If you haven’t been watching the Univision FG of undecided Latino voters, nearly every single undecided voter said they now support Biden, not Trump! Latinos were watching and listening and Trump sounded like a crazy liar. Watch this video clip from @uninot
h/t Matt A Barreto
Not going to sugarcoat the performance, not going to panic either. Going to remember the Access Hollywood Tape, everyone thought trump was done when it came out. Everyone. There is a lot of work to do; we can either find a way to win or give up.
Yes Trump is a liar and a criminal, but Americans (and the Media) kind of accept that as something built in Trump, they won’t accept it from others but they do for Trump.
Two things I posted on the debate thread before I realized MM was up and running:
If there is any ‘replacing’ of Biden, the only Dem who I think has the charisma and gravitas would be Newsom. Not that I don’t think other folks have a sliver of the ‘It’ factor…some do. But they come with enough negatives that it drops the odds too far.
And I am not saying Biden should be replaced. Just saying IF. We face another election against a crazy party that will end our Democracy and, somehow, razor-thin margins. We can’t replace Biden with a candidate that has a built-in 5-10% handicap coming out of the gate.
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I have been saying since before the 2020 election that Chump is impervious to the normal slings and arrows anyways…he has been constantly hammered since 2016 and it never moved the needle one bit. So we might as well use him as a proxy to hammer the Rs. YOU cowards caved to him. YOU cowards let him break all the laws. YOU cowards wouldn’t impeach him even after he attempted a coup, and YOU cowards even helped him on J6 and have covered for him since like scared pantswetters. You cowards have covered for him and kow-towed to him for 4 years, even when he was a disgraced, out of office traitor.
At least you will get the benefit of dirtying-up the entire R field and affecting many races instead of trying, again, to make Chump look worse. He looks bad enough on his own, go after the rest of them and make this about Ds vs Rs.
Miss Kitty and I tuned in. Biden’s very first answer had us looking at each other and saying “WTF?”. My God man, slow up, speak up, enunciate. Honestly, would anyone here leave their pets and kids with this man, solo, so they could go on a weekend trip away from home? If Lil’ Timmy was playing with matches the house would be afire before Biden let loose with a “Put those down, now!”
Too funny!
(Needed that laugh!)
I had the moral courage not to watch (after my bedtime, anyway) but I barely had my eyes open when I checked the BBC at 530a.
I really wanted to close them again.
Damn, damn, damn.
I turned it off after 20 minutes. “Having his back” reminds me of the end of Dianne Feinstein’s time as a Senator. Seriously!!!
I will say, in retrospect, that Pres Biden should not have agreed to debate trump. It is never a good idea to wrestle in the mud with a pig. The pig actually enjoys it, and you just get dirty. There was never a good possible outcome. trump is a liar and a con man (he lied his ass off last night and CNN did NOTHING to stop him or fact check him) and he is not a serious candidate. On the one hand, you have Pres Biden trying to talk about issues and policy, meanwhile trump is rattling on about old grievances, lying about having sex with Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, etc. Biden agreeing to take the stage with trump gives trump an illusion of legitimacy that he lacks.
That said, I don’t think the debate helped trump. Neither trump nor Biden needed to convince partisans, they need that elusive middle. trump’s antics likely won’t play well with undecideds. Biden can recover from a shaky performance, but trump can’t unring the bell. His quotes will live forever and they will be made into ads for the Democrats.
I saw at least one quote about last night’s debate that gives me some hope.
Former Republican operative Stuart Stevens warned: “Don’t day trade politics. It’s a sucker’s game. A guy from Queens out on bail bragged about overturning Roe v. Wade, said in public he didn’t have sex with a porn star, defended tax cuts for billionaires, defended Jan. 6th. and called America the worst country in the world. That guy isn’t going to win this race.”
ETA: Biden can recover from a shaky debate performance, but America cannot recover from trump 2.0. Let’s not forget that.
Prediction for first Presidential preference poll, post-debate:
Trump 56%
Biden 44%
Eff the sky is falling types. This comment thread will be a shitshow. See you in a few days when you’ve all had a chance to calmthefuckdown.
Like I said on another thread, John Kerry had a great first debate against George W Bush.
People forget quickly. Let that sink in.
Here’s how I’m processing it. Joe Biden had a cold and had an off night. The shartstain who shall not be named has off MONTHS. Joe is articulate and knows his subjects well. Shartstain lies like most breathe and plays his subjects well. Shartstain didn’t gain any support and Joe apparently is losing those few who were just waiting for the opportunity to once again yell “it’s over!” What are we, 12? Is it really just a goddamned popularity contest? (don’t answer that, this is rhetorical). If it is, and we’re turning into a full-on Idiocracy, I will STILL vote for the better candidate. Fuck your Brondo! Go Joe!!!
“And unlike you, Donald, I tested negative for covid today. Remember that? When you knew you had covid and got up here with me on the debate stage anyway? You sick fuck. But I digress.”
This siren Despair’s song is singing.
To the rugged rock of endurance I’m clinging.
But entre nous girls,
I’m on my 5th string of pearls
And I’ve injured myself with hand wringing.
Remember what happened after LBJ quit? Humphrey lost and Nixon sabotaged negotiations before the inauguration.
I confess I did not watch it because I don’t want to give Trump space and I have faith in Biden’s competence to govern. All I can see in the press is that it was all about optics. An 81 year old had a cold, was still long on substance and short on his entertainment value. Meanwhile a fascist who is clearly a deranged racist who wants to destroy the US gets a free pass on lies. But he won? How? On what planet?
People need to steel their nerves and remain steady. The only thing worse than the visuals of Biden’s cold is Democrats’ panic. Why not just hand the GOP a stick and ask them to shove it up your ass? Stop talking about replacing Biden. Start talking about how Trump lied and lied and lied and lied. Dismiss Biden’s poor performance and stick it to the GOP for staying by a felon, a serial rapist, an ignoramus, a racist, a liar, a cretin who is for all intents and purposes a diabolical monster.
The stakes are too high. Remember this is a man who wants 10 million deported, to set up concentration camps - and as a historian I can tell you when the humanitarian disaster that will inevitably follow and the high costs of deportation starts to cost the country tens if not hundreds of billions of dollars, that things will get even worse than anyone supposes.
Stop panicking, throw Trump’s lies back at him, grow some, and start to use his gaslighting against him. Panicking about Biden is the worst possible reaction. So he got punched last night. Stop curling into a ball and covering your head while he kicks, get the hell up, and knock the crap out of him, to borrow his own words.
This won’t help Joe in this forum.
Biden gave the “Do Something!” caucus a lot to work with last night.
The “do something” caucus don’t have a candidate and 10/7 blew up their plans.
Honestly how do these campaign managers get these jobs? Hilary’s campaign was a dumpster fire, and then this? How do you agree to a fact-check free “debate” with this guy and then prep your 80 year old candidate for a granular policy discussion and not a performative fist fight? This is a dumbed down audience that will have any substance boiled down by tik tok/modern media into 15 second sound bites?
It is what it is, I’m a Bills fan so I’m all too familiar with this feeling. You give everything you got, they fall on their face, you pick yourself up and do it all over again.