Yeah, it doesn’t matter, at least for me. One candidate is old while the other is a 34 times convicted felon. The latter has made it clear he intends to dismantle the democratic institutions of our country and turn it into another fascist regime. At this point the DNC could platform a watermelon in a wig and I’d still vote for them over the convicted felon.
I’m upvoting (especially) because you included a bit of the article instead of just a link.
It upsetting though because only an Al would be a good replacement: Al Franken or “Weird Al” Yankovic. And that’s unlikely to happen.
Otherwise don’t bother. We’ve already got a “not Trump” candidate who is good enough for now. Get Biden elected, and continue putting pressure on the administration. We’re going to need something like a general strike to make any big changes anyway. We cannot rely on those currently governing to do it for us. Let’s at least prevent a christofascist dictatorship this election.
We’ve already got a “not Trump” candidate who is good enough for now.
That’s the issue. Is that really good enough to defeat Trump? For democracy being on the line, I think they really need to replace Biden. I think only Obama could convince Joe to step down. He would look Presidential and his legacy would be “fine”. If Biden stays in the race and loses to Trump, Biden’s legacy will be “his ego ended democracy”. The empire is collapsing.
The point is that Biden is no worse off than he was before the debate. Few people wanted him to drop out last week. So I don’t see any reason to change course now.
Democrats need to chill. You didn’t see MAGA idiots calling for Trump to drop out after his felony conviction, and you won’t see that after his sentencing. They know those things don’t matter. The debates matter even less.
The plan is to remind voters that this will be a close election and every vote matters.
However, the debate is irrelevant. On the one hand, you have a liar who hates immigrants and wants to benefit wealthy Christians. On the other hand, you have a lousy debater who respects the rule of law and protects women’s rights.
Nobody faced with this choice is going to ask, “Hmm, just how lousy at debating are we talking?”
We’ve already got a “not Trump” candidate who is good enough for now.
False. We have a good enough president. Who’s behind in the polls and was already making people think he was too old, and that was before the debate. Then, he was freezing, saying the wrong thing, forgetting things, and appearing confused, while replying with an unconfident, raspy voice. Worst of all Trump offered him up softballs in the form of easily shut down lies and opportunities. Speaking of opportunities, this was the one as many eyes would be on him to see the difference between him and Trump. Any other competent candidate and debater would have eviscerated Trump.
I truly believe Joe is good for the country, but that won’t matter if he can’t win…
I know both candidates and their positions. Don’t particularly like either candidate. Really dislike one of them. And I haven’t seen anyone host an actual, honest to god political debate in my life, and no, the final season of West Wing doesn’t count.
All that being true, why the blazes would I have watched this one? My entire life, debates have only ever been excuses to put the candidates up on a stage see which one looks prettier, and shout sound bites into a microphone. That’s not a debate, that’s a campaign ad. And I’m tired of them.
I would really like our nation to get back to a point where I can feel comfortable voting for the candidate whose policies I actually think are the best instead of having to vote against the candidate that I think will actually destroy the country.
Obviously both candidates suck, but The questions the moderators ask, can just be ignored by the candidates. There hasn’t been a good moderator in years, if ever. No one insists that the questions be answered and they continually ignore them.
Hold the candidates’ feet to the fire. Don’t let them go off tangent. Slap them down and insist on an answer to the question. They don’t want to answer? Cut their mic and move to the other candidate who might actually answer it.
Too many times during the debate were questions like abortion and climate asked, they were just ignored.
One of Trump’s debates, Anderson Cooper kept grilling him on something he refused to answer about. At one point he declared that Trump is refusing to answer that question, explicitly. It was probably the best moderation I’ve ever seen.
Then in one of the primaries, one of the moderators called Pete Buttigieg a liar after he said their information was false and corrected them (he in fact was not lying). That was possibly the worst moderation I’ve ever seen.
At least in this one they would say “the question was…” when they didn’t actually answer.
The problem is that the Trump and Biden camps set the rules at this debate.
The moderators were not allowed to live fact check, nor could they cut the candidate’s mic during their allotted time.
This means that the responsibility of countering Trump’s lies fell completely on Biden. There are so many lies, it would be a difficult task for any person.
But Biden signed up for this, and he failed spectacularly. None of Trump’s bullshit was effectively countered.
the responsibility of countering Trump’s lies fell completely on Biden.
Hitchen’s razor should apply, but this wasn’t really a debate in the first place. Hell, neither of these geezers is prepared to properly debate and their prep teams are just tic tacs and ice cream.
A proper debate for Trump and Biden is like setting up a mixer for you and two exes that you despise. What are you going to learn that you don’t already know?
Apparently the only way the candidates will agree to do it is if the format is so stilted that there's no chance of anyone learning anything or seeing the candidates get challenged on anything. It's basically just a taking-in-turns version of a campaign commercial.
What, indeed, is the point. Like a lot of American politics, the whole "debate" survives as a pointless vestige of a thing (now long forgotten) that was useful and productive in its original form, but now is mutated to a useless and unrecognizable monstrosity, which you have to pretend is super serious and important if you want to be able to be on TV.
(But seriously, what a terrible television program, one old man spouting nonsense and the other looking confused and lost. There was absolutely zero reason for anyone to watch it.)
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