EPTEdit: but at least we can put to bed the false equivalence pushed by some in this thread that both candidates are about equally cognitively declined.
US Politics Mega-thread - Page 4229
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BlackJack
United States10180 Posts
Edit: but at least we can put to bed the false equivalence pushed by some in this thread that both candidates are about equally cognitively declined. | ||
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DarkPlasmaBall
United States43792 Posts
On June 28 2024 13:09 BlackJack wrote: Maybe I’m just a contrarian but I’ll be the lone voice saying Biden performed better than par. Sure he lost his train of thought and mumbled off a couple times. So? This is someone that mumbles off a couple times when all he has to do is read a teleprompter. Now he doesn’t have any notes and he has to answer real questions and he has to deal with Trump’s antagonizing. I don’t know why people were expecting more than what we got. I think some people were hoping that Biden would do as well as he did during his SotU speech. While Trump did antagonize a few times, he wasn't nearly as bad as he was in 2020. I think Trump did a good job of not interrupting Biden's own mistakes. | ||
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BlackJack
United States10180 Posts
On June 28 2024 13:13 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: I think some people were hoping that Biden would do as well as he did during his SotU speech. While Trump did antagonize a few times, he wasn't nearly as bad as he was in 2020. I think Trump did a good job of not interrupting Biden's own mistakes. They can hope it but there’s no reason to expect it. SotU is just reading from a teleprompter and he has plenty of time to rehearse and practice to sharpen it because it’s a pretty big speech. Smaller stump speeches he gives he doesn’t do as well as he did SotU. That would be a better standard to hold him to and even then it’s an entirely different beast to read from a teleprompter than it is to perform in a debate. Edit: I should clarify, I don't disagree with the gloomy sentiment from the Dems. When you have national broadcast events that everyone is watching then one gaffe can lead to your goose being cooked. Examples include Howard Dean's weird yell and Rick Perry forgetting which department he wanted to eliminate. I can easily see the "we beat medicare" line cycling virally in the 24 hour news cycle and sinking Biden. But it was well known there was a good chance that would happen before the debate started. That's why Biden's camp is idiotic to agree to debates in the first place, assuming they actually want him to be the candidate and win and they weren't just trying to test the waters as early as possible to leave the door open for a replacement candidate. | ||
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Introvert
United States4659 Posts
On June 28 2024 13:09 BlackJack wrote: Maybe I’m just a contrarian but I’ll be the lone voice saying Biden performed better than par. Sure he lost his train of thought and mumbled off a couple times. So? This is someone that mumbles off a couple times when all he has to do is read a teleprompter. Now he doesn’t have any notes and he has to answer real questions and he has to deal with Trump’s antagonizing. I don’t know why people were expecting more than what we got. Edit: but at least we can put to bed the false equivalence pushed by some in this thread that both candidates are about equally cognitively declined. Because for a long time now we've been told that nothing is wrong with Biden but there clearly is... The party people and the reporters who tried to tell us that behind closed doors he was really whip smart and all there were clearly lying to everyone, and some people wanted to be lied to. We'll see what happens but man Biden and the Dems so richly deserve to lose. His failure and incompetence is only magnified by his obvious incapacity. Some of us have been pointing out he wasn't that sharp for a long time (and he was never really that smart to begin with). | ||
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BlackJack
United States10180 Posts
On June 28 2024 13:50 Introvert wrote: Because for a long time now we've been told that nothing is wrong with Biden but there clearly is... The party people and the reporters who tried to tell us that behind closed doors he was really whip smart and all there were clearly lying to everyone, and some people wanted to be lied to. We'll see what happens but man Biden and the Dems so richly deserve to lose. His failure and incompetence is only magnified by his obvious incapacity. Some of us have been pointing out he wasn't that sharp for a long time (and he was never really that smart to begin with). Aides: “He’s really smart behind closed doors” Press: “Oh cool, can we talk to him then?” Aides: “No” It’s hard to believe anyone could be gullible enough to buy what they were selling but I could be wrong. | ||
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zeo
Serbia6267 Posts
On June 28 2024 11:20 Introvert wrote: It's very obvious now why Biden wanted the debates moved up earlier, he needs to get them out of the way because he's only going downhill. Heard the opinion this morning that its so early because they wanted time if they need to swap out Biden. And it makes sense but wouldnt that just cause a civil war with the Democrats over who will take the spot? They should have held a serious primary and had Biden debate with other Democrats but eh | ||
Liquid`Drone
Norway28558 Posts
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Ciaus237
South Africa254 Posts
Cannot believe these high odds we get another 4 years of rapist con-man being the primary western cultural influence. | ||
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CuddlyCuteKitten
Sweden2519 Posts
On June 28 2024 15:18 zeo wrote: Heard the opinion this morning that its so early because they wanted time if they need to swap out Biden. And it makes sense but wouldnt that just cause a civil war with the Democrats over who will take the spot? They should have held a serious primary and had Biden debate with other Democrats but eh Could also mean that they form up with a candidate without a fight because there is no time and they realize the only alternative is a Trump victory. Either they run Biden or they find a youngish centre candidate without baggage who can crush in debates, and then make the left wing not say a peep about it. | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States22696 Posts
On June 28 2024 18:59 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote: Could also mean that they form up with a candidate without a fight because there is no time and they realize the only alternative is a Trump victory. Either they run Biden or they find a youngish centre candidate without baggage who can crush in debates, and then make the left wing not say a peep about it. The replacements are Harris and Newsome but the question is who takes the top of the ticket. Should be Kamala based on "seniority" so to speak, but Newsome is the person that could be placed at the top and actually win. Michelle Obama with Barack Obama or Gavin Newsom as her VP could work but they'd have to (at least want to) get Kamala on board and that'd be tough (probably not tougher than defending Biden's debate performance though). If Democrats are serious about beating Trump they need to replace Biden asap imo (as bad as that is). This debate performance is going to be discussed at every 4th of July get together and things like his brain farts and needing help to walk down the stage are going to dominate people's (particularly the people where the debate was basically the first and only thing they'll actually watch about the election until Oct-Nov) thoughts about the race. One of the wildest parts of this is that it was an entirely self-inflicted wound. Considering the people closest to Biden had to know he could botch this they must have only pitched and pushed this idea into fruition out of desperation. Either to salvage his candidacy or end it. | ||
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SEB2610
59 Posts
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Conaing
24 Posts
But first let me say that picking a president based on a tv debate performance is a horrible metric. But it has been the metric since we have tv. So that's what it takes to do the job. First to win an election. But being the cheerleader in chief is also the primary job of the president. And you do that by being good on tv. Biden sounded sick. His voice was coarse. Which made his stutter worse. But he was also overprepared or overcoached. He jumped from one thought to another. He tried to make this a debate on substance, facts, data. He tried to make the argument that a healthy young Biden without a stutter would make. If that Biden was running vs Mitt Romney or Paul Ryan. Biden has always been Trump's kryptonite. Trump has always been able to get dirt on his opponents: Cruz, Jeb Bush, Rubio, then Clinton. All he has on Biden has been his son Hunter. Then the age thing didn't stick in 2020. Biden had one job. To not look old. All Biden had to do is give some simple emotional and emphatic one liners. He wasn't there to give a college lecture. In fact, Biden did that so badly one can genuinely wonder if Biden is young enough to be president 4 years from now. CNN also dropped the ball. Trump tricked CNN once more. CNN was so worried about being interrupted, that's the only thing they worried about. Yes, CNN made the business decision to appear they are 50% proBiden and 50% proTrump. No matter how fascistic, criminal and deranged Trump is. CNN made Trump look like the reasonable one. First off, there were ZERO fact checks ZERO. Trump could lie with confidence over and over. CNN made the decision that the only one that was going to have to fact check was Biden. But the format also made that impossible. No one on that stage would have been able to fact check Trump. CNN did it so badly that someone who knows nothing about US politics would think that Biden is the criminal felon who is going to end democracy and start world war 3, and Trump is a stand-up citizen and steady hand president. On top of that, Trump found an obvious trick to get more speaking time. For every new question, Trump would first go back to the previous question. And he wouldn't get cut off by the moderator. That way, Trump stole extra time to get in the final word on the previous subject. Then, CNN then gave Trump additional time to re-answer the current question. This way, Trump got to speak for a 5 more minutes, which was 15% more. The absolute minimum bar for CNN was to immediately start off by asking Trump is he was willing to concede the 2020 election to Biden on the spot right there. Because Trump still hasn't done that. That was the absolute minimum for standard of proper journalism. And to link it up with Trump saying he would concede in 2020, Trump saying Clinton wouldn't concede, when she immediately did. And Trump being on trial for trying to overturn the election through any method, including white collar crime and fraud, and finally violence. CNN failed there. CNN did as badly as Biden did. And CNN did this after having given Trump hundreds of millions worth of free tv time back in 2014-2016. Only a few times Biden touched on Trump hating veterans, all Trump's cabinet members now calling him incompetent and dangerous, January the 6th. But those barely landed or didn't land at all. Biden's closing statement was absolutely horrible. That's 100% written out and worked on for weeks by a dozen of people. It was trash. It means Biden has the wrong people around him. All he had to do is say his administration has been one of competence, a very good economy, and a ton of passed legislation, including the infrastructure deal. And that all Trump did his entire presidency was just 1 tax cut for the super wealthy, bungled the covid pandemic by denying it, killing millions of Americans, and a whole bunch of chaos and incompetence otherwise. And that at the end of it, Trump tried to end democracy, committed a whole bunch of crimes for which a normal person goes to jail for at least 20 years. And that Trump's only policy platform is to be a dictator from day one, suspend the constitution, and jail his political opponents. The stupidest thing Biden did was brag he was better at golf than Trump. Why in the world would you say that? Why try to prove you are a bigger buffoon than Trump is. You think that was going to unnerve Trump? What about telling Trump he is going to jail to his face? Halfway into a debate where you already got him crushed? And Trump also kept calm and on point. And he didn't freeze or ramble like he does during his rallies. One reason why Trump was so unhinged back in 2020 was because Trump got mad, knew he was losing. The theory that no audience would help Trump was kinda proven by this debate. I was actually really surprised by Trump's discipline and conciseness. Because so often he has shown himself to be a loose cannon who goes against the advice of this closest aides. And the pressure on Trump was also immense. Because if he fucked up that debate, he probably loses the presidency, and he goes to jail for sure. And Trump himself knows he is also in mental decline bigly. Instead, Trump knew he was going to win that debate 2 minutes in. That's why he stayed calm and on point. All the talk in the media will now be about if the Democrats replace Biden. Rather than the insanely good US economy. The dysfunctional GOP congress. Or Trump's crime spree, his looming prison time which can absolutely still mean Trump is president while in jail, and his desire to end democracy, destroy our alliances, and create as much chaos and incompetence as possible. | ||
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DarkPlasmaBall
United States43792 Posts
On June 28 2024 19:50 Conaing wrote: Biden sounded sick. His voice was coarse. Biden indeed has/had a cold (not that that excuses anything at all). On June 28 2024 19:50 Conaing wrote: CNN was so worried about being interrupted, that's the only thing they worried about. Yes, CNN made the business decision to appear they are 50% proBiden and 50% proTrump. No matter how fascistic, criminal and deranged Trump is. CNN made Trump look like the reasonable one. First off, there were ZERO fact checks ZERO. Trump could lie with confidence over and over. That does present a reasonable question for debate moderation: What precisely is, and is not, the role of a moderator? We can probably all agree that the role includes making sure that the two opponents don't physically start to fight each other, but there might be more disagreement on how much fact-checking a moderator is responsible for (as opposed to the opponent being responsible for calling out the other person's lies and Gish gallops and fallacies and other underhanded tactics). I don't even know precisely where I stand on this, because debates aren't really about finding the truth, as much as they are trying to persuade your audience of your own side (whether or not you have the facts on your side). On top of that, Trump found an obvious trick to get more speaking time. For every new question, Trump would first go back to the other question. And he wouldn't get cut off by the moderator. And after Trump stole extra time to talk about the previous question, CNN then gave Trump additional time to re-answer the current question. This way, Trump got to speak for a 5 more minutes, which was 15% more. Are you sure that Trump got bonus time in this way? I know that Trump started off most responses with a continuation of an answer from a previous topic, but I was under the impression that he was still kept to the two-minute restriction (or standard one-minute restriction for follow-ups), regardless. It sounds like what you're saying is that his two-minute first-response time was really like two-and-a-half minutes, where he talked about the previous topic for 30 seconds and then only after that was finished, CNN started his normal two-minute timer. I didn't personally time his responses, but I really hope that didn't happen. And Trump also kept calm and on point. And he didn't freeze or ramble like he does during his rallies. One reason why Trump was so unhinged back in 2020 was because Trump got mad, knew he was losing. The theory that no audience would help Trump was kinda proven by this debate. I was actually really surprised by Trump's discipline and conciseness. Because so often he has shown himself to be a loose cannon who goes against the advice of this closest aides. And the pressure on Trump was also immense. Because if he fucked up that debate, he probably loses the presidency, and he goes to jail for sure. And Trump himself knows he is also in mental decline bigly. 100% agree. All the talk in the media will now be about if the Democrats replace Biden. Rather than the insanely good US economy. The dysfunctional GOP congress. Or Trump's crime spree, his looming prison time, and his desire to end democracy, destroy our alliances, and create as much chaos and incompetence as possible. Yeah, that's the huge risk of a debate like this. I'm actually wondering why Biden even went through with the debate in the first place. Working on better messaging and better pro-Biden/anti-Trump ads would have been way more effective off-screen, I think. | ||
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Conaing
24 Posts
If prime Hillary Clinton, or Gavin Newsom or even Cenk Uygur was on that stage in that format, it unfolds the same way. And if you do try to fact check Trump, it will be a debate where Trump debates CNN. And if that's the debate, Trump can do a victory lap because he is fighting the fake news media. CNN did a soft ball interview with Trump where Kaitlan Collins dropped the ball to fact check Trump. If you can't even fact check Trump during a normal interview that you prepared, then why even put him on the debate stage. You are too incompetent to handle Trump. More than half the audience needs to be familiar with the lies Trump is going to be telling before the fact, because of your previous reporting. Otherwise, there's no point. Those few interviews where Trump was either properly fact checked, or where he got push-back are those interviews where Trump ended the interview half way. CNN didn't want Trump to walk out of the interview with the post Jan6 Kaitlan Collins one. And CNN certainly didn't want Trump to walk off the stage halfway through this debate. That's why it is fucked up. Trump either wins. Or he walks off. The talking time I gave was recorded by some website. I also would be interested to see a (coherent) word count for both. And also how often a moderator muted or interrupted either Trump or Biden. I think there was one interruption where CNN interrupted Biden. And that was all. You are got to wonder if Trump winning will be good for CNNs and MSNBCs ratings. And if this motivates them at all. | ||
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Jockmcplop
United Kingdom9344 Posts
People like Trump not because they feel like he's telling truth, but because his lies make them feel good. You can't fact check that away unfortunately. | ||
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Conaing
24 Posts
You can't do that and then decide in 2024 to suddenly start to fact check Trump. So you are right about that and I already conceded that. If people had always been told, from day 1, that Trump was a failed businessman, that everything about him was fake, that he just tells strange lies all the time, he never would have gotten this cult following. In fact, Trump wouldn't have been on The Apprentice or in the Fortune 500. Or in movies like Home Alone. Never. And his lies wouldn't have made people feel good either. It is the whole dynamic. You are absolutely right that if CNN had suddenly started to aggressively fact check Trump then that wouldn't have worked either. But doing more of the 2014 playbook that created Trump in the first place also doesn't. I get it is hard to control Trump. Or to fact check Trump. But CNN did ZERO fact checks. And ZERO interruptions. When you could literally interrupt and fact check every single statement he makes. There's 99 numbers between 0% and 100% And all of them are better than either 0 or 100. Still, CNN went with 0. MSM have been horrible on Trump in 2014, in 2016 when he won, in 2018 when he was president, in 2020 when he refused to deal with the pandemic, killing millions of Americans, in 2020 when he lost, and that hasn't changed in 2020 to 2024. | ||
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DarkPlasmaBall
United States43792 Posts
On June 28 2024 18:59 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote: Could also mean that they form up with a candidate without a fight because there is no time and they realize the only alternative is a Trump victory. Either they run Biden or they find a youngish centre candidate without baggage who can crush in debates, and then make the left wing not say a peep about it. For better or for worse, I still think the Democrats' best bet is to run Biden. Besides, Trump doesn't have to accept any future debates, especially with a last-second hypothetical replacement to Biden. Despite the countless polls saying that most people are tired of both Biden and Trump, and most people dislike both Biden and Trump, and most people want *someone else* besides Biden and Trump, it's still the case that Biden has way more Democratic support and Trump has way more Republican support than any specific alternatives. It's very easy to say "anyone but Biden and Trump" without needing to actually come up with real people and have them beat Biden and Trump in popularity and primaries. At the end of the day, Biden and Trump are the ones who'll secure the most votes for their respective teams. I could list a few Democrats I'd prefer as the next president, but in no way would they have the same amount of national support that Biden has, or the same list of accomplishments that Biden can run on. If Democrats do a better job of communicating Biden's accomplishments and contrasting them with Trump's shortcomings and lies, then they can potentially weather this poor debate performance. It's going to also look pretty weak when they either cancel the other debate against Trump or almost-certainly have another poor debate performance against Trump though, so Democrats will get hit again around September 10th. I'm still obviously preferring Biden's current term and future potential term over Trump's previous term and future potential term, but Biden and his team still need to convince any remaining independents and swing voters (and the debate surely did the opposite, for some people who are still on the fence). Maybe that strategy includes Kamala Harris making a lot of public showings and speeches, so that people may gain confidence in her ability to lead if Biden can't anymore. | ||
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Jockmcplop
United Kingdom9344 Posts
On June 28 2024 20:22 Conaing wrote: It is not that simple. Trump was created as a media person by The Apprentice by NBC. After that, MSNBC, Fox News, and CNN gave Trump huge air time back in 2014 and 2016. Because he was entertaining, fresh, and good for ratings. Then even during Trump's presidency, CNN and MSNBC still couldn't figure out how to cover Trump. In the end, CNN decided to not even air Trump's rallies and interviews. Because they still don't know wtf to even do. That's also because of a conflict of interest that CNN staff has between journalistic principles, and ad money. On top of that some journalist have the principle of false equivalency that can be surprisingly strong. You can't do that and then decide in 2024 to suddenly start to fact check Trump. So you are right about that and I already conceded that. If people had always been told, from day 1, that Trump was a failed businessman, that everything about him was fake, that he just tells strange lies all the time, he never would have gotten this cult following. In fact, Trump wouldn't have been on The Apprentice or in the Fortune 500. Or in movies like Home Alone. Never. And his lies wouldn't have made people feel good either. It is the whole dynamic. You are absolutely right that if CNN had suddenly started to aggressively fact check Trump then that wouldn't have worked either. But doing more of the 2014 playbook that created Trump in the first place also doesn't. I get it is hard to control Trump. Or to fact check Trump. But CNN did ZERO fact checks. And ZERO interruptions. When you could literally interrupt and fact check every single statement he makes. There's 99 numbers between 0% and 100% And all of them are better than either 0 or 100. I get what you're saying. Unfortunately its just too late and there's nothing to be done now. If anyone was to fact check Trump, 'the people' would say "But WE WANT LIES", and start going on about conspiracies and TDS or whatever. If you just let him ramble, anyone with half a brain immediately dismisses all the lying, stupid shit he says, but that's not enough people to stop him getting elected. To be honest, though, I think what he says is basically irrelevant at this point. People will vote for him because they felt heard with him in charge, and don't feel that way with Biden in charge. I don't think any debate will change that. | ||
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Conaing
24 Posts
All these independents in swing states now hear is that Biden was bad because too old and that Dems may have to replace him. That's all this debate did. And that's what they might think about in the ballot box in November. | ||
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zeo
Serbia6267 Posts
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