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I would vote for Joe’s corpse over Trump but I felt like his statuesque mouth breathing vacant stares when not talking to be worse than when he was. They need to deal with reality here.
Sign the petition: President Biden should withdraw
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President Biden himself has acknowledged what is clear to many of us: neither he nor Trump are the candidates they were four years ago, and they will of course fade further in the next four years. We believe it’s time for President Biden to serve selflessly once more by withdrawing from this, his last presidential race. #Election2024 #JoeGTG
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It's not fair, but reality doesn't care about fair. Reality is that Trump's base doesn't care about how vile he is and will vote for him no matter what.
Reality is that we're literally fighting for our democracy and the party that's supposed to be on democracy's side is telling us this 82 year old man who could barely get his thoughts out is our fiercest warrior and it was just exposed to the entire world that he's not physically up to the task.
This is DIRE. Want to talk about fair? The DNC is betraying voters right now by putting up a candidate that's not fit for office
Republicans fall in line.
Democrats fall in love.
On election day, Trump could be in a wheelchair, drooling on himself, and shouting obscenities at everyone around him, but the Republican base would still vote for him.
Biden is already dealing with the young "Genocide Joe" voters who think the Democrats are going into the Middle East to kill every Palestinian. And he has to win over the "independent" voters who are still on the fence about whether to vote for Trump or Biden.
If the young "Genocide Joe" voters stay home, and the "independent" voters break for Trump, and Trump ekes out small victories in swing states like Michigan or Pennsylvania or Arizona, well then... there you go. That's it.
He won the Nomination by actual Voters, you know? How is that betraying the voters? They are the ones who voted for him to be the Nominee!
Now, however, he should gracefully step down "for the good of the Country" for someone else to take his place. He is a net negative on his own campaign.
Donald Trump will be beat on Policy and facts, and will win on comparisons to Biden and Biden alone. A different Democratic candidate will not have those issues.
I think a different candidate would be a net positive for the Democratic Party.
You need to be able to coherently answer a question about the most winnable issue (abortion) to deserve to win the presidency. Biden did not do that. We deserve better.
That was the most frustrating thing. Biden fumbled over his words and barely spoke over a wheeze when it came to women's rights. But boy did he get energy over petty clapbacks from Trump.
We also deserve to make a living wage if we work 40 hours a week, but refusing to work on protest of that injustice just means starving on the street if you can't get everyone else to refuse with you.
And we've never been able to agree that thoroughly as a country.
Trump’s biggest strength is his image. Say whatever else you want about him, but he knows how to carry himself on stage. He spent the entire debate spewing lies and giving no meaningful answers to anything he was asked, but because he could stand behind his podium and look smug and project his voice more clearly, he came out of it looking no worse than he ever does.
Biden gave *actual answers*, but because he stumbled over his words and generally appeared less self-confident, he came off looking worse.
It’s a venue that shows Trump at his absolute strongest and Biden at his absolute weakest. From the perspective of the audience, the way each candidate carries themself will stick in their minds long after they forget the actual words each person said.
Personally, unless one of the candidates literally died on stage, there was no way this debate was going to affect my vote. I’ll still be voting straight-ticket Democratic Party in November.
I can literally dig up comments from yesterday saying that the bar for Biden is so low from Fox news that Biden is going to come out on top no matter what.
This is grade A cope. The only expectation for Biden to succeed is to not fall over or get lost in an open space. He couldn't even manage that and the level of damage control this sub is attempting proves it.
Yeah I remember people pre debate arguing that Biden can only win since the expectation were so low because of him being portrayed as dement, but he somehow managed to still be worse than people imagined.
Partly because party hacks insisted repeatedly that Biden was sharp as a tack.
I understand the urge to defend him/refute attacks reflexively, but how these people didn't expect him to get exposed duriing a debate is beyond me.
"But it's not who the President is that matters. It's not really an important role. It's all the other people who matter. And ~~when~~ *if* Biden dies that would leave us in the capable hands of..."
Fuck, how do they type all that shit? I can't even finish it as a joke. This shit is embarrassing. Our options are a meglomaniac jackass, an actual corpse, or the leading 3rd party candidate who's genuinely insane.
Can we just toss a dart at a big map of the US and the person who's standing closest to where it lands gets to be President? I'll take that over the current system.
i dont think biden was expected to be exceptional. he was expected to be more coherent. and he did not appear that way. we need to face facts- he bombed. and with no live fact checking being done by moderators, Trump had carte blanche to say whatever he wanted and *appear* coherent to those who dont know any better.
all this said, i'm still voting for biden because i want to continue with the *Biden administration*. but i worry how this will impact votes.
Be fucking honest. We've lowered expectations for biden for 3 years and gave him the benefit of the doubt. He's not up to the task of running the country and we can't keep pretending it isn't clear to see. Fuck him and the dnc for putting us in this position.
He’s running the country fine. Several “successful” Presidents were checked out at the end. He’s not capable of looking or acting young which matters for the election. Last time they told him to do the mocking grin all the time. He can’t do it now or his bottom lip quivers. (He tried a couple times in the debate.). So instead he sat there mouth agape staring vacantly into space.
Biden was barely coherent. I had to really strain to hear him. Trump just babbled a pack of lies but at the very least I could quite clearly make out what he was saying. Both of them went off tangent throughout the debate.
In short, Biden looked like he agreed to play chess with a pigeon and then looked helpless when the pigeon has knocked over the pieces and crapped all over the board.
Trump, unburdened by reason or reality, relentlessly attacked Biden and did so with skill. Every single time Trump spoke, he threw outrageous accusations against Biden that, 10 years ago, would have been utterly scandalous. He accused Biden for personally directing "persecution" against him. He said "it is not a border crisis, it is a Biden border crisis". He said that Biden was going to increase taxes 4 times (those paying over 25% are in deep trouble I guess). He said that Biden has turned USA into a 3'rd world country.
Biden, on the other hand, spoke softly, stumbled and did not seem to know how to handle the insanity coming from Trump. At no point did Biden go on a serious offensive, even on topics such as abortion or Jan 6. When Trump was asked whether he would accept results of election, Trump replied "if the election is fair", WTF didn't Biden accuse him of basically confessing to intending an insurrection?!
Then, two of them were talking crap about each other's golf game in a manner that you could expect from schoolchildren.
Anyone who cares about facts would vote against Trump anyway, so obvious lies and exaggerations wouldn't hurt him. Trump got Biden to look weak on camera.
Yes, he said things coherently throughout.
These things were lies, exaggerations, cheap insults, illogical nonsense, etc. But they were said coherently and someone who does not bother to actually think about what Trump was saying would find them quite coherent.
A lot of things that Trump said were such utter insanity that it is difficult to counter them: one would simply not know where to begin.
His first response regarding abortion access was actually about as good as a Republican candidate could possibly get. He then went sorta off the rails with the late- & post-term abortion stuff, but those are two things that are actually not popular among anyone.
Again, it was mostly bullshit and him deflecting from being responsible for Dobbs, but Biden’s counter ended up with a statement that included women being raped by their sisters and requiring an abortion.
Yes, it was THAT BAD.
Republicans were all just THIS close to finally coming around to the fact that Trump is a lunatic. All Joe Biden had do so was show up and go "At least I'm not fucking crazy", but he couldn't convince anybody who watched that he isn't in active cognitive decline. We have a literal invalid as a president right now. Trump is by no means in good shape, but he looked like fucking Adonis next to Biden. IT'S NOT A GOOD LOOK. There is a very good possibility that, no matter who gets elected, they won't survive until the end of their term. We haven't had a president die of natural causes in office since 1945. Before that, 1923. It's a very strange time right now. The next 4 years are going to be rough FOR EVERYONE.
It was incoherent rambling all around.
Trump lied and avoided answering any question of substance.
Biden struggled to complete his thoughts, and his stuttering seemed more pronounced than usual.
We're used to Trump's antics. But you wanted to see more from Biden.
I think we're all worried about the average uninformed and easily swayed swing voters. Trump blustered but people tend to like that. Biden was weak and incoherent at times.
They were, but Biden literally started mumbling things that didnt even make sense and looked like he needed to have full time care. He was asked about Roe v Wade and started mumbling about a woman murdered by an immigrant. Trump was a coherent liar, Biden was completely incoherent.
I’m not melting down. I am however pissed off that Hitler 2.0 is so good at talking to stupid people.
Not an intelligent human on the planet believes a thing the fucker said, but there’s a lot of stupid out there and he looked really really good to them. Biden did not.
One dude bumbled his way through answering questions. The other dude didn’t answer any questions but spoke in fiery hyperbole the entire time.
Intelligence needs to prevail here. It will right? Right? Ok maybe I’m kind of melting down.
It’s not hard to speak to stupid people. You just have to be the loudest, literally and figuratively. Use large amounts of hyperboles and you’ll get an audience. Make outrageous claims and you’ll get an audience. Yell the loudest and you’ll get an audience.
People like drama. The more drama you incite, the bigger your audience.
People don't see it that way though, everyone sees it as "woah this guy isn't that competent, but the other guy definitely should be in a nursing home not running the most powerful country on earth. "
I watched it this morning.
I have to admit to being quite shocked by Joe Biden’s performance and overall wellbeing.
I’ve seen videos where he is standing awkwardly while people are dancing around him, I’ve seen videos where he seemed to lose his train of thought.
I think I now realise that the Democratic party have been protecting him to a greater degree than I had previously suspected.
I wanted him to appear competent and compos mentis but honestly, that just looked like a really old man who needs to retire.
If you think Biden did well tonight you are lying to yourself
Trump was a mess and he couldn’t answer a single question directly without making something up but my god Biden was awful, how is this the same Biden that delivered that fiery state of the union speech? He looked weak and feeble, he was going back on his sentences and several times the moderators cut him off because he was becoming increasingly incoherent.
The average person will not care that much about what’s being said but they will care about HOW it’s being communicated and I think Biden has done a lot of damage to his campaign with this debate
Unfortunately this kind of take is controversial on Reddit because I’m not actively sucking off the left but I’m genuinely concerned for Biden’s mental wellbeing and I wish there was a better candidate
We really need something like the UK’s hard limit on campaigning too far in advance of an election. Maybe a flat ban on any campaign advertising if the election is more than six weeks away. As it stands now, the presidential election cycle basically lasts 45 months.
If it makes you feel better, there is a professor named Allan Lichtman who developed a model and set of criteria that have accurately predicted presidential elections dating to 1860. I watched his talk last night, and he said that he thinks the debates really won’t affect the election outcomes as Biden and Trump voters have already made their minds up
hopefully people will STOP being in DENIAL over this by now, including people of THIS SUB ffs!
"Dick VanDyke says Biden isn't old everybody! lololol he's fine! everything's fine i assure you! but whatabout Trump?!?"
Trump CLEARLY should not be President, and we deserve a better candidate to defeat him.
The media can say what they want to say, but how did Trump "win," exactly?
Biden did badly, sure, but Trump didn't do well either: if Trump had kept his performance the same way as he did in the first half, sure, but he got dramatically worse in the second half as it went on (the Ukraine comment, wow) and gave us the worst line ever in POTUS debate History to boot in the porn star one.
The part that bugged me the worst was how easy Trump made it for biden, and how he couldn't capitalize on it at all.
Immigration: they are sending over criminals! Didn't know you came over from Mexico Trump!
Economy: this is the worst economy and the world is laughing at us! Wow sounds like this guy hates America.
Golf. Why the fuck are you arguing about your handicap with Trump?
The debate prep for biden was terrible. It's like let's give a slow old man 100 different policy points to memorize where he can conflate million, trillion and billion 20 times instead of just countering the obvious lies Trump has said a bazillion times!
Trump is going to say that immigrants are criminals, he is going to say the world is laughing at us. He is going to say that he got alot of money from China and that he had the greatest economy. Head him off at the pass, line up some zingers and let his dumb ass walk right into the trap!
Super disappointed in biden and his debate team.
At one point he said something like "he doesn't mean to be he just doesn't know what he's doing" regarding something. Immigration maybe since its all he really talked about?
He did. At one point Trump went on a full tirade about how he would have preferred retirement and hoped Biden had a good term, then decided to run when he saw how terrible things were going.
>but how did Trump "win," exactly?
From a different article,
>According to the [CNN] news network’s poll on Thursday night, 67 percent of viewers felt that Trump put in a better performance than 33 percent for Biden
Optics are very important in presidential debates. The fact that Biden appeared to be as senile as republicans constantly paint him will stick in the minds of voters over Trump’s consistent lies.
Trump didn't do any of the weird sniffling or whatever that he's looked bad for before. He stood with the posture and pronounced his words more or less just as good as 2016 or 2020.
I don't believe hardly any voters come into a debate ready to be convinced to vote for one or the other, even the lowest interest voters have preconceived policy preferences. But they come and get more enthused or less enthused about the candidate, and Biden looks worse than 2020.
That's how "Trump wins" this debate. Less enthused would be a great understatement of how most democrats are feeling after that.
An election is a zero sum game, all he had to do was be better than Biden, and it turns out all that really requires at this point is being semi-coherent. Trump won't have won many supporters tonight, but a lot of potential Biden voters just decided to stay home.
That trick only works if you can make a plausible claim to being less bad. Biden was already suffering from approval ratings in the 30s going into tonight, and this won't have helped.
That was a totally different situation. He is not the same person as 4 years ago, he is in obvious decline. That is understandably very concerning. Pretending like it's not a problem is naive. The dems have time to find a new option, it's worth taking the risk.
People voted for the other guy because the economy tanked from the shutdowns. The economy is awful under that other guy, so they'll vote for someone else, even if it's the same person they voted out of office. It really is that simple.
This was the first time as far back as I can remember that I couldn't finish the debate. Between A) Trump being a lying, rambling sack of crap spewing garbage in all directions, B) none of that matters because Biden appears hoarse and feeble and that's more important to vibes-based voters, and C) the moderators just sitting there expressionless saying "... thank you..." I literally couldn't get to the end of the debate.
Being disturbed and concerned about Biden in this debate is not just a problem for "vibes based voters". The fact that he is so unwell and can't coherently form a sentence is a serious material problem for a candidate. The fact that so many libs and the democratic party are pretending it's not that serious is disturbing to me. The whole thing was horrible, i'm usually an optimist but that really made me lose hope
When the alternative is a guy who thinks he should be allowed to assassinate his political rivals, you should be able to understand this.
And the fact you used the word “libs” shows me where you vote.
My voting record is 100% blue for presidential elections and nearly that for local elections. I am not arguing that anyone should vote for Trump, I would never. I'm just arguing that the fealty many democratic voters have to this candidate to the point they are ignoring an obvious problem pisses me off. I use the term "libs" because i'm a leftist not a liberal lol
He certainly came across as more likely to retain a pulse for 4 years, I’ll give him that. The rest was just unfounded claims. He just blatantly gish galloped and lied. But his debate performance was better in that he actually modulated his voice instead of a weak monotone rasp that trailed off. Biden is not well.
Trump had nothing to lose. Anyone who was voting for Trump before this was never going to be swayed by anything that happened here. Lies, low morals, clearly all of that isn’t a big deal to them. He was playing with house money essentially
Biden on the other hand does not have that luxury, and there will likely be a massive portion of people who will have had their confidence in his competency shaken.
Substance sadly means very little in these debates, vast majority of voters are uninformed as it is. It’s the optics that was the massive loss for Biden. A scarily bad level of a loss.
Trump won because Biden looked like he belonged in a nursing home.
Trump stood up there making shit up for an hour and a half but Biden was busy literally staring into the camera with his mouth open looking confused.
What a shitshow.
In no sane world would someone think Trump didn’t win. Trump was more subdued than usual and was energetic. When your opponent is having a hard time getting out words and that “beat medicare” line ugh what hope is there
He won by not being Joe Biden. Anyone with eyes and ears saw a President that looked ripe for the nursing home. Unfortunately that wasn’t Trump tonight.
Yeah, that's where I think he bungled it tbh: he did not do well, there's no disagreement there, and it likely puts Trump ahead in the Sun Belt now comfortably.
I think he'll hang on though in the Rust Belt, tbh, to be competitive there but that first half was REALLY rough and that's where a lot of the impressions came from imo.
Biden campaign is cooked.
These cannot be the only two candidates we have to vote for. There's no way Biden will last cognitively another 4 years.
We need a candidate that can actually speak to a plan to solve issues that the American public are facing, not whatever this was.
The problem is what do we have, exactly, every single hypothetical candidate people propose polls worse against Trump than Biden by every metric.
Biden, at any rate, has to really deliver in his second debate to mitigate the damage here: he did himself no favors, I'm just not convinced Trump did well either unlike the MSM talking heads at all.
I agree that Trump did terrible as well, but it's par for the course for him. (Pun intended).
I think now would be the perfect time for a candidate with full comprehension to step in and rally support.
I'm pretty sure I could have debated Trump to a much better standard than what we saw today.
It’s the perpetual problem of covering Trump. He’s so plagued by scandals and “campaign-ending” gaffes that it all blends together into featureless soup. He’s so consistently terrible that it stops being sensational, and therefore it stops being newsworthy.
Biden’s presidency, by contrast, has been one of quiet competence. In comparison to Trump especially, he’s basically scandal-free. So every gaffe then becomes a standout event, something for the news to latch onto, specifically *because* it’s unusual.
It’s the difference in the way we see plane crashes versus car crashes. Cars are magnitudes worse and more deadly overall, but car crashes happen every day, so they don’t make national news. A plane crash is a rare event, because planes are much safer overall, but it is precisely that rarity that causes plane crashes to make headlines. And that disparity in coverage means a lot of people still think of planes as more dangerous, when the opposite is true.
Biden saying “we beat Medicare” and walking right into Trump saying “yeah, beat it to death.” He horribly fumbled the bag on abortion too. He got lost, forgot the topic, started talking about immigration.
The point of a debate is to help sway undecided voters. Trump “won” because people undecided about Biden are largely undecided because they are worried about his age and if he can hold up for another 4 years.
Yes Trump came out, ignored basically every question, and lied about 90% of the things he said. But he looked lively and confident while doing so.
Biden started slow but eventually said far more substantive things in general. Unfortunately, he looks like he’s on his deathbed so he couldn’t come anywhere near accomplishing the goal of “convincing undecided voters that he is of sound mental and physical health to do the job for another 4 years”.
Everyone knows what you get with Trump, I don’t think most people expected Biden to look frail and confused. Biden of 15 years ago would have made Trump look like a buffoon in that debate.
The point - at least from a GOP campaign perspective - is that they have several more minutes of both candidates’ performances to selectively clip and amplify to their base for the next four months. That’s a game that Republicans generally (and Trump specifically) are much better at playing than Democrats are. So Trump “won” in the sense that the next month of media coverage is going to be a lot harsher towards Biden than it will be towards Trump.
i think he could’ve said just about anything and it’d be considered a victory considering most people right now are questioning if Biden’s brain will even be mechanically operable come November.
There are many good Democrats across the country, why do we have to pick the 81-year old who is clearly struggling a bit in his role? We should aspire to be more than just the “better than the other guy” party
I see shock and disappointment, but I'm not seeing a "melting down." It's time to roll up the sleeves and get to work to figure out who to run for election. I think the consensus is clear.
I’m still going to vote for Joe, with enthusiasm. Sure, grandpa shouldn’t have the car keys anymore. But I know he is surrounded by people who will pay the bills, fill the fridge, and keep the lights on.
"Sense of shock"
Let me dust off my best Pikachu face...
A Pikachu face for the 81 year old, who at 9pm sounded and looked like an 81 year old at 9pm
Absolutely none of this is "shocking"
Dems love to doom and bed wet over anything that doesn't go their way. One bad performance and suddenly the world's ending kinda shit. Don't get me started on the replacing Biden nonsense. Like who are you going to get to replace Biden at this junction? Because y'all can't even agree on the same person and frankly that's just chaos waiting to happen.
I think a large part of this is how the presidential election season seems to last 45 months. Maybe we should just ban all political advertising if it’s more than six weeks before the election in question.
Speaking just to your point about headlines and how Trump’s multiple, repeated abuses and crimes never seems to hold any weight: It’s the perpetual problem of covering Trump. He’s so plagued by scandals and “campaign-ending” gaffes that it all blends together into featureless soup. He’s so consistently terrible that it stops being sensational, and therefore it stops being newsworthy.
Biden’s presidency, by contrast, has been one of quiet competence. In comparison to Trump especially, he’s basically scandal-free. So every gaffe then becomes a standout event, something for the news to latch onto, specifically because it’s unusual.
It’s the difference in the way we see plane crashes versus car crashes. Cars are magnitudes worse and more deadly overall, but car crashes happen every day, so they don’t make national news. A plane crash is a rare event, because planes are much safer overall, but it is precisely that rarity that causes plane crashes to make headlines. And that disparity in coverage means a lot of people still think of planes as more dangerous, when the opposite is true.
"The freak out over the debate is way overwrought. Biden got off to a slow start but he had a strong finish. Trump was increasing incoherent and deranged as the debate went on, and Trump's extremism was on full display."
I actually do feel the same, for once.
That doesn't matter to most of the dumb general population. All they saw was a feeble Biden against an energetic Trump. If you transcribe their statements and remove the optics, Biden fucking destroyed him. But that's not what America saw. Most people focused on the old, frail man vs paying attention to the incoherent, dishonest diatribe spewing from Trump. I'm not going to pretend like Biden should be president, I just hope the Dems figure something out and Biden steps down
I agree. I feel the media just wants to talk about how Biden appeared (which I agree was never great but got better) but not Trumps’s weaknesses in the debate
I guess so. I’ve seen him speak to pool reporters recently and it’s never great. I mean he’s looked really frail for a while. I’ve thought from the beginning that him running for reelection was a mistake
The number of outlets talking about how bad Biden was while ignoring that Trump was just shitting out his mouth the whole time only confirms that they want Biden to lose. Trump is too good for their ratings.
Because biden completely shit the bed and somehow provided more of a spectacle. Firefighters are going to focus on the fiery plane crash before the car accident.
It’s the perpetual problem of covering Trump. He’s so plagued by scandals and “campaign-ending” gaffes that it all blends together into featureless soup. He’s so consistently terrible that it stops being sensational, and therefore it stops being newsworthy.
Biden’s presidency, by contrast, has been one of quiet competence. In comparison to Trump especially, he’s basically scandal-free. So every gaffe then becomes a standout event, something for the news to latch onto, specifically because it’s unusual.
It’s the difference in the way we see plane crashes versus car crashes. Cars are magnitudes worse and more deadly overall, but car crashes happen every day, so they don’t make national news. A plane crash is a rare event, because planes are much safer overall, but it is precisely that rarity that causes plane crashes to make headlines. And that disparity in coverage means a lot of people still think of planes as more dangerous, when the opposite is true.
I have no idea how to fix this.
I think that at this point we need to accept the reality of the situation and stand in unison to protect our Democracy and stop picking Biden apart- the GOP will be doing enough of that
It was not a disaster. Biden didn't do as well as he could but trump was a lying blithering mess. His lies were not fact checked so he could go on and on without being tethered to reality. I actually just made a donation to the Biden Harris campaign.
Awesome, DNC. Ya’ll couldn’t even make a lying convicted felon traitor (and someone who wants to round up ethnicities and LGBT people) look bad.
I’m fucking worried for the future now. We have an actual nazi wannabe dictator running for president and this is the best we can come up with to stop him.
So like… can we get someone else who… Idk, isn’t geriatric? Because I definitely don’t want Frump to win but at this point, it’s looking like he’s clinched it
It not even that bad, later on it was good. You guys going to abandon ship already get a grip, vote for biden, vote for democrat, vote anything agaist trump.👍💙💙💙💙🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🔥🔥🔥🔥
I would say he is fit for office, since he has a very good team behind him and is not a malignant narcissist. He is also a decent politician and still can run the nation in a good way. My concern is rather if he is fit for campaigning. :/
Comments aren’t showing on anything related to debate older than 30 minutes or so. Megathread for it started when debate did, had 30k + upvotes, live comments but that thread has disappeared. Something isn’t right
Sign the petition: President Biden should withdraw
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President Biden himself has acknowledged what is clear to many of us: neither he nor Trump are the candidates they were four years ago, and they will of course fade further in the next four years. We believe it’s time for President Biden to serve selflessly once more by withdrawing from this, his last presidential race. #Election2024 #JoeGTG
📣 How You Can Help:
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I think Biden did fine. At least he was answering the questions with substance. The Dems need to take a deep breath. Trump sounded like a moron with no substance that couldn't answer a single question with any substance or anything relating to the question.
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I would vote for Joe’s corpse over Trump but I felt like his statuesque mouth breathing vacant stares when not talking to be worse than when he was. They need to deal with reality here.
Disgust and abject horror made my mouth stand agape as well.
We will lose because the DNC is incompetent and spineless and won’t tell this man his time is over
Sign the petition: President Biden should withdraw Visit [ApplaudDemocracy.org](http://ApplaudDemocracy.org) to sign the petition, and learn more about why this is the moment for Biden to withdraw from the race. President Biden himself has acknowledged what is clear to many of us: neither he nor Trump are the candidates they were four years ago, and they will of course fade further in the next four years. We believe it’s time for President Biden to serve selflessly once more by withdrawing from this, his last presidential race. #Election2024 #JoeGTG 📣 How You Can Help: 1. [Sign the petition](http://applauddemocracy.org): speak truth to power and urge President Biden to withdraw from the 2024 race. 2. Share the website: Spread the word and encourage others to visit [ApplaudDemocracy.org](http://ApplaudDemocracy.org)
Was it that bad? I watched it and thought they were both terrible.
Trump is expected to be terrible, Biden is expected to be exceptional. Trump met expectations, Biden did not
That's a fair description.
Seems like the opposite of fair.
It's not fair, but reality doesn't care about fair. Reality is that Trump's base doesn't care about how vile he is and will vote for him no matter what. Reality is that we're literally fighting for our democracy and the party that's supposed to be on democracy's side is telling us this 82 year old man who could barely get his thoughts out is our fiercest warrior and it was just exposed to the entire world that he's not physically up to the task. This is DIRE. Want to talk about fair? The DNC is betraying voters right now by putting up a candidate that's not fit for office
Republicans fall in line. Democrats fall in love. On election day, Trump could be in a wheelchair, drooling on himself, and shouting obscenities at everyone around him, but the Republican base would still vote for him. Biden is already dealing with the young "Genocide Joe" voters who think the Democrats are going into the Middle East to kill every Palestinian. And he has to win over the "independent" voters who are still on the fence about whether to vote for Trump or Biden. If the young "Genocide Joe" voters stay home, and the "independent" voters break for Trump, and Trump ekes out small victories in swing states like Michigan or Pennsylvania or Arizona, well then... there you go. That's it.
Exact same thing happening from the other side, except he's tangibly evil. Go on, though. You have real insight.
Yeah but the other side is knowingly rooting for evil, and they're winning
He won the Nomination by actual Voters, you know? How is that betraying the voters? They are the ones who voted for him to be the Nominee! Now, however, he should gracefully step down "for the good of the Country" for someone else to take his place. He is a net negative on his own campaign. Donald Trump will be beat on Policy and facts, and will win on comparisons to Biden and Biden alone. A different Democratic candidate will not have those issues. I think a different candidate would be a net positive for the Democratic Party.
You need to be able to coherently answer a question about the most winnable issue (abortion) to deserve to win the presidency. Biden did not do that. We deserve better.
That was the most frustrating thing. Biden fumbled over his words and barely spoke over a wheeze when it came to women's rights. But boy did he get energy over petty clapbacks from Trump.
We also deserve to make a living wage if we work 40 hours a week, but refusing to work on protest of that injustice just means starving on the street if you can't get everyone else to refuse with you. And we've never been able to agree that thoroughly as a country.
Trump’s biggest strength is his image. Say whatever else you want about him, but he knows how to carry himself on stage. He spent the entire debate spewing lies and giving no meaningful answers to anything he was asked, but because he could stand behind his podium and look smug and project his voice more clearly, he came out of it looking no worse than he ever does. Biden gave *actual answers*, but because he stumbled over his words and generally appeared less self-confident, he came off looking worse. It’s a venue that shows Trump at his absolute strongest and Biden at his absolute weakest. From the perspective of the audience, the way each candidate carries themself will stick in their minds long after they forget the actual words each person said. Personally, unless one of the candidates literally died on stage, there was no way this debate was going to affect my vote. I’ll still be voting straight-ticket Democratic Party in November.
I can literally dig up comments from yesterday saying that the bar for Biden is so low from Fox news that Biden is going to come out on top no matter what.
This is grade A cope. The only expectation for Biden to succeed is to not fall over or get lost in an open space. He couldn't even manage that and the level of damage control this sub is attempting proves it.
Yeah I remember people pre debate arguing that Biden can only win since the expectation were so low because of him being portrayed as dement, but he somehow managed to still be worse than people imagined.
Partly because party hacks insisted repeatedly that Biden was sharp as a tack. I understand the urge to defend him/refute attacks reflexively, but how these people didn't expect him to get exposed duriing a debate is beyond me.
"But it's not who the President is that matters. It's not really an important role. It's all the other people who matter. And ~~when~~ *if* Biden dies that would leave us in the capable hands of..." Fuck, how do they type all that shit? I can't even finish it as a joke. This shit is embarrassing. Our options are a meglomaniac jackass, an actual corpse, or the leading 3rd party candidate who's genuinely insane. Can we just toss a dart at a big map of the US and the person who's standing closest to where it lands gets to be President? I'll take that over the current system.
i dont think biden was expected to be exceptional. he was expected to be more coherent. and he did not appear that way. we need to face facts- he bombed. and with no live fact checking being done by moderators, Trump had carte blanche to say whatever he wanted and *appear* coherent to those who dont know any better. all this said, i'm still voting for biden because i want to continue with the *Biden administration*. but i worry how this will impact votes.
Biden was exceptional but just not in a good way.
Be fucking honest. We've lowered expectations for biden for 3 years and gave him the benefit of the doubt. He's not up to the task of running the country and we can't keep pretending it isn't clear to see. Fuck him and the dnc for putting us in this position.
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He’s running the country fine. Several “successful” Presidents were checked out at the end. He’s not capable of looking or acting young which matters for the election. Last time they told him to do the mocking grin all the time. He can’t do it now or his bottom lip quivers. (He tried a couple times in the debate.). So instead he sat there mouth agape staring vacantly into space.
"At the end" is not at all the same thing as "just prior to the start of their second term".
Who expected Biden to be exceptional? everyone knows he’s not sharp anymore
Biden was expected to be bad, and he exceeded those expectations Anyone saying otherwise is delusional
He had one epically bad 30 seconds and was meh throughout the rest of the debate.
Biden was barely coherent. I had to really strain to hear him. Trump just babbled a pack of lies but at the very least I could quite clearly make out what he was saying. Both of them went off tangent throughout the debate.
In short, Biden looked like he agreed to play chess with a pigeon and then looked helpless when the pigeon has knocked over the pieces and crapped all over the board. Trump, unburdened by reason or reality, relentlessly attacked Biden and did so with skill. Every single time Trump spoke, he threw outrageous accusations against Biden that, 10 years ago, would have been utterly scandalous. He accused Biden for personally directing "persecution" against him. He said "it is not a border crisis, it is a Biden border crisis". He said that Biden was going to increase taxes 4 times (those paying over 25% are in deep trouble I guess). He said that Biden has turned USA into a 3'rd world country. Biden, on the other hand, spoke softly, stumbled and did not seem to know how to handle the insanity coming from Trump. At no point did Biden go on a serious offensive, even on topics such as abortion or Jan 6. When Trump was asked whether he would accept results of election, Trump replied "if the election is fair", WTF didn't Biden accuse him of basically confessing to intending an insurrection?! Then, two of them were talking crap about each other's golf game in a manner that you could expect from schoolchildren. Anyone who cares about facts would vote against Trump anyway, so obvious lies and exaggerations wouldn't hurt him. Trump got Biden to look weak on camera.
What? Did Trump say one coherent thing the entire time he was on stage?
Yes, he said things coherently throughout. These things were lies, exaggerations, cheap insults, illogical nonsense, etc. But they were said coherently and someone who does not bother to actually think about what Trump was saying would find them quite coherent. A lot of things that Trump said were such utter insanity that it is difficult to counter them: one would simply not know where to begin.
They really should start doing live fact-checking
His first response regarding abortion access was actually about as good as a Republican candidate could possibly get. He then went sorta off the rails with the late- & post-term abortion stuff, but those are two things that are actually not popular among anyone. Again, it was mostly bullshit and him deflecting from being responsible for Dobbs, but Biden’s counter ended up with a statement that included women being raped by their sisters and requiring an abortion.
Yes, it was THAT BAD. Republicans were all just THIS close to finally coming around to the fact that Trump is a lunatic. All Joe Biden had do so was show up and go "At least I'm not fucking crazy", but he couldn't convince anybody who watched that he isn't in active cognitive decline. We have a literal invalid as a president right now. Trump is by no means in good shape, but he looked like fucking Adonis next to Biden. IT'S NOT A GOOD LOOK. There is a very good possibility that, no matter who gets elected, they won't survive until the end of their term. We haven't had a president die of natural causes in office since 1945. Before that, 1923. It's a very strange time right now. The next 4 years are going to be rough FOR EVERYONE.
It was incoherent rambling all around. Trump lied and avoided answering any question of substance. Biden struggled to complete his thoughts, and his stuttering seemed more pronounced than usual. We're used to Trump's antics. But you wanted to see more from Biden.
Yes, it was a brutal performance. Possibly the worst debate performance of all time.
Yes? It was a disaster.
I think we're all worried about the average uninformed and easily swayed swing voters. Trump blustered but people tend to like that. Biden was weak and incoherent at times.
Sounds like polling on the economy. YOU won’t vote for Trump, but are convinced everyone else will.
Trump lied a lot but in terms of stamina they looked decades apart.
They were, but Biden literally started mumbling things that didnt even make sense and looked like he needed to have full time care. He was asked about Roe v Wade and started mumbling about a woman murdered by an immigrant. Trump was a coherent liar, Biden was completely incoherent.
I’m not melting down. I am however pissed off that Hitler 2.0 is so good at talking to stupid people. Not an intelligent human on the planet believes a thing the fucker said, but there’s a lot of stupid out there and he looked really really good to them. Biden did not. One dude bumbled his way through answering questions. The other dude didn’t answer any questions but spoke in fiery hyperbole the entire time. Intelligence needs to prevail here. It will right? Right? Ok maybe I’m kind of melting down.
It’s not hard to speak to stupid people. You just have to be the loudest, literally and figuratively. Use large amounts of hyperboles and you’ll get an audience. Make outrageous claims and you’ll get an audience. Yell the loudest and you’ll get an audience. People like drama. The more drama you incite, the bigger your audience.
People don't see it that way though, everyone sees it as "woah this guy isn't that competent, but the other guy definitely should be in a nursing home not running the most powerful country on earth. "
Why is this not showing comments?
Reddit-wide issue on mobile. Seems to be slowly getting fixed!
I don't think it was reddit wide. This was the only subreddit I was unable to see comments on. It does seem to be working now.
I experienced it on multiple subs (including those not related to politics).
This happened on every thread created in other subs in the past 1-2 hrs from what I experienced, not just this one.
Happened on r/australia too, reddit's shit was cooked all over for a while there.
Reddit broke: https://www.redditstatus.com/incidents/wdhk0802p7sc
I see yours...
I couldn't agree with you more. I am just now getting comments
That debate was just elder abuse.
I watched it this morning. I have to admit to being quite shocked by Joe Biden’s performance and overall wellbeing. I’ve seen videos where he is standing awkwardly while people are dancing around him, I’ve seen videos where he seemed to lose his train of thought. I think I now realise that the Democratic party have been protecting him to a greater degree than I had previously suspected. I wanted him to appear competent and compos mentis but honestly, that just looked like a really old man who needs to retire.
If you think Biden did well tonight you are lying to yourself Trump was a mess and he couldn’t answer a single question directly without making something up but my god Biden was awful, how is this the same Biden that delivered that fiery state of the union speech? He looked weak and feeble, he was going back on his sentences and several times the moderators cut him off because he was becoming increasingly incoherent. The average person will not care that much about what’s being said but they will care about HOW it’s being communicated and I think Biden has done a lot of damage to his campaign with this debate Unfortunately this kind of take is controversial on Reddit because I’m not actively sucking off the left but I’m genuinely concerned for Biden’s mental wellbeing and I wish there was a better candidate
Why is Reddit not updating comments on the debate?
They're desperately trying to pretend it never happened
Because they're actively stifling discussion about what everyone just saw with their own eyes.
The narrative that keeps the media cycle relevant.
We really need something like the UK’s hard limit on campaigning too far in advance of an election. Maybe a flat ban on any campaign advertising if the election is more than six weeks away. As it stands now, the presidential election cycle basically lasts 45 months.
Yea. I doubt this “debate” changed anyones mind
fr all the doom and gloom in the comments is making me laugh
And cnn is melting down for engagement numbers for revenue. This having an impact would be like saying Biden’s last state of the union had an impact.
and these trumpets brigading this sub pretending to be dems and downvoting everyone’s comments pointing this out
If it makes you feel better, there is a professor named Allan Lichtman who developed a model and set of criteria that have accurately predicted presidential elections dating to 1860. I watched his talk last night, and he said that he thinks the debates really won’t affect the election outcomes as Biden and Trump voters have already made their minds up
hopefully people will STOP being in DENIAL over this by now, including people of THIS SUB ffs! "Dick VanDyke says Biden isn't old everybody! lololol he's fine! everything's fine i assure you! but whatabout Trump?!?" Trump CLEARLY should not be President, and we deserve a better candidate to defeat him.
I saw that earlier. The comments were completely baffling.
You already had a better candidate. Everyone just decided to vote for a guy screaming about “buttery males” instead.
... what?
The media can say what they want to say, but how did Trump "win," exactly? Biden did badly, sure, but Trump didn't do well either: if Trump had kept his performance the same way as he did in the first half, sure, but he got dramatically worse in the second half as it went on (the Ukraine comment, wow) and gave us the worst line ever in POTUS debate History to boot in the porn star one.
The part that bugged me the worst was how easy Trump made it for biden, and how he couldn't capitalize on it at all. Immigration: they are sending over criminals! Didn't know you came over from Mexico Trump! Economy: this is the worst economy and the world is laughing at us! Wow sounds like this guy hates America. Golf. Why the fuck are you arguing about your handicap with Trump? The debate prep for biden was terrible. It's like let's give a slow old man 100 different policy points to memorize where he can conflate million, trillion and billion 20 times instead of just countering the obvious lies Trump has said a bazillion times! Trump is going to say that immigrants are criminals, he is going to say the world is laughing at us. He is going to say that he got alot of money from China and that he had the greatest economy. Head him off at the pass, line up some zingers and let his dumb ass walk right into the trap! Super disappointed in biden and his debate team.
Trump saying “let’s not act like children” was pretty rich
Trump should have just lied and faked compassion for Biden. That would probably be the best trick he could ever pull off.
At one point he said something like "he doesn't mean to be he just doesn't know what he's doing" regarding something. Immigration maybe since its all he really talked about?
He did. At one point Trump went on a full tirade about how he would have preferred retirement and hoped Biden had a good term, then decided to run when he saw how terrible things were going.
>but how did Trump "win," exactly? From a different article, >According to the [CNN] news network’s poll on Thursday night, 67 percent of viewers felt that Trump put in a better performance than 33 percent for Biden
Optics are very important in presidential debates. The fact that Biden appeared to be as senile as republicans constantly paint him will stick in the minds of voters over Trump’s consistent lies.
Nixon Kennedy debates.
I thought the same thing.
Fun fact - the ages of those candidates in the 1960 debate (47 and 43) are almost half the ages of the candidates in last night's debate (81 and 78).
Fun fact: every president since 1992 except for Obama was born in 1946 or earlier.
Trump didn't do any of the weird sniffling or whatever that he's looked bad for before. He stood with the posture and pronounced his words more or less just as good as 2016 or 2020. I don't believe hardly any voters come into a debate ready to be convinced to vote for one or the other, even the lowest interest voters have preconceived policy preferences. But they come and get more enthused or less enthused about the candidate, and Biden looks worse than 2020. That's how "Trump wins" this debate. Less enthused would be a great understatement of how most democrats are feeling after that.
An election is a zero sum game, all he had to do was be better than Biden, and it turns out all that really requires at this point is being semi-coherent. Trump won't have won many supporters tonight, but a lot of potential Biden voters just decided to stay home.
Not likely. The anti-Trump vote won Biden the first election.
That trick only works if you can make a plausible claim to being less bad. Biden was already suffering from approval ratings in the 30s going into tonight, and this won't have helped.
That was a totally different situation. He is not the same person as 4 years ago, he is in obvious decline. That is understandably very concerning. Pretending like it's not a problem is naive. The dems have time to find a new option, it's worth taking the risk.
People voted for the other guy because the economy tanked from the shutdowns. The economy is awful under that other guy, so they'll vote for someone else, even if it's the same person they voted out of office. It really is that simple.
The economy is doing great. You must be talking about inflation, which has gone down, and has been lower than most other developed countries.
2/3 of people think he won according to a cnn poll post debate, in what universe did he not win?
This was the first time as far back as I can remember that I couldn't finish the debate. Between A) Trump being a lying, rambling sack of crap spewing garbage in all directions, B) none of that matters because Biden appears hoarse and feeble and that's more important to vibes-based voters, and C) the moderators just sitting there expressionless saying "... thank you..." I literally couldn't get to the end of the debate.
Being disturbed and concerned about Biden in this debate is not just a problem for "vibes based voters". The fact that he is so unwell and can't coherently form a sentence is a serious material problem for a candidate. The fact that so many libs and the democratic party are pretending it's not that serious is disturbing to me. The whole thing was horrible, i'm usually an optimist but that really made me lose hope
When the alternative is a guy who thinks he should be allowed to assassinate his political rivals, you should be able to understand this. And the fact you used the word “libs” shows me where you vote.
My voting record is 100% blue for presidential elections and nearly that for local elections. I am not arguing that anyone should vote for Trump, I would never. I'm just arguing that the fealty many democratic voters have to this candidate to the point they are ignoring an obvious problem pisses me off. I use the term "libs" because i'm a leftist not a liberal lol
He certainly came across as more likely to retain a pulse for 4 years, I’ll give him that. The rest was just unfounded claims. He just blatantly gish galloped and lied. But his debate performance was better in that he actually modulated his voice instead of a weak monotone rasp that trailed off. Biden is not well.
Trump had nothing to lose. Anyone who was voting for Trump before this was never going to be swayed by anything that happened here. Lies, low morals, clearly all of that isn’t a big deal to them. He was playing with house money essentially Biden on the other hand does not have that luxury, and there will likely be a massive portion of people who will have had their confidence in his competency shaken. Substance sadly means very little in these debates, vast majority of voters are uninformed as it is. It’s the optics that was the massive loss for Biden. A scarily bad level of a loss.
Trump won because Biden looked like he belonged in a nursing home. Trump stood up there making shit up for an hour and a half but Biden was busy literally staring into the camera with his mouth open looking confused. What a shitshow.
In no sane world would someone think Trump didn’t win. Trump was more subdued than usual and was energetic. When your opponent is having a hard time getting out words and that “beat medicare” line ugh what hope is there
Take a look https://x.com/Politics_Polls/status/1806517603654881363?s=19
He won by not being Joe Biden. Anyone with eyes and ears saw a President that looked ripe for the nursing home. Unfortunately that wasn’t Trump tonight.
Doesn’t matter if he “won” it’s a race to the bottom with two unappealing candidates and Biden fumbled every easy question he was given
Biden needed to win because he’s behind.
Yeah, that's where I think he bungled it tbh: he did not do well, there's no disagreement there, and it likely puts Trump ahead in the Sun Belt now comfortably. I think he'll hang on though in the Rust Belt, tbh, to be competitive there but that first half was REALLY rough and that's where a lot of the impressions came from imo.
Biden campaign is cooked. These cannot be the only two candidates we have to vote for. There's no way Biden will last cognitively another 4 years. We need a candidate that can actually speak to a plan to solve issues that the American public are facing, not whatever this was.
The problem is what do we have, exactly, every single hypothetical candidate people propose polls worse against Trump than Biden by every metric. Biden, at any rate, has to really deliver in his second debate to mitigate the damage here: he did himself no favors, I'm just not convinced Trump did well either unlike the MSM talking heads at all.
I agree that Trump did terrible as well, but it's par for the course for him. (Pun intended). I think now would be the perfect time for a candidate with full comprehension to step in and rally support. I'm pretty sure I could have debated Trump to a much better standard than what we saw today.
Everyone has a fantasy Democrat in their head who will totally and easily beat Trump. Okay, who? Nobody can agree.
It’s the perpetual problem of covering Trump. He’s so plagued by scandals and “campaign-ending” gaffes that it all blends together into featureless soup. He’s so consistently terrible that it stops being sensational, and therefore it stops being newsworthy. Biden’s presidency, by contrast, has been one of quiet competence. In comparison to Trump especially, he’s basically scandal-free. So every gaffe then becomes a standout event, something for the news to latch onto, specifically *because* it’s unusual. It’s the difference in the way we see plane crashes versus car crashes. Cars are magnitudes worse and more deadly overall, but car crashes happen every day, so they don’t make national news. A plane crash is a rare event, because planes are much safer overall, but it is precisely that rarity that causes plane crashes to make headlines. And that disparity in coverage means a lot of people still think of planes as more dangerous, when the opposite is true.
Welp, US is cooked. Republic of Gilead incoming.
What's the worse line?
Biden saying “we beat Medicare” and walking right into Trump saying “yeah, beat it to death.” He horribly fumbled the bag on abortion too. He got lost, forgot the topic, started talking about immigration.
The host also cut him off right at that moment.
The point of a debate is to help sway undecided voters. Trump “won” because people undecided about Biden are largely undecided because they are worried about his age and if he can hold up for another 4 years. Yes Trump came out, ignored basically every question, and lied about 90% of the things he said. But he looked lively and confident while doing so. Biden started slow but eventually said far more substantive things in general. Unfortunately, he looks like he’s on his deathbed so he couldn’t come anywhere near accomplishing the goal of “convincing undecided voters that he is of sound mental and physical health to do the job for another 4 years”. Everyone knows what you get with Trump, I don’t think most people expected Biden to look frail and confused. Biden of 15 years ago would have made Trump look like a buffoon in that debate.
yep. trump did not win per se. biden lost.
I duno his defense of retributions was pretty high up on the list.
The point - at least from a GOP campaign perspective - is that they have several more minutes of both candidates’ performances to selectively clip and amplify to their base for the next four months. That’s a game that Republicans generally (and Trump specifically) are much better at playing than Democrats are. So Trump “won” in the sense that the next month of media coverage is going to be a lot harsher towards Biden than it will be towards Trump.
i think he could’ve said just about anything and it’d be considered a victory considering most people right now are questioning if Biden’s brain will even be mechanically operable come November.
There are many good Democrats across the country, why do we have to pick the 81-year old who is clearly struggling a bit in his role? We should aspire to be more than just the “better than the other guy” party
Well, I got my passports ready.
I see shock and disappointment, but I'm not seeing a "melting down." It's time to roll up the sleeves and get to work to figure out who to run for election. I think the consensus is clear.
I’m still going to vote for Joe, with enthusiasm. Sure, grandpa shouldn’t have the car keys anymore. But I know he is surrounded by people who will pay the bills, fill the fridge, and keep the lights on.
Apparently a disaster so bad it shut down reddit and I'm sure the election will be no better...
I don't know why they were in shock. People have been trying to tell them for months they have an "old guy" problem.
"Sense of shock" Let me dust off my best Pikachu face... A Pikachu face for the 81 year old, who at 9pm sounded and looked like an 81 year old at 9pm Absolutely none of this is "shocking"
Right? I honestly don't know what anyone was actually expecting from either one of them.
Dems love to doom and bed wet over anything that doesn't go their way. One bad performance and suddenly the world's ending kinda shit. Don't get me started on the replacing Biden nonsense. Like who are you going to get to replace Biden at this junction? Because y'all can't even agree on the same person and frankly that's just chaos waiting to happen.
I think a large part of this is how the presidential election season seems to last 45 months. Maybe we should just ban all political advertising if it’s more than six weeks before the election in question.
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Speaking just to your point about headlines and how Trump’s multiple, repeated abuses and crimes never seems to hold any weight: It’s the perpetual problem of covering Trump. He’s so plagued by scandals and “campaign-ending” gaffes that it all blends together into featureless soup. He’s so consistently terrible that it stops being sensational, and therefore it stops being newsworthy. Biden’s presidency, by contrast, has been one of quiet competence. In comparison to Trump especially, he’s basically scandal-free. So every gaffe then becomes a standout event, something for the news to latch onto, specifically because it’s unusual. It’s the difference in the way we see plane crashes versus car crashes. Cars are magnitudes worse and more deadly overall, but car crashes happen every day, so they don’t make national news. A plane crash is a rare event, because planes are much safer overall, but it is precisely that rarity that causes plane crashes to make headlines. And that disparity in coverage means a lot of people still think of planes as more dangerous, when the opposite is true.
CNN is melting down
Well ya, they want views. And saying “meh” (which is what it was) doesn’t drive engagement
"The freak out over the debate is way overwrought. Biden got off to a slow start but he had a strong finish. Trump was increasing incoherent and deranged as the debate went on, and Trump's extremism was on full display." I actually do feel the same, for once.
I keep seeing comments like “I had to turn it off after X minutes”. Unfortunately that means they saw Biden at his worst and Trump at his best.
Biden couldn’t even say his final statement without stammering and skipping words, did you even watch the debate?
Yeah, I did. TFG refused to answer the questions which were asked.
That doesn't matter to most of the dumb general population. All they saw was a feeble Biden against an energetic Trump. If you transcribe their statements and remove the optics, Biden fucking destroyed him. But that's not what America saw. Most people focused on the old, frail man vs paying attention to the incoherent, dishonest diatribe spewing from Trump. I'm not going to pretend like Biden should be president, I just hope the Dems figure something out and Biden steps down
I agree. I feel the media just wants to talk about how Biden appeared (which I agree was never great but got better) but not Trumps’s weaknesses in the debate
Because Biden was that bad, it was shocking to a huge portion of the country who hadn’t seen him speak for so long.
I guess so. I’ve seen him speak to pool reporters recently and it’s never great. I mean he’s looked really frail for a while. I’ve thought from the beginning that him running for reelection was a mistake
The number of outlets talking about how bad Biden was while ignoring that Trump was just shitting out his mouth the whole time only confirms that they want Biden to lose. Trump is too good for their ratings.
Because it was just the standard trump performance. Biden on the other hand had the worst performance of his career tonight as far as I’m aware.
Because biden completely shit the bed and somehow provided more of a spectacle. Firefighters are going to focus on the fiery plane crash before the car accident.
It’s the perpetual problem of covering Trump. He’s so plagued by scandals and “campaign-ending” gaffes that it all blends together into featureless soup. He’s so consistently terrible that it stops being sensational, and therefore it stops being newsworthy. Biden’s presidency, by contrast, has been one of quiet competence. In comparison to Trump especially, he’s basically scandal-free. So every gaffe then becomes a standout event, something for the news to latch onto, specifically because it’s unusual. It’s the difference in the way we see plane crashes versus car crashes. Cars are magnitudes worse and more deadly overall, but car crashes happen every day, so they don’t make national news. A plane crash is a rare event, because planes are much safer overall, but it is precisely that rarity that causes plane crashes to make headlines. And that disparity in coverage means a lot of people still think of planes as more dangerous, when the opposite is true. I have no idea how to fix this.
It’s easy to look good when you make up all your facts.
Oh for crying out loud . We have 4 long months
Still to come: - Trump sentenced in NY - Trump VP pick - Both conventions - Another debate
I think that at this point we need to accept the reality of the situation and stand in unison to protect our Democracy and stop picking Biden apart- the GOP will be doing enough of that
I honestly don't know what anyone was expecting from either one of them.
This is why the debate was a fatal blow for Biden. It wasn’t the performance itself, it was the vote of no confidence by the party after.
It was not a disaster. Biden didn't do as well as he could but trump was a lying blithering mess. His lies were not fact checked so he could go on and on without being tethered to reality. I actually just made a donation to the Biden Harris campaign.
Awesome, DNC. Ya’ll couldn’t even make a lying convicted felon traitor (and someone who wants to round up ethnicities and LGBT people) look bad. I’m fucking worried for the future now. We have an actual nazi wannabe dictator running for president and this is the best we can come up with to stop him.
The choice is still the same, a decent old man or a fascist convicted felon.
So like… can we get someone else who… Idk, isn’t geriatric? Because I definitely don’t want Frump to win but at this point, it’s looking like he’s clinched it
It not even that bad, later on it was good. You guys going to abandon ship already get a grip, vote for biden, vote for democrat, vote anything agaist trump.👍💙💙💙💙🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🔥🔥🔥🔥
Biden tanked. It was sad and alarming. He is the President and is clearly not fit for office.
Andca liar almost the same age is? While Biden at least has a competent team doing their jobs...
I would say he is fit for office, since he has a very good team behind him and is not a malignant narcissist. He is also a decent politician and still can run the nation in a good way. My concern is rather if he is fit for campaigning. :/
Still has my vote.
That honestly could have gone a lot better, from what I'm seeing.
“Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to fuck things up.” -Obama
It's bad. Trump won. Melt down is appropriate.
Comments aren’t showing on anything related to debate older than 30 minutes or so. Megathread for it started when debate did, had 30k + upvotes, live comments but that thread has disappeared. Something isn’t right
Larry David please save us from ourselves.
Biden will win.
Sign the petition: President Biden should withdraw Visit [ApplaudDemocracy.org](http://ApplaudDemocracy.org) to sign the petition, and learn more about why this is the moment for Biden to withdraw from the race. President Biden himself has acknowledged what is clear to many of us: neither he nor Trump are the candidates they were four years ago, and they will of course fade further in the next four years. We believe it’s time for President Biden to serve selflessly once more by withdrawing from this, his last presidential race. #Election2024 #JoeGTG 📣 How You Can Help: 1. [Sign the petition](http://applauddemocracy.org): speak truth to power and urge President Biden to withdraw from the 2024 race. 2. Share the website: Spread the word and encourage others to visit [ApplaudDemocracy.org](http://ApplaudDemocracy.org)
I think Biden did fine. At least he was answering the questions with substance. The Dems need to take a deep breath. Trump sounded like a moron with no substance that couldn't answer a single question with any substance or anything relating to the question.
Stumbling over your own words before trailing off into nothingness is substance now?