The debate played out pretty much as I expected.
Joe Biden tried to give wonky answers to policy questions while serial sex abuser and convicted felon Donald Trump (SSACFT) lied and lied repeatedly and avoided answering questions, pivoting almost immediately to complaining about the borders, and how everything was great when he was president and has gone to hell under Biden. It was basically the stuff that he says at his rallies.
His shtick was to largely claim that the US is weak and despised around the world because Biden has allowed open borders that allow millions of criminals and insane people into the country who are murdering people. He kept saying that over and over again. The moderators did not do any fact checking at all. The only thing they did was to repeat the question when SSACFT did not answer but then SSACFT would largely ignore it again.
While Biden tried to combat this with data, his presentation was not forceful enough.
On the optics, Biden seemed hesitant and soft-spoken and stumbled occasionally, while SSACFT portrayed confidence even as he flat-out lied. And in the US, since optics tends to win over substance, Biden would not have inspired his supporters with confidence.
Doesn’t see it… but saw the reports saying Dems are panicking. Reports not from Fox or their ilk, but from liberal sources.
I’m the most scared I’ve ever been about an election result.
Gives me flashbacks to the 2000 debates. All the pundits I saw were talking about how Gore was “robotic” and Dubya was folksy and charming and there was very little conversation about whose assertions were actually correct.
“His shtick was to largely claim that the US is weak and despised around the world”.
Mate, you are. (sad to say).
You don’t control your own borders. You owe a trillion dollars more every hundred days or so.
The USA absolutely needs to make some changes -- but the only presidential choice you currently have is the weak and getting weaker Biden (or else the low-Q Harris, if JB dies), versus the ‘orrible SSACFT Trump.
To go for Trump’s spiel in a vacuum you’d have to be rabidly anti-immigrant which is just cluelessly bizarre in a country where almost everyone or their recent ancestors were immigrants. Or you have to be nursing a grievance and want someone to tell you you’re right and they’ll fix it without presenting you any kind of reasonable plan to make good on their promises. I think those are the main two selling points Trump had in the parts of the debate I listened to.
The problem is Trump isn’t running his con game in a vacuum, he’s got lots of support.
I notice there was no real-time fact checking by the hosting media company.
I’ve just pointed this out over at Pharyngula, but it baffles me that these debates and conversations are being had so earnestly FIVE MONTHS before the actual vote.
Over here there is concern from the main parties that the televised debates finished a whole week before the vote, and everyone will have moved on and forgotten what was on display entirely. It seems to stretch credibility beyond breaking point to assume that what happened between Biden and the criminal sex pest this week will seem anything more than a vague impression by November. If you challenged me to tell you what even happened politically in February this year, I’d be hard pressed to recall details.
Of course Trump produced a stream of lies -- after all, he kept opening his mouth to speak. But Biden’s performance unfortunately validated everything Trump and the Trumpoids have been saying about him -- in marked contrast to his last State of the Union address. He mumbled, stumbled and meandered, and missed numerous open goals, failing to respond to Trump’s most egregious lies. It was a disaster -- Republicans just need to keep showing clips from it -- and may well be the moment at which civilisational collapse became inevitable. Senior Democrats need to persuade Jill Biden that her husband must abandon his re-election campaign and release his delegates to the Democratic Convention.
As usual--every accusation is a confession. Trump carried on about Biden taking magical drugs…yet Trump was focused and could string 3 words together. After sundown. I want to know what he took.
Trump didn’t take notes, he didn’t answer the questions, he made constipated-monkey-faces, and he flat-out lied about a lot of things. This is what his base lives for, and as noted above, the fact-checkers…didn’t. Also, the woman frequently referred to him as Mr. Trump or Former President Trump, but the man kept deferring to him as President Trump.
A spurious excuse that’s weak as fuck.
Biden should have been fact-checking.
Imposing himself on the debate. Taking charge.
That is part of the whole point of this sort of debate!
Calling out lies and bullshit.
Pointing out the false narratives.
Pointing out how Trump kept going back to “criminal immigrants’ regardless of the question.
(Saying others had to do it for him so that he wouldn’t seem so feeble is not doing Biden any favours)
I guess that’s one way to look at it.
CBS is too yellow to call out falsehoods during the debate. Their objective is to sell ads by having as many viewers as possible, and fact-checking the rapist would antagonise MAGA viewers.
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There are some Dem politicians with enough name recignition to replace Biden during a brokered party convention but the leading Democrats are too timid to do that.
They are telling voters they should view the election as an existential threat to democracy.
Yet they do not bother to introduce a better candidate*. Because that would be an unfamiliar process, and they are uncomfortable with the unfamiliar. It is almost as if they do not take the threat to democracy seriously.
*I am familiar with the arguments against replacing Biden. But -- unfairly or not- the media is locked into portraying Biden in a particular way, just like they portrayed Jimmy Carter in a particular way November 1980.
@9, John Morales, CNN had agreed to call out lies, just as they agreed to cut off the mic’s of anyone speaking out of turn. And they didn’t. So whatever it is you think you know, it’s not so.
Katydid, you are putting the responsibility for Biden’s dismal performance on CNN.
I know Biden was feeble and meandering and weak and had no punch.
I could type quite a bit, but this basically is my position regarding Biden’s performance:
“A few years ago—maybe even a few months ago—President Joe Biden could have waxed eloquent on foreign policy at a moment’s notice, highlighting the main talking points on a wide range of issues, unraveling their complexities, and persuasively presenting himself as a man who has immersed himself in the subject for decades.
The fact that he failed to do so in Thursday’s debate—that he could not shoot down Donald Trump’s most easily lobbed libels and lies, much less make a coherent case for his approach to the world’s challenges—ranks high among the night’s shockers.
Some Democrats tried to spin it as merely a “bad night.” Some noted that all incumbent presidents have done poorly in their first debates against a challenger. But Biden’s flameout was something else entirely. Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr., Clinton, Bush Jr., and Obama—they all underestimated their opponent and assumed their vaunted status as leader of the free world exempted them from the need to prepare. By contrast, Biden knew what to expect from Trump and reportedly prepared extensively for the debate at Camp David.
The big, possibly irredeemable problem with Biden’s performance—looking every bit his 81 years, feeble, sometimes unable to string together a sentence—was that it seemed to confirm the worst suspicions about whether he’s up for another four years on the job. When reality matches stereotype for a politician, a bad night can turn into a catastrophe.”
—
Basically, this is what I know: I am damn sure that saying others had to do it for him so that he wouldn’t seem so feeble is not doing Biden any favours.
Put it this way; how would your observation (which I am not fact-checking) make any difference to Biden’s performance? If he could have done, he would have done it, no? As he once could.
[oops, citation: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/06/trump-biden-presidential-debate-foreign-policy-high-stakes.html ]
And therefore Biden’s performance can be excused?
(Look: a squirrel!)
BTW: re “just as they agreed to cut off the mic’s of anyone speaking out of turn”
The consensus amongst pundits and observers (and my own perception, also) is that it actually helped Trump much more.
Want me to elaborate on why, Katydid, or are you aware of those perceptions.
I note that Carter is eligible to run. He could hardly have done worse than Biden in the debate.
@birgerjohansson, #11: Which potential Democratic candidates do you think the media *wouldn’t* portray in a negative light at this point, and -- more importantly -- which potential Democratic candidate do you think would get significantly more votes than Biden?