Kat
There's a lot to be said for nowhere. Posts: 4,772
I’m not surprised that the atmosphere is tense because what happened last night would make anyone tense. It’s not where we want to be. Please take about TEN DEEP BREATHS, move past any insults that clearly contribute to the irritability here and let’s have a discussion about the topic. We want what is best for our country going forward and people will need to come together again. How can we get there? Please make sure to vote.
Apologies have power so if you feel it’s good to make one, please do. Being kind with our words will also go a long way. This is food for thought….
I've seen a lot of posts and comments about how people turned this off because it was absurd. I don't disagree with how absurd it was, but that's what makes it extremely important and I hope (HOPE!) Americans were watching and listening very carefully to the whole debate.
Trump wants you to talk about how ugly this was. He wants you to talk about how 'rude' he was. Because it takes attention from the fact that this clown has no idea what he is doing.
He showed that he is not just doing nothing about the racial and social divides in your country, but as Biden put it, he is in fact adding fuel to the fires.
He proved his is an egotistical, narcissistic, bigot. That's not fake news. That's not some pundit. This is based on his words and actions.
He denied climate change... saying he wants "crystal clear waters and clear skies" (gimme a %&^*#! break) but said nothing about how to obtain that goal. And within minutes defended the energy sector and made sure to point out how important it was to the economy.
He took a question about race relations and within seconds defended the police. THE institution that is causing the racial divide in America.
He has no plan for COVID. He says that masks are good and important (pulls the prop out of his jacket) Yet his family is in the front row actively disobeying a mask rule in the building. He insults Biden's gatherings being too small wanting the public to believe that he is so much cooler than Biden and that's why Biden doesn't have bigger rallies. No Don, Biden gives a crap about public health and the public in general you flaming pile of dog excrement.
He has no plan for health care.
He showed how fearful he is of losing, and thus telling the world and the country that this election is set to be rigged without an ounce of evidence. Only someone like Donald Trump, someone so little and insecure, would willingly toss democracy out the window and disrespect the flag, the oath of office, and every POTUS before him, just to protect his own image.
He showed how much of an asshole he was by taking the spotlight away from Biden as he tried to defend his son by insulting his other son. This coming after being criticized for calling dead soldiers losers and suckers. (Something Trump did not deny to the best of my knowledge.)
It is completely remarkable that his clown is the POTUS. Remarkable. This election is without a doubt the most important in American history.
Toronto 2000
Buffalo, Phoenix, Toronto 2003
Boston I&II 2004
Kitchener, Hamilton, London, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto 2005
Toronto I&II, Las Vegas 2006
Chicago Lollapalooza 2007
Toronto, Seattle I&II, Vancouver, Philly I,II,III,IV 2009
Cleveland, Buffalo 2010
Toronto I&II 2011
Buffalo 2013 Toronto I&II 2016 10C: 220xxx
0
brianlux
Moving through All Kinds of Terrain. Posts: 40,661
Like many, my chief complaint about the debate last night was that it was a shouting match. My wife suggested that every time Trump interrupted Biden, Joe should have taken the approach you take with an unruly child: stand straight with your arms crossed and stare at him until he quiets down and then ask for you time back (which Biden did a couple of times). Show Trump who is the adult in the room. Three men all shouting at the same times makes for chaos, not debate, and no one looks the better.
“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man [or woman] who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”
Like many, my chief complaint about the debate last night was that it was a shouting match. My wife suggested that every time Trump interrupted Biden, Joe should have taken the approach you take with an unruly child: stand straight with your arms crossed and stare at him until he quiets down and then ask for you time back (which Biden did a couple of times). Show Trump who is the adult in the room. Three men all shouting at the same times makes for chaos, not debate, and no one looks the better.
The problem is that Trump would never stop. It would be 90 minutes of a Twitter feed.
Like many, my chief complaint about the debate last night was that it was a shouting match. My wife suggested that every time Trump interrupted Biden, Joe should have taken the approach you take with an unruly child: stand straight with your arms crossed and stare at him until he quiets down and then ask for you time back (which Biden did a couple of times). Show Trump who is the adult in the room. Three men all shouting at the same times makes for chaos, not debate, and no one looks the better.
The problem is that Trump would never stop. It would be 90 minutes of a Twitter feed.
Exactly what i was going to say. you let the guy run his mouth it wouldn't stop.
I've seen a lot of posts and comments about how people turned this off because it was absurd. I don't disagree with how absurd it was, but that's what makes it extremely important and I hope (HOPE!) Americans were watching and listening very carefully to the whole debate.
Trump wants you to talk about how ugly this was. He wants you to talk about how 'rude' he was. Because it takes attention from the fact that this clown has no idea what he is doing.
He showed that he is not just doing nothing about the racial and social divides in your country, but as Biden put it, he is in fact adding fuel to the fires.
He proved his is an egotistical, narcissistic, bigot. That's not fake news. That's not some pundit. This is based on his words and actions.
He denied climate change... saying he wants "crystal clear waters and clear skies" (gimme a %&^*#! break) but said nothing about how to obtain that goal. And within minutes defended the energy sector and made sure to point out how important it was to the economy.
He took a question about race relations and within seconds defended the police. THE institution that is causing the racial divide in America.
He has no plan for COVID. He says that masks are good and important (pulls the prop out of his jacket) Yet his family is in the front row actively disobeying a mask rule in the building. He insults Biden's gatherings being too small wanting the public to believe that he is so much cooler than Biden and that's why Biden doesn't have bigger rallies. No Don, Biden gives a crap about public health and the public in general you flaming pile of dog excrement.
He has no plan for health care.
He showed how fearful he is of losing, and thus telling the world and the country that this election is set to be rigged without an ounce of evidence. Only someone like Donald Trump, someone so little and insecure, would willingly toss democracy out the window and disrespect the flag, the oath of office, and every POTUS before him, just to protect his own image.
He showed how much of an asshole he was by taking the spotlight away from Biden as he tried to defend his son by insulting his other son. This coming after being criticized for calling dead soldiers losers and suckers. (Something Trump did not deny to the best of my knowledge.)
It is completely remarkable that his clown is the POTUS. Remarkable. This election is without a doubt the most important in American history.
Great post. Agree 100%
0
The Juggler
Behind that bush over there. Posts: 47,215
Everything Trump touches dies. He may have even killed the presidential debate.
May have killed his presidency.
Looks like they are going to make changes to the structure. I wonder if they give the moderator to mute the mic if that will be Trump's que to back out. If so, that is a win for Biden.
Everything Trump touches dies. He may have even killed the presidential debate.
May have killed his presidency.
Looks like they are going to make changes to the structure. I wonder if they give the moderator to mute the mic if that will be Trump's que to back out. If so, that is a win for Biden.
One can only hope on all accounts.
Trump will do even worse at the townhall. He doesn't even have the ability to fake empathy.
brianlux
Moving through All Kinds of Terrain. Posts: 40,661
As so often is the case, a fine post from Heather Cox Richardson:
September 29, 2020 (Tuesday)
My house is blissfully quiet, but my ears are still ringing.
The first presidential debate of 2020 was unlike anything we have seen
before. CNN’s Jake Tapper said: "That was a hot mess, inside a dumpster
fire, inside a train wreck." "He was his own tweets come to life."
“We’ll talk about who won the debate, who lost the debate ... One thing
for sure, the American people lost.” Conservative pundit William Kristol
called it “a spectacle… an embarrassment… a disgrace… because of the
behavior of one man, Donald Trump. The interrupting and the bullying,
the absence of both decency and dignity—those were Donald Trump’s
distinctive contributions to the evening, and they gave the affair the
rare and sickening character of a national humiliation.”
Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?
In a normal presidential debate, both candidates try to explain their
policy proposals, jab at their opponent, and convince undecided voters
to move in their direction. If this had been a normal presidential
debate, its weight would have fallen on Trump, who is significantly
behind Biden, to win voters. Biden’s goal would simply have been not to
lose anyone.
If we were calling this like a normal presidential
debate, Trump lost. He did not move the needle in his direction. Biden
won; he did not lose anyone.
But this was not a normal presidential debate.
Trump long ago gave up the pretense that he wanted to win a majority of
voters. For months now, he has made no effort to reach outside of his
base. Instead he has focused on solidifying and radicalizing it. As his
trade war with China and the coronavirus has weakened his support, he
has given massive grants to farmers, promised checks to 33 million
elderly to help pay for prescriptions, splashed transportation grants
around, and recently even offered grants to lobstermen who have lost
business because of the trade war.
Trump set out tonight not to
convince undecided voters to support him, but rather to harden his
supporters and encourage them to disrupt the election so he can contest
the results until the solution goes to the Supreme Court where he hopes a
majority will rule in his favor. He laid it all out tonight.
His performance was no accident. He came out determined to dominate the
debate in much the same way as Fox News Channel personalities or talk
radio hosts dominate their shows. He interrupted, argued, lied, and
generally sucked the oxygen out of the room. He cheated, refusing to
follow the rules that he had agreed to, thus demonstrating that he would
not be bound by the rules everyone else had to live by. He bullied
moderator Chris Wallace of the Fox News Channel into repeatedly
appeasing him by saying, for example, “Mr. President you’re going to be
very happy, because we’re going to talk about law and order,” and “Let
me ask — sir, you’ll be happy, I’m about to pick up on one of your
points to ask the vice president.” Trump was attempting to demonstrate
his dominance.
He went on to echo the grievances and lies that
his supporters have come to believe. Ignoring the more than 200,000
Americans dead of Covid-19, he insisted he was the victim of Democrats'
lies about the disease. When Wallace tried to rein him in, he attacked
him for being unfair, although Wallace never once fact-checked Trump’s
lies.
If Trump had a strategy at all that involved voters, it
was to try to keep them from backing Biden. Trump kept yelling at him
about “Law & Order,” as he likes to tweet, and kept trying to drive a
wedge between Biden and the more progressive wing of the Democratic
Party, finally saying to him: “You just lost the left.”
Trump
tipped his hand, though, when Wallace asked: "Are you willing, tonight,
to condemn white supremacists and militia groups and to say that they
need to stand down?” Trump demanded names of such groups, and Wallace
named, among others, the Proud Boys, the hate group that helped to
organize the riot in Charlottesville, Virginia. After hedging, Trump
finally answered: "Proud Boys, stand back and stand by! But I'll tell
you what, somebody's got to do something about antifa and the left."
"That's my president," the head of the Proud Boys posted on the social
media chair that will still host them. Within an hour the group had new
shoulder patches designed with the words “Stand Back and Stand By.”
Trump called for his supporters to act as poll watchers to prevent a
fraudulent vote. He is losing badly in Pennsylvania, a state he needs,
and tonight he lied that Philadelphia election officials refused to
permit his poll watchers to observe voting. “Bad things happen in
Philadelphia,” he said, “bad things.” The truth is that seven satellite
offices where voters can register and apply to vote, complete, and drop
off mail in ballots opened in Philadelphia. Poll watchers are not
allowed because there is no polling taking place. Trump’s calls for poll
watchers are pretty clearly calls for voter intimidation.
Tonight, again, Trump refused to commit to accepting a Biden victory,
saying that he could not agree to fraudulent results. He suggested the
election could take months to solve, and that he “definitely” wants the
Supreme Court, including his new nominee Amy Coney Barrett, to “look at
the ballots.” (Democrats have said Barrett should recuse herself from
any election-related cases; Republicans say that is “absurd.”)
It
was a performance designed to show a strong man who is calling out his
armed supporters to enable him to seize an election he cannot win
freely.
But Trump performed as he did because it’s all he’s got.
He has no policies, no platform, no plans that he can sell to the
American people, and no attention span either to govern or to explain
how he wants to govern. So his only option is to dominate. Even he knows
that ploy is a desperate one. Tonight’s tell was actually in his
dominance play itself: overt bullying like he displayed tonight is
actually a sign of weakness and abuse, not of true power.
The bar
for Biden going into this debate was low: since he is so far ahead, he
simply needed not to lose votes. But he did well. First of all, he
managed to retain his train of thought, which was no easy thing with
Trump interrupting and lying and yelling, clearly trying to derail him
and, at the very least, bring out his stutter. He put to rest Trump’s
insistence that he is failing mentally.
Despite Trump, Biden
also managed to explain some of his policies, too, as well as pointing
out that more than 200,000 Americans have died on Trump’s watch, and
that he has done the economy no favors. Under Trump, he said, America
has become “weaker, sicker, poorer, more divided and more violent.”
But Biden’s strongest moments were ones Trump teed up. When Biden
defended our troops from Trump’s “losers” and “suckers” comments, citing
his son, Beau, who died of cancer after his service in Iraq, Trump
missed the opportunity to acknowledge Biden’s loss, and instead
repeatedly attacked Biden’s son Hunter, who struggled with substance
abuse. Trump insisted—incorrectly—that Hunter was dishonorably
discharged from the Navy (in fact, he was administratively discharged),
and tried to smear him. Biden looked directly at Trump to say that
Hunter had a drug addiction he is managing, and Biden is proud of him.
While Biden spoke as a father defending his son, his message will
resonate with the 20 million Americans who are battling addiction.
Most important, though, Biden made the debate about the country and the
American people, not about Trump. While Trump listed his own
grievances, Biden spoke to the camera, asking Americans what they
needed, what they think. He promised that we can accomplish anything if
only we work together. He urged people to ignore the chaos and vote.
“Vote whatever way is the best way for you,” he said. “Because he will
not be able to stop you from determining the outcome of this election.”
Biden also refused to be scared off by Trump’s threats not to honor the
election results. He brushed them off, saying “I will accept it, and he
will, too. You know why? Because once the winner is declared once all
the ballots are counted, that’ll be the end of it.”
“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man [or woman] who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”
Like many, my chief complaint about the debate last night was that it was a shouting match. My wife suggested that every time Trump interrupted Biden, Joe should have taken the approach you take with an unruly child: stand straight with your arms crossed and stare at him until he quiets down and then ask for you time back (which Biden did a couple of times). Show Trump who is the adult in the room. Three men all shouting at the same times makes for chaos, not debate, and no one looks the better.
The problem is that Trump would never stop. It would be 90 minutes of a Twitter feed.
Beat me too it.
Biden has 2 options for future debates, insist the commission cuts off their mics after 2 minutes,
As so often is the case, a fine post from Heather Cox Richardson:
September 29, 2020 (Tuesday)
My house is blissfully quiet, but my ears are still ringing.
The first presidential debate of 2020 was unlike anything we have seen
before. CNN’s Jake Tapper said: "That was a hot mess, inside a dumpster
fire, inside a train wreck." "He was his own tweets come to life."
“We’ll talk about who won the debate, who lost the debate ... One thing
for sure, the American people lost.” Conservative pundit William Kristol
called it “a spectacle… an embarrassment… a disgrace… because of the
behavior of one man, Donald Trump. The interrupting and the bullying,
the absence of both decency and dignity—those were Donald Trump’s
distinctive contributions to the evening, and they gave the affair the
rare and sickening character of a national humiliation.”
Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?
In a normal presidential debate, both candidates try to explain their
policy proposals, jab at their opponent, and convince undecided voters
to move in their direction. If this had been a normal presidential
debate, its weight would have fallen on Trump, who is significantly
behind Biden, to win voters. Biden’s goal would simply have been not to
lose anyone.
If we were calling this like a normal presidential
debate, Trump lost. He did not move the needle in his direction. Biden
won; he did not lose anyone.
But this was not a normal presidential debate.
Trump long ago gave up the pretense that he wanted to win a majority of
voters. For months now, he has made no effort to reach outside of his
base. Instead he has focused on solidifying and radicalizing it. As his
trade war with China and the coronavirus has weakened his support, he
has given massive grants to farmers, promised checks to 33 million
elderly to help pay for prescriptions, splashed transportation grants
around, and recently even offered grants to lobstermen who have lost
business because of the trade war.
Trump set out tonight not to
convince undecided voters to support him, but rather to harden his
supporters and encourage them to disrupt the election so he can contest
the results until the solution goes to the Supreme Court where he hopes a
majority will rule in his favor. He laid it all out tonight.
His performance was no accident. He came out determined to dominate the
debate in much the same way as Fox News Channel personalities or talk
radio hosts dominate their shows. He interrupted, argued, lied, and
generally sucked the oxygen out of the room. He cheated, refusing to
follow the rules that he had agreed to, thus demonstrating that he would
not be bound by the rules everyone else had to live by. He bullied
moderator Chris Wallace of the Fox News Channel into repeatedly
appeasing him by saying, for example, “Mr. President you’re going to be
very happy, because we’re going to talk about law and order,” and “Let
me ask — sir, you’ll be happy, I’m about to pick up on one of your
points to ask the vice president.” Trump was attempting to demonstrate
his dominance.
He went on to echo the grievances and lies that
his supporters have come to believe. Ignoring the more than 200,000
Americans dead of Covid-19, he insisted he was the victim of Democrats'
lies about the disease. When Wallace tried to rein him in, he attacked
him for being unfair, although Wallace never once fact-checked Trump’s
lies.
If Trump had a strategy at all that involved voters, it
was to try to keep them from backing Biden. Trump kept yelling at him
about “Law & Order,” as he likes to tweet, and kept trying to drive a
wedge between Biden and the more progressive wing of the Democratic
Party, finally saying to him: “You just lost the left.”
Trump
tipped his hand, though, when Wallace asked: "Are you willing, tonight,
to condemn white supremacists and militia groups and to say that they
need to stand down?” Trump demanded names of such groups, and Wallace
named, among others, the Proud Boys, the hate group that helped to
organize the riot in Charlottesville, Virginia. After hedging, Trump
finally answered: "Proud Boys, stand back and stand by! But I'll tell
you what, somebody's got to do something about antifa and the left."
"That's my president," the head of the Proud Boys posted on the social
media chair that will still host them. Within an hour the group had new
shoulder patches designed with the words “Stand Back and Stand By.”
Trump called for his supporters to act as poll watchers to prevent a
fraudulent vote. He is losing badly in Pennsylvania, a state he needs,
and tonight he lied that Philadelphia election officials refused to
permit his poll watchers to observe voting. “Bad things happen in
Philadelphia,” he said, “bad things.” The truth is that seven satellite
offices where voters can register and apply to vote, complete, and drop
off mail in ballots opened in Philadelphia. Poll watchers are not
allowed because there is no polling taking place. Trump’s calls for poll
watchers are pretty clearly calls for voter intimidation.
Tonight, again, Trump refused to commit to accepting a Biden victory,
saying that he could not agree to fraudulent results. He suggested the
election could take months to solve, and that he “definitely” wants the
Supreme Court, including his new nominee Amy Coney Barrett, to “look at
the ballots.” (Democrats have said Barrett should recuse herself from
any election-related cases; Republicans say that is “absurd.”)
It
was a performance designed to show a strong man who is calling out his
armed supporters to enable him to seize an election he cannot win
freely.
But Trump performed as he did because it’s all he’s got.
He has no policies, no platform, no plans that he can sell to the
American people, and no attention span either to govern or to explain
how he wants to govern. So his only option is to dominate. Even he knows
that ploy is a desperate one. Tonight’s tell was actually in his
dominance play itself: overt bullying like he displayed tonight is
actually a sign of weakness and abuse, not of true power.
The bar
for Biden going into this debate was low: since he is so far ahead, he
simply needed not to lose votes. But he did well. First of all, he
managed to retain his train of thought, which was no easy thing with
Trump interrupting and lying and yelling, clearly trying to derail him
and, at the very least, bring out his stutter. He put to rest Trump’s
insistence that he is failing mentally.
Despite Trump, Biden
also managed to explain some of his policies, too, as well as pointing
out that more than 200,000 Americans have died on Trump’s watch, and
that he has done the economy no favors. Under Trump, he said, America
has become “weaker, sicker, poorer, more divided and more violent.”
But Biden’s strongest moments were ones Trump teed up. When Biden
defended our troops from Trump’s “losers” and “suckers” comments, citing
his son, Beau, who died of cancer after his service in Iraq, Trump
missed the opportunity to acknowledge Biden’s loss, and instead
repeatedly attacked Biden’s son Hunter, who struggled with substance
abuse. Trump insisted—incorrectly—that Hunter was dishonorably
discharged from the Navy (in fact, he was administratively discharged),
and tried to smear him. Biden looked directly at Trump to say that
Hunter had a drug addiction he is managing, and Biden is proud of him.
While Biden spoke as a father defending his son, his message will
resonate with the 20 million Americans who are battling addiction.
Most important, though, Biden made the debate about the country and the
American people, not about Trump. While Trump listed his own
grievances, Biden spoke to the camera, asking Americans what they
needed, what they think. He promised that we can accomplish anything if
only we work together. He urged people to ignore the chaos and vote.
“Vote whatever way is the best way for you,” he said. “Because he will
not be able to stop you from determining the outcome of this election.”
Biden also refused to be scared off by Trump’s threats not to honor the
election results. He brushed them off, saying “I will accept it, and he
will, too. You know why? Because once the winner is declared once all
the ballots are counted, that’ll be the end of it.”
I'm surprised they quoted tapper because Dana Bash sitting right next to him called it a sh!tshow.
i tried to keep from watching last night, but i was laying in bed unable to sleep due to fomo.
my thoughts:
wallace is a horrible moderator. he did really try to keep trump in check though.
trump is a narcissist and he has to try to suck all of the air out of the room and have all of the attention everywhere he goes. this is why he kept interrupting biden. he is unable to allow anybody else to shine, even for just two minutes.
trump is not a debator. he is an asshole. it was constant personal attack. he could not defend his record, because it is not worth defending. all he can do is do the same old tired schtick about how "he grew the economy like nobody has ever seen until the china plague came here." he said he saved football. he said that 200,000 people died but if biden were president it would have been 2 million. 2 million is 10 times 200,000. how can trump predict that and claim it, especially when joe was saying we needed masks back when trump was trying to open everything up? it is just hyperbole. that is all trump can do.
trump had the chance to disavow white supremacy and just would not do it. he is unable to criticize anybody that he needs to support him. plus he just proved his racism.
trump said that biden is a radical leftist. and then at several points when biden would state his position that was more moderate, trump would say "you just lost the left". so which is it? is biden firmly on the left and have all of the radical leftist votes, or did he lose those people last night?
i did not like biden attacking trump because it is bad form, but with the way trump reacted, it was like an adult finally getting annoyed with their annoying ass toddler that will not sit down and eat their veggies.
if anybody had said to me about my family what trump said to biden, i would have been swinging on them. he insulted beau to drag hunter. trump said "i don't know beau, but i know hunter." beau was an elected official and was in politics on the national level. trump was just being an asshold.
biden called trump the worst president in the history of the country. i completely agree.
that is 90 minutes of my life i voluntarily gave away. and i have felt awful all day because i watched.
There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.- Hemingway
annnnd i just noticed that someone added "the cleveland steamer" to the thread title since I last saw it before the debate. i literally spit out my water when i saw it.
There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.- Hemingway
” The group that sponsors the presidential debates said Wednesday that it will make format changes to the next two showdowns between President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden “to maintain order” in light of their fractious first showdown.
A source close to the Commission on Presidential Debates told NBC News that no final decisions have been made on the changes. But the source also said that the group is considering cutting off a candidate’s microphone if they violate the rules.“
” The group that sponsors the presidential debates said Wednesday that it will make format changes to the next two showdowns between President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden “to maintain order” in light of their fractious first showdown.
A source close to the Commission on Presidential Debates told NBC News that no final decisions have been made on the changes. But the source also said that the group is considering cutting off a candidate’s microphone if they violate the rules.“
it won't matter. he'll shout so loud it will still be a distraction. the only thing they could do is have them each in a sound proof booth, and if as soon as they hit their time, the door shuts
Tuesday’s belligerent debate performance revealed the president has lost the confidence he had four years ago, and it will cost him.
Tim Alberta is chief political correspondent at Politico Magazine.
Donald Trump believes, to his core, that a single event in 2016 clinched him the presidency.
It wasn’t the FBI reopening its investigation into Hillary Clinton. It wasn’t the Wikileaks dump of hacked DNC emails. It wasn’t the published list of potential Supreme Court nominees, or the selection of Mike Pence, or Clinton’s comment about “deplorables.”
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To Trump, the pivotal moment of the campaign was the second presidential debate. On the second Sunday in October, the Republican nominee arrived in St. Louis a dead man walking. Just 48 hours earlier, the Washington Post had publicized an old recording on which Trump boasted about grabbing women by the genitals. A number of leading Republicans publicly renounced his candidacy. Many more pleaded with the party chairman, Reince Priebus, to remove him from the ticket. The morning before the debate, Priebus warned Trump, “Either you’ll lose in the biggest landslide in history, or you can get out of the race and let somebody else run who can win.”
But the reality TV star wasn’t going to walk away—not from such high drama, not from such huge ratings. In an interview several years later, Trump told me that he viewed the debate as an experiment in “who likes pressure.” Voters wanted to see how a prospective president would handle being tested, being pushed. Trump responded to that pressure. With his back to the wall, facing scrutiny like no presidential hopeful in memory, Trump turned in his strongest stage performance of 2016. He was forceful but controlled. He was steady, unflappable, almost carefree. Even his most noxious lines, such as suggesting that Clinton belonged in jail, were delivered with a smooth cadence and a cool smirk, as if he knew a secret that others didn’t.
“That debate showed that I like pressure, because there was some pressure. What were the odds? Like 50-50, will he show up?” Trump told me. “That debate won me the election.”
I happen to agree with him. At a moment of genuine crisis, with his campaign on the brink of collapse just one month before the election, Trump projected a confidence that became contagious. The calls for his ouster ceased. The party got back to work boosting his candidacy. His poll numbers began to rebound. Trump had passed the pressure test. He had stopped the bleeding in ways that kept his base intact while demonstrating a resiliency, a certain defiance, that was appealing to some voters still on the fence.
I couldn’t stop thinking about that 2016 debate, and Trump’s subsequent analysis of it, during Tuesday night’s Cacophony in Cleveland.
The backdrop was awfully similar. With about a month until Election Day, trailing badly in the polls and urgently in need of resurgence, the burden of performance was on Trump. He came into Tuesday saddled not with a single calamity of “Access Hollywood” proportion, but with the collective weight of a pandemic that has killed some 205,000 citizens, an economic meltdown that has put millions out of work and a racial uproar that rips at the seams of American society. Because voting has started earlier than ever, diminishing the impact of later debates, there was zero time to spare. This was the 2020 version of Trump’s pressure test.
He failed miserably.
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In the wake of Tuesday’s 90-minute barroom argument, many was the pundit who argued that we really shouldn’t be surprised. Trump is Trump. The hysterical norm-shattering guerilla we saw debating in Cleveland is the same hysterical norm-shattering guerilla we saw coming down the escalator in Manhattan. The manic president on stage was no different than the manic president on Twitter.
But this isn’t quite right. In reality, the candidate we saw Tuesday night—the worn, restless, curmudgeonly incumbent of 2020—bore little resemblance to the loose, rollicking, self-assured candidate of 2016. It might be hard to remember through the fog of these past four years, but the animating sentiment for Trump during his first run for the presidency wasn’t hatred or division. It was fun. He was having the time of his life. Nothing Trump had ever experienced had showered him with so much attention, so much adulation, so much controversy and coverage. He loved every moment of it. Even in the valleys of that campaign, such as Access Hollywood weekend, Trump found humor in razzing Rudy Giuliani or making jokes about Karen Pence. Even when he was lashing out against Clinton or the media or the Never Trump Republicans, he was enjoying himself.
The president wasn’t enjoying himself last night. There was no mischievous glint in his eye, no mirthful vibrancy in his demeanor. He looked exhausted. He sounded ornery. Gone was the swagger, the detached smirk, that reflected bottomless wells of confidence and conviction. Though described by Tucker Carlson in Fox News’ pregame show as an “instinctive predator,” Trump behaved like cornered prey—fearful, desperate, trapped by his own shortcomings and the circumstances that exposed them. He was a shell of his former dominant self.
It was shocking to witness. Whereas Trump four years ago was unemotional in his approach to Clinton, placid almost to the point of appearing sedated, he was twitchy and agitated from the opening moments of Tuesday’s debate. The president shouted and seethed and flailed his arms in fury, his face pulsating ever brighter hues of citrus. For all the talk of Trump throwing Biden off his game, it was Biden—and moderator Chris Wallace—who stirred such conniptions in the president that he was unable to meet the bare minimums. Despite being prepared for the obvious questions, Trump was so inflamed that he could not offer the vague outlines of a health care plan or denounce white supremacists with more than a single word—“Sure”—when gifted multiple opportunities to do so.
On the debate stage, Trump has long benefited from a commanding presence, an intimidating persona, that compensates for his lack of policy knowledge. This was the story of his success in the Republican primary season: He was never going to be the smartest kid in class, but he was always going to be the strongest. And yet, Trump didn’t come across as strong Tuesday night. He came across as spooked and insecure. The president who graduated from Wharton made fun of his opponent for getting bad grades. The president who is charged with guiding his country through a pandemic mocked the idea of wearing an oversized face mask. The president who promised to Make America Great Again depicted the U.S. (without evidence) as a failed state that can’t run a legitimate election.
Trump has lived his adult life by the gospel of Norman Vincent Peale and his mega-selling book, The Power of Positive Thinking. It preaches that there are no obstacles, only opportunities, and that overcoming them is a matter of belief and affirmative visualization. Watching the president on Tuesday night felt like watching someone losing his religion. Trump could not overpower Biden or Wallace any more than he could overpower Covid-19 or the cascading job losses or the turmoil engulfing American cities. For the first time in his presidency, Trump appeared to recognize that he had been overtaken by events. His warnings about the aftermath of the election doubled for his own political fate: “This is not going to end well.”
Facing pressure unlike any he has ever faced, the president of the United States came unglued. If his campaign for reelection fails, Trump cannot blame any one particular culprit. He can, however, look back on Tuesday’s debate as the bookend of his presidency, a moment in our history every bit as politically and psychologically significant as the one four years earlier.
Comments
Trump wants you to talk about how ugly this was. He wants you to talk about how 'rude' he was. Because it takes attention from the fact that this clown has no idea what he is doing.
He showed that he is not just doing nothing about the racial and social divides in your country, but as Biden put it, he is in fact adding fuel to the fires.
He proved his is an egotistical, narcissistic, bigot. That's not fake news. That's not some pundit. This is based on his words and actions.
He denied climate change... saying he wants "crystal clear waters and clear skies" (gimme a %&^*#! break) but said nothing about how to obtain that goal. And within minutes defended the energy sector and made sure to point out how important it was to the economy.
He took a question about race relations and within seconds defended the police. THE institution that is causing the racial divide in America.
He has no plan for COVID. He says that masks are good and important (pulls the prop out of his jacket) Yet his family is in the front row actively disobeying a mask rule in the building. He insults Biden's gatherings being too small wanting the public to believe that he is so much cooler than Biden and that's why Biden doesn't have bigger rallies. No Don, Biden gives a crap about public health and the public in general you flaming pile of dog excrement.
He has no plan for health care.
He showed how fearful he is of losing, and thus telling the world and the country that this election is set to be rigged without an ounce of evidence. Only someone like Donald Trump, someone so little and insecure, would willingly toss democracy out the window and disrespect the flag, the oath of office, and every POTUS before him, just to protect his own image.
He showed how much of an asshole he was by taking the spotlight away from Biden as he tried to defend his son by insulting his other son. This coming after being criticized for calling dead soldiers losers and suckers. (Something Trump did not deny to the best of my knowledge.)
It is completely remarkable that his clown is the POTUS. Remarkable. This election is without a doubt the most important in American history.
Buffalo, Phoenix, Toronto 2003
Boston I&II 2004
Kitchener, Hamilton, London, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto 2005
Toronto I&II, Las Vegas 2006
Chicago Lollapalooza 2007
Toronto, Seattle I&II, Vancouver, Philly I,II,III,IV 2009
Cleveland, Buffalo 2010
Toronto I&II 2011
Buffalo 2013
Toronto I&II 2016
10C: 220xxx
Cheers,
HFD
Cheers,
HFD
Looks like they are going to make changes to the structure. I wonder if they give the moderator to mute the mic if that will be Trump's que to back out. If so, that is a win for Biden.
Trump will do even worse at the townhall. He doesn't even have the ability to fake empathy.
September 29, 2020 (Tuesday)
My house is blissfully quiet, but my ears are still ringing.
The first presidential debate of 2020 was unlike anything we have seen before. CNN’s Jake Tapper said: "That was a hot mess, inside a dumpster fire, inside a train wreck." "He was his own tweets come to life." “We’ll talk about who won the debate, who lost the debate ... One thing for sure, the American people lost.” Conservative pundit William Kristol called it “a spectacle… an embarrassment… a disgrace… because of the behavior of one man, Donald Trump. The interrupting and the bullying, the absence of both decency and dignity—those were Donald Trump’s distinctive contributions to the evening, and they gave the affair the rare and sickening character of a national humiliation.”
Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?
In a normal presidential debate, both candidates try to explain their policy proposals, jab at their opponent, and convince undecided voters to move in their direction. If this had been a normal presidential debate, its weight would have fallen on Trump, who is significantly behind Biden, to win voters. Biden’s goal would simply have been not to lose anyone.
If we were calling this like a normal presidential debate, Trump lost. He did not move the needle in his direction. Biden won; he did not lose anyone.
But this was not a normal presidential debate.
Trump long ago gave up the pretense that he wanted to win a majority of voters. For months now, he has made no effort to reach outside of his base. Instead he has focused on solidifying and radicalizing it. As his trade war with China and the coronavirus has weakened his support, he has given massive grants to farmers, promised checks to 33 million elderly to help pay for prescriptions, splashed transportation grants around, and recently even offered grants to lobstermen who have lost business because of the trade war.
Trump set out tonight not to convince undecided voters to support him, but rather to harden his supporters and encourage them to disrupt the election so he can contest the results until the solution goes to the Supreme Court where he hopes a majority will rule in his favor. He laid it all out tonight.
His performance was no accident. He came out determined to dominate the debate in much the same way as Fox News Channel personalities or talk radio hosts dominate their shows. He interrupted, argued, lied, and generally sucked the oxygen out of the room. He cheated, refusing to follow the rules that he had agreed to, thus demonstrating that he would not be bound by the rules everyone else had to live by. He bullied moderator Chris Wallace of the Fox News Channel into repeatedly appeasing him by saying, for example, “Mr. President you’re going to be very happy, because we’re going to talk about law and order,” and “Let me ask — sir, you’ll be happy, I’m about to pick up on one of your points to ask the vice president.” Trump was attempting to demonstrate his dominance.
He went on to echo the grievances and lies that his supporters have come to believe. Ignoring the more than 200,000 Americans dead of Covid-19, he insisted he was the victim of Democrats' lies about the disease. When Wallace tried to rein him in, he attacked him for being unfair, although Wallace never once fact-checked Trump’s lies.
If Trump had a strategy at all that involved voters, it was to try to keep them from backing Biden. Trump kept yelling at him about “Law & Order,” as he likes to tweet, and kept trying to drive a wedge between Biden and the more progressive wing of the Democratic Party, finally saying to him: “You just lost the left.”
Trump tipped his hand, though, when Wallace asked: "Are you willing, tonight, to condemn white supremacists and militia groups and to say that they need to stand down?” Trump demanded names of such groups, and Wallace named, among others, the Proud Boys, the hate group that helped to organize the riot in Charlottesville, Virginia. After hedging, Trump finally answered: "Proud Boys, stand back and stand by! But I'll tell you what, somebody's got to do something about antifa and the left." "That's my president," the head of the Proud Boys posted on the social media chair that will still host them. Within an hour the group had new shoulder patches designed with the words “Stand Back and Stand By.”
Trump called for his supporters to act as poll watchers to prevent a fraudulent vote. He is losing badly in Pennsylvania, a state he needs, and tonight he lied that Philadelphia election officials refused to permit his poll watchers to observe voting. “Bad things happen in Philadelphia,” he said, “bad things.” The truth is that seven satellite offices where voters can register and apply to vote, complete, and drop off mail in ballots opened in Philadelphia. Poll watchers are not allowed because there is no polling taking place. Trump’s calls for poll watchers are pretty clearly calls for voter intimidation.
Tonight, again, Trump refused to commit to accepting a Biden victory, saying that he could not agree to fraudulent results. He suggested the election could take months to solve, and that he “definitely” wants the Supreme Court, including his new nominee Amy Coney Barrett, to “look at the ballots.” (Democrats have said Barrett should recuse herself from any election-related cases; Republicans say that is “absurd.”)
It was a performance designed to show a strong man who is calling out his armed supporters to enable him to seize an election he cannot win freely.
But Trump performed as he did because it’s all he’s got. He has no policies, no platform, no plans that he can sell to the American people, and no attention span either to govern or to explain how he wants to govern. So his only option is to dominate. Even he knows that ploy is a desperate one. Tonight’s tell was actually in his dominance play itself: overt bullying like he displayed tonight is actually a sign of weakness and abuse, not of true power.
The bar for Biden going into this debate was low: since he is so far ahead, he simply needed not to lose votes. But he did well. First of all, he managed to retain his train of thought, which was no easy thing with Trump interrupting and lying and yelling, clearly trying to derail him and, at the very least, bring out his stutter. He put to rest Trump’s insistence that he is failing mentally.
Despite Trump, Biden also managed to explain some of his policies, too, as well as pointing out that more than 200,000 Americans have died on Trump’s watch, and that he has done the economy no favors. Under Trump, he said, America has become “weaker, sicker, poorer, more divided and more violent.”
But Biden’s strongest moments were ones Trump teed up. When Biden defended our troops from Trump’s “losers” and “suckers” comments, citing his son, Beau, who died of cancer after his service in Iraq, Trump missed the opportunity to acknowledge Biden’s loss, and instead repeatedly attacked Biden’s son Hunter, who struggled with substance abuse. Trump insisted—incorrectly—that Hunter was dishonorably discharged from the Navy (in fact, he was administratively discharged), and tried to smear him. Biden looked directly at Trump to say that Hunter had a drug addiction he is managing, and Biden is proud of him. While Biden spoke as a father defending his son, his message will resonate with the 20 million Americans who are battling addiction.
Most important, though, Biden made the debate about the country and the American people, not about Trump. While Trump listed his own grievances, Biden spoke to the camera, asking Americans what they needed, what they think. He promised that we can accomplish anything if only we work together. He urged people to ignore the chaos and vote. “Vote whatever way is the best way for you,” he said. “Because he will not be able to stop you from determining the outcome of this election.”
Biden also refused to be scared off by Trump’s threats not to honor the election results. He brushed them off, saying “I will accept it, and he will, too. You know why? Because once the winner is declared once all the ballots are counted, that’ll be the end of it.”
Beat me too it.
Biden has 2 options for future debates, insist the commission cuts off their mics after 2 minutes,
Or bring a bullhorn.
I'm surprised they quoted tapper because Dana Bash sitting right next to him called it a sh!tshow.
my thoughts:
wallace is a horrible moderator. he did really try to keep trump in check though.
trump is a narcissist and he has to try to suck all of the air out of the room and have all of the attention everywhere he goes. this is why he kept interrupting biden. he is unable to allow anybody else to shine, even for just two minutes.
trump is not a debator. he is an asshole. it was constant personal attack. he could not defend his record, because it is not worth defending. all he can do is do the same old tired schtick about how "he grew the economy like nobody has ever seen until the china plague came here." he said he saved football. he said that 200,000 people died but if biden were president it would have been 2 million. 2 million is 10 times 200,000. how can trump predict that and claim it, especially when joe was saying we needed masks back when trump was trying to open everything up? it is just hyperbole. that is all trump can do.
trump had the chance to disavow white supremacy and just would not do it. he is unable to criticize anybody that he needs to support him. plus he just proved his racism.
trump said that biden is a radical leftist. and then at several points when biden would state his position that was more moderate, trump would say "you just lost the left". so which is it? is biden firmly on the left and have all of the radical leftist votes, or did he lose those people last night?
i did not like biden attacking trump because it is bad form, but with the way trump reacted, it was like an adult finally getting annoyed with their annoying ass toddler that will not sit down and eat their veggies.
if anybody had said to me about my family what trump said to biden, i would have been swinging on them. he insulted beau to drag hunter. trump said "i don't know beau, but i know hunter." beau was an elected official and was in politics on the national level. trump was just being an asshold.
biden called trump the worst president in the history of the country. i completely agree.
that is 90 minutes of my life i voluntarily gave away. and i have felt awful all day because i watched.
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
Cheers,
HFD
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
” The group that sponsors the presidential debates said Wednesday that it will make format changes to the next two showdowns between President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden “to maintain order” in light of their fractious first showdown.
A source close to the Commission on Presidential Debates told NBC News that no final decisions have been made on the changes. But the source also said that the group is considering cutting off a candidate’s microphone if they violate the rules.“
Cheers,
HFD
Be curious to see numbers from the Trump campaign during the debate. If they don't release any that answers itself.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/09/30/trump-debate-2020-analysis-423916
Trump Is Not the Man He Used to Be
Tuesday’s belligerent debate performance revealed the president has lost the confidence he had four years ago, and it will cost him.
Tim Alberta is chief political correspondent at Politico Magazine.
Donald Trump believes, to his core, that a single event in 2016 clinched him the presidency.
It wasn’t the FBI reopening its investigation into Hillary Clinton. It wasn’t the Wikileaks dump of hacked DNC emails. It wasn’t the published list of potential Supreme Court nominees, or the selection of Mike Pence, or Clinton’s comment about “deplorables.”
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To Trump, the pivotal moment of the campaign was the second presidential debate. On the second Sunday in October, the Republican nominee arrived in St. Louis a dead man walking. Just 48 hours earlier, the Washington Post had publicized an old recording on which Trump boasted about grabbing women by the genitals. A number of leading Republicans publicly renounced his candidacy. Many more pleaded with the party chairman, Reince Priebus, to remove him from the ticket. The morning before the debate, Priebus warned Trump, “Either you’ll lose in the biggest landslide in history, or you can get out of the race and let somebody else run who can win.”
But the reality TV star wasn’t going to walk away—not from such high drama, not from such huge ratings. In an interview several years later, Trump told me that he viewed the debate as an experiment in “who likes pressure.” Voters wanted to see how a prospective president would handle being tested, being pushed. Trump responded to that pressure. With his back to the wall, facing scrutiny like no presidential hopeful in memory, Trump turned in his strongest stage performance of 2016. He was forceful but controlled. He was steady, unflappable, almost carefree. Even his most noxious lines, such as suggesting that Clinton belonged in jail, were delivered with a smooth cadence and a cool smirk, as if he knew a secret that others didn’t.
“That debate showed that I like pressure, because there was some pressure. What were the odds? Like 50-50, will he show up?” Trump told me. “That debate won me the election.”
I happen to agree with him. At a moment of genuine crisis, with his campaign on the brink of collapse just one month before the election, Trump projected a confidence that became contagious. The calls for his ouster ceased. The party got back to work boosting his candidacy. His poll numbers began to rebound. Trump had passed the pressure test. He had stopped the bleeding in ways that kept his base intact while demonstrating a resiliency, a certain defiance, that was appealing to some voters still on the fence.
I couldn’t stop thinking about that 2016 debate, and Trump’s subsequent analysis of it, during Tuesday night’s Cacophony in Cleveland.
The backdrop was awfully similar. With about a month until Election Day, trailing badly in the polls and urgently in need of resurgence, the burden of performance was on Trump. He came into Tuesday saddled not with a single calamity of “Access Hollywood” proportion, but with the collective weight of a pandemic that has killed some 205,000 citizens, an economic meltdown that has put millions out of work and a racial uproar that rips at the seams of American society. Because voting has started earlier than ever, diminishing the impact of later debates, there was zero time to spare. This was the 2020 version of Trump’s pressure test.
He failed miserably.
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In the wake of Tuesday’s 90-minute barroom argument, many was the pundit who argued that we really shouldn’t be surprised. Trump is Trump. The hysterical norm-shattering guerilla we saw debating in Cleveland is the same hysterical norm-shattering guerilla we saw coming down the escalator in Manhattan. The manic president on stage was no different than the manic president on Twitter.
But this isn’t quite right. In reality, the candidate we saw Tuesday night—the worn, restless, curmudgeonly incumbent of 2020—bore little resemblance to the loose, rollicking, self-assured candidate of 2016. It might be hard to remember through the fog of these past four years, but the animating sentiment for Trump during his first run for the presidency wasn’t hatred or division. It was fun. He was having the time of his life. Nothing Trump had ever experienced had showered him with so much attention, so much adulation, so much controversy and coverage. He loved every moment of it. Even in the valleys of that campaign, such as Access Hollywood weekend, Trump found humor in razzing Rudy Giuliani or making jokes about Karen Pence. Even when he was lashing out against Clinton or the media or the Never Trump Republicans, he was enjoying himself.
The president wasn’t enjoying himself last night. There was no mischievous glint in his eye, no mirthful vibrancy in his demeanor. He looked exhausted. He sounded ornery. Gone was the swagger, the detached smirk, that reflected bottomless wells of confidence and conviction. Though described by Tucker Carlson in Fox News’ pregame show as an “instinctive predator,” Trump behaved like cornered prey—fearful, desperate, trapped by his own shortcomings and the circumstances that exposed them. He was a shell of his former dominant self.
It was shocking to witness. Whereas Trump four years ago was unemotional in his approach to Clinton, placid almost to the point of appearing sedated, he was twitchy and agitated from the opening moments of Tuesday’s debate. The president shouted and seethed and flailed his arms in fury, his face pulsating ever brighter hues of citrus. For all the talk of Trump throwing Biden off his game, it was Biden—and moderator Chris Wallace—who stirred such conniptions in the president that he was unable to meet the bare minimums. Despite being prepared for the obvious questions, Trump was so inflamed that he could not offer the vague outlines of a health care plan or denounce white supremacists with more than a single word—“Sure”—when gifted multiple opportunities to do so.
On the debate stage, Trump has long benefited from a commanding presence, an intimidating persona, that compensates for his lack of policy knowledge. This was the story of his success in the Republican primary season: He was never going to be the smartest kid in class, but he was always going to be the strongest. And yet, Trump didn’t come across as strong Tuesday night. He came across as spooked and insecure. The president who graduated from Wharton made fun of his opponent for getting bad grades. The president who is charged with guiding his country through a pandemic mocked the idea of wearing an oversized face mask. The president who promised to Make America Great Again depicted the U.S. (without evidence) as a failed state that can’t run a legitimate election.
Trump has lived his adult life by the gospel of Norman Vincent Peale and his mega-selling book, The Power of Positive Thinking. It preaches that there are no obstacles, only opportunities, and that overcoming them is a matter of belief and affirmative visualization. Watching the president on Tuesday night felt like watching someone losing his religion. Trump could not overpower Biden or Wallace any more than he could overpower Covid-19 or the cascading job losses or the turmoil engulfing American cities. For the first time in his presidency, Trump appeared to recognize that he had been overtaken by events. His warnings about the aftermath of the election doubled for his own political fate: “This is not going to end well.”
Facing pressure unlike any he has ever faced, the president of the United States came unglued. If his campaign for reelection fails, Trump cannot blame any one particular culprit. He can, however, look back on Tuesday’s debate as the bookend of his presidency, a moment in our history every bit as politically and psychologically significant as the one four years earlier.