sandwich to help protect our democracy? No, will angrily eat that shit sandwich for a few more good years.
The presidency is not one person, it’s an entire administration and general philosophy. We’re fed a lie that these debates always matter, they matter when candidates are unknown and then have a forum to stand out as leaders and educate voters about a vision for the country. That’s NOT the case here, the candidates are wholly known entities and these fucking debates absolutely do not matter.
The president is the leader of their presidency not the other way round. This debate has been very important to showcase that Biden is not capable of leading an argument let alone his staff. It’s not too late for him to bow out with dignity and get someone who has wit to lead.
Genuinely curious, what do you think the Biden admin has accomplished in the last 4 years?
You having to ask that is telling, isn’t it?
Ha… Yes it’s very telling, but [Whoooossshh] it’s actually telling about how tuned in you are beyond the basic surface talking points you absorb through social media - the Biden admin needs to do A LOT more and Gaza response is indefensible, while at the very same time, they are technically on paper the SINGLE most progressive administration of my lifetime.
I’m not going to lie, your reply there was priceless. It was the equivalent of the arrogant, condescending, puffed up tone saying, “psssh, I already told you idiots… I don’t know how to read?” it’s like, you really think you’re looking down on people, while looking up at them from the ground. Golly.
I think you’re mistaking that this election is determined by facts. It’s not. It’s a populist election driven on how people feel. I get your determination and frustration but you I think you need to reevaluate your strategy here.
they just fundamentally lack the focus, empathv and frankly basic intelligence to process the substance of this or any debate.
The good side, if you can call it that, is that because they lack the focus they also don’t remember shit. If Biden has a good performance in the future this will be forgotten about.
Hopefully, but the focus on “performance” in a stage moment, versus performance in the job done (collective accomplishment of the administration over the last 4 years) is core to the problem here. Oh well.
His record is pretty good. The problem is he’s terrible at communicating that.
On average, we respond solely to voice pitch, tonality, body language and facial expressions, like a still developing toddler… Or a dog.
Welcome to leadership 101. Projecting confidence is 90 percent of getting people to listen to you. This is why Con Artists are effective and Military Leaders cultivate an air of Stoicism. If you’re lucky you find a confident person who informs their decisions with science.
I agree with everything but the comment on the moderators. It’s not their job to hold the candidates to account, that’s the job of the dude standing right next to the speaker. If a presidential candidate needs to rely upon a journalist to correct disinformation in a debate that he himself is participating in, they shouldn’t be the candidate.
I’m a smooth-brained imbecile, but everytime that Trump opened his mouth I had 14 better responses than Biden had. He permitted the most outlandish untruths to go on the record unchecked. Biden would have done a better job by just replying “bulls*hit” in answer to Trump’s ramblings. The moderators just ask questions. They are not supposed to prop either side up.
I think we all labour under the misapprehension that the person delivering the performance has correctly read the room.
You forgot the golf argument they had towards the end
Trump is the only guy who would bury his ex-wife on his own golf course just so that he could continue to cheat on her.
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trust me i wish i could forget
What’s weird is part of me just wishes they’d just settle it in a golf match. 1 month practice, PGA rules. I don’t even like golf.
Biden challenged trump to a game, but only if trump carries his own clubs.
🤣🤣🤣
We all know that will never happen.
“You can’t even Carey your own Golf bag” is also is also such a rich guy insult. Imagine someoene in the street throwing that insult at your head.
I literally had to turn it off. What was this golf argument?
Trump just said Biden sucks at golf, then Biden gave an incoherent response.
Oh man, I wish his response was “Of course I’m bad at golf. I’ve been too busy leading a country to have time practicing my hand at golfing.”
I’m not really a golf person, but from passing knowledge, he said his handicap was +8 IIRC. I think that means that on an average course, he’d typically hit 8 strokes above par.
Trump seemed incredulous of his claim, so I’m guessing that means Trump has a higher handicap?
Here’s a transcript:
[While talking about the Intelligence Tests he did]
TRUMP: […] He can’t hit a ball 50 yards. He challenged me to a golf match. He can’t hit a ball 50 yards. […]
BASH(Moderator): Thank you.
President Biden?
BIDEN: You’re going to see he’s six-foot-five and only 225 pounds – or 235 pounds.
TRUMP: (inaudible).
BIDEN: Well, you said six-four, 200.
TRUMP: (inaudible).
BIDEN: Well, anyway, that’s – anyway, just take a look at what he says he is and take a look at what he is.
Look, I’d be happy to have a driving contest with him. I got my handicap, which, when I was vice president, down to a 6.
And by the way, I told you before I’m happy to play golf if you carry your own bag. Think you can do it?
TRUMP: That’s the biggest lie that he’s a 6 handicap, of all.
BIDEN: I was 8 handicap.
TRUMP: Yeah.
BIDEN: Eight, but I have – you know how many…
TRUMP: I’ve seen your swing, I know your swing.
(CROSSTALK)
BASH: President Trump, we’re going to…
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: Let’s not act like children.
BIDEN: You are a child.
I thought that was very funny. This and all the other Senates arent about facts or informing the viewer. It’s just two people bragging and insulting each other. Like a rap battle
Trump: want to play golf?
Biden: fuck you you short mother fucker. Do you even lift? Child.
