This was . . .
Oh Christ. What a dog's breakfast of a debate. Donald Trump spent the whole time just saying anything he wanted. Immigrants are killing hundreds of thousands. Joe Biden is single-handedly destroying Social Security. Putin never would have invaded Ukraine and Hamas never would have attacked Israel if he had been president. I offered 10,000 troops to Nancy Pelosi on January 6. Blah blah blah. It was just endless.
Joe Biden occasionally woke up to respond. But most of the time he just sounded confused. He was hard to understand—did he have a cold or something?—he jumped almost randomly between subjects, and he was often incoherent. He frequently stated outright that Trump was lying—which he was—but mostly left it at that instead of explaining further. And we had conversations like this:
Trump: I had the best environmental record ever.
Biden: Trump is nuts. But let me tell you about $35 insulin.
Trump: I just won two club championships.
Biden: I had a 6 handicap. An 8 handicap....
Trump: Let's not act like children.
Somehow Biden got himself maneuvered into a position where Donald Trump could pretend to be the adult in the room!
In addition to general incoherence, Biden continually got deep in the weeds about policy but only in passing. There's not a person in a hundred who could have understood most of his references unless they were explained, but Biden just blew through them as if everyone in the audience had inhaled a copy of the Congressional Record. If you were paying very close attention, this demonstrated a surprisingly deep understanding of policy on Biden's part, but the way he delivered it made it seem anything but.
Even in his (presumably rehearsed) final statement Biden was halting, hard to follow, and jumped from subject to subject so quickly there was no way of pulling any theme out of it. Trump blathered, but he spoke plainly about how terrible Biden was.
This was not a good night for Joe Biden.
POSTSCRIPT: As usual, I wrote this before reading or listening to any other reaction. But I now note that CNN is going strong on the fact that Trump lied a lot. Really a lot. And that's absolutely correct. Trump long ago learned the lesson that you can literally say anything you want, and all that happens is you get your wrist slapped by some fact checkers the next day. And nobody reads fact checkers.
To his credit, Trump showed unusual restraint and discipline during the debate. He didn't interrupt or explode or anything like that. He lied and evaded questions, but that's entirely normal for him.
As a liberal, i really want to abort some babies post birth. Can anyone tell me where I can do this cheaply and easily?
“…. abort some babies post birth.”????? That’s easy. Become a Republican. Once a child is born, republicans won’t lift a finger to help them or their families.
Join the IDF.
Is this why they agreed to an early debate? To demonstrate to Biden himself that he was going to lose and leave time to replace him? It doesn’t seem likely.
As a cynical SOB who believes democracy is already dead and the evil republicans / religious fanatics are going to ruin us, I’m not particularly bothered by this performance. Regardless of the outcome of the election, the USA, as we liberals know it, is already gone. One way or another, the republican attack was, in my opinion, bound to succeed eventually in taking over the government and turning it into a tool of oppression and violence against you.
Take some time to let this prospect sink in (if you haven’t already) and begin thinking about how to protect yourself. Business as usual is not going to cut it. Hope for the best, plan for the worst.
This US government is now your enemy. It’s not just paranoia, it’s a real threat…. Probably.
I'm kind of with you there. We've been discussing what might happen should Trump win and laying out options -- and we're not hysterical people, we just see the trendline and figure that the first 24 months tells the real story behind the bravado and we'll make some decisions then.
Here was Kevin's prediction four days ago: "I predict that it will go normally. Trump will blather and lie while Biden will answer questions coherently with occasional enunciation problems."
And here was my comment: "I expect Trump to be fast and Biden to be slow. I also expect pundits to not see the importance thereof and to talk only about content and coherency and such." I was right on the first part and wrong on the second: Biden was so bad, even the circling wagons are running for the hills now.
I added: "To put it cruelly, Biden... will... um... hit... the ball... um... out... of... the... um... park. While Trump-will-try-to-cheat-by-going-straight-from-first-base-to-third." It was even worse. It's over. There's no coming back from proof that you're too old.
To those who want to prop up Biden yet again, I say: stop it. Your denial of easily observable reality has done enough damage. To the Dem heavyweights who didn't run in the primaries out of loyalty I ask: loyalty to what? You knew the danger. Klobuchar, Whitmer, Booker, you'd have won the primaries and the presidency, you'd have saved democracy, why didn't you? Why would it have been disloyal to give primary voters a choice? Why did it have to be rigged? Because when there's only one true candidate, that's rigging. Now that it failed, do something dammit.
There is literally no reason to believe these people and their imaginary candidacy would have won the primary or be ahead of Trump in polling.
But I realize it's fun to make up easy solutions. Imaginary, easy solutions always work out well hypothetically.
when you're barreling toward a brick wall at 70 mph and your brakes fail you don't say 'well, nothing to be done since the handbrake might not work either'
+10
"There is literally no reason to believe these people and their imaginary candidacy would have won the primary or be ahead of Trump in polling."
There are three, namely that 86% of the country - 86%! - believes Biden is too old, that in polls the generic Dem handily beats Trump and Biden doesn't, and that "these people" have proved they can hold up under fire.
When Generic Democrat becomes "Kamala Harris", "Corey Booker", or "Charles Schumer" that poll will look irrelevant. The beauty of the generic candidate is that they are never generic - they carry all the hopes and dreams that we map onto them.
Should we ditch Biden? Maybe. Especially if future performances look as bad or worse. Will it be magical and easy? Hell, no. Entire networks and campaigns will have be rebuilt.
You still have zero.
1) This has zero bearing on whether Joe or Jane America will vote for (insert random Democrat), but the fact that the other candidate is just as old and struggles to speak coherently and nobody cares is a strong indicator that this isnt actually a problem for voters.
2) This doesnt matter because you cant run 'generic, imaginary Democrat that has no faults'. This is literally meaningless.
3) So has Biden. In fact, Biden has done this to a much greater degree.
So, umm, yeah, 0 for 3. Literally nothing, but it is easy to solve problems in imaginationland.
Your comments are right on target, Ruralhobo. Thank you. But there is ample evidence on this thread and elsewhere that many will double down on Biden. Heavens, we can't admit that we were wrong, can we?
Damn, I wish our side had political skills. Instead, we stick with a Ruth Bader Ginsburg and lose the Supreme Court. Now, there are those that will stick with Biden after proof that he is well past his sell-by date and has 0 percent chance of winning against Trump.
It was her decision to stay on the court. There was nothing anyone can do, outside of impeachment, to remove her.
People, especially politicians, will abandon everything else but not power. So we are stuck with Biden unless he drops dead.
the most optimistic thought i have is that biden may drop out when the donor spigot shuts off
a more immediate problem: if biden doesn't withdraw quickly a giant wave of cash is gonna start flowing to trump
he will be dropping out soon but they should announce just before the GOP convention and steal all the media coverage.
Yes, I found this on The Guardian.
"An unnamed “top” Biden donor has told Reuters that the president’s performance was “disqualifying” and that he believes fundraising is going to “dry up” as a result of that performance:
“There is no way to spin this. His performance was disqualifying. There is going to be a call for a brokered convention. Whitmer, Pritzker, Newsom, Beshear. Those could all be the options. It’s inevitable.”
The donor added that it would likely come down to Jill Biden to convince him. “He is a stubborn guy ... It cannot be described how bad this performance was.”
The donor said they thought Andy Beshear, the popular Democratic governor of Kentucky, a deeply Republican state at the federal level, would be the likely winner."
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2024/jun/27/presidential-debate-trump-biden-updates?page=with:block-667e35488f081787dccaa193
Ah well, if an unnamed donor said it, that's the end of the discussion.
as long as fantasies are on the table...
bring in obama as a senior adviser to the president and make clear he's running things
Implementing the conservative answer to every problem,
https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Foylz6qasca9d1.jpeg
(every problem that doesn't involve mass arrest, eliminating all education except math and religion, female slavery and shooting your neighbors)
Well, Joe Biden outsmarted Trump again!!
Consider: It was Biden who proposed this debate. And proposed it to take place well before either convention. Further he played it like he was approaching senility, knowing that this would result in calls for him to step down from his candidacy. When he does, then that will clear the way for a much stronger candidate to demolish Trump.
You just can't pull the wool over Joe Biden's eyes, can you?
/// if only
One thing that highlights the difference between parties.
The Dem candidate has a weak showing and everyone on his side calls for him to step down.
The Rep candidate is convicted of a felony and everyone on his side doesn't blink.
… the difference between
partiesa party and a cult.Trump got better drugs than Biden did.
Pingback: Debating the Debate, Tariffs, Trump’s Holocaust Hilarity, SCOTUS Grab – FairAndUNbalanced.com