chapotraphouse

No zingers

c'mon responding to Biden saying "We finally beat Medicare" with "Yeah, you beat it to death." was pretty funny

If anyone is capable of losing to Biden at this point, it's Trump.

ah yes, but - if anyone is capable of losing to Trump at this point, it's Biden.

The worst thing that Trump said during the debate was in the brief period when they were talking about Israel. Trump says that Biden should let Israel "finish the job" in Gaza. Trump said that Biden is a Palestinian. Trump uses the label Palestinian as a derogatory word.

Well he's in a bind honestly, going by the people I know that profess to like Trump. They want imaginary stupid things that can't be said out loud without being obviously stupid or contradictory.

Like, he wants to run as anti-war, and also oppose a cease fire in Gaza? He wants credit for Afghanistan but not to accept that losing a war means an embarrassing retreat. He wants to support the Jan 6th people but also not get yelled at for being supportive of overthrowing the government. He's gonna end the war in Ukraine before he even comes in, but the terms Putin is asking for are unacceptable?

You have to keep banging on about immigrants because if you get concrete about anything else someone might notice that it makes no fucking sense.

"Yeah, he beat Medicare. He beat it to death."

I don't know, I liked some of Trump's retorts. He was funny. Biden was just sad.

This debate wasn't about winning over voters, it was about not losing them. Biden's performance will make a lot of people stay at home while Trump was neither here nor there. Overall it's a win for Trump.

Trump v Clinton

Trump v Biden

Trump v Biden (again)

Is the USA really not capable of getting some actually capable candidates on the ballot?

The last time it was actually two normal people was 2012 with Obama v Romney. That's 12 years ago.

There are voters this election that were in kindergarten back then.

The thing about this country is that most of us are a bunch of settlers who need to be humbled on the international stage. We are the bad guys and I feel it's advantageous to the good people of the world that we have an incompetent bumbling idiot as our leader. The sooner Xi fires the nukes the sooner we are to turning the corner on this very sad point in history. As John Brown put it, "the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away, but with blood".

lol no Trump was doing Trump shit which is taking potshots at the competition while selling his sympathizers a fascist fantasy. During the 2016 debates all the libs thought he was losing dismally while he was effectively bodying Clinton because he was following a different playbook. This is why he avoided the questions to veer into culture war shit. His base eats that up. Trump doesn't try to meet the liberal image of a qualified candidate but that's because he's a fascist and doesn't need to.
*Fake French accent* He knows the ridiculousness of his answers but he's amusing himself for it's his adversaries who are obliged to use words responsibly.
Trump did what he needed to do to appeal to his base whereas Biden uh I don't know what the fuck Biden was doing, mostly sundowning I think, but appealing to his base wasn't part of it.

Trump was so civil and together, I think libs are going to eat that shit up, people dont care about policies, these debates are the literal theatre of bourgeois political theatre

Im out here in the peanut gallery, trying to get closer to the SPLASH ZONE 💦

Trump didn't even bother answering a lot of the questions, showing contempt for the whole process. He even at one point said how the whole debate was a waste of time lol

Trump is nowhere close to how he was in 2016, and he reminds me of a aging band just playing the same hits that made them famous 20 years ago. I think if Trump had shown restraint, Biden would've looked even more of a complete trainwreck since I've noticed Biden's senility becomes less noticeable when he's insulting Trump.

But Biden's performance was a fucking trainwreck. Dude can't even stand still without making a memeable face. Trump at least still looks like Trump.

I dunno I saw one clip which was Biden rambling about Trump calling his dead son a useless soldier or something and Trumps rebuttal is just "First off that's a lie, that's not true, I didnt do that, I have 19 witnesses saying I didn't. How crazy would it be if I did that at a cemetery?" And I burst out laughing. Peak posting behaviour.

This is prime stuff https://x.com/fraudhaired/status/1806507775444361686

It doesn't really matter because Trump's hog supporters are equally incoherent in their beliefs.

The whole thing was so fake, like some kind of dream. It's just amazing how it's fake but about real, evil things that the ruling class is actively doing.

Trump is also going senile it's just not as bad as Biden's.

The questions were absolute dogshit as well.

It’s just about selling people a fantasy. Trump has a coherent narrative about coming in and fixing stuff. Biden rambling incoherently about how everyone else would love to be American because the country has it so good already, only plays into Trumps narrative that everything is fucked because the govt. is weak, corrupt and aimless. I think Trump did reasonably well. He can’t really hit Biden too much on policy specifics because the Biden admin is so far right anyway, so it’s more of a vibes thing at this point.

that's exactly it, right? trump is a loser, a sick hog dying in the sun, but liberals need him to be a macho supervillain threat to democracy because they're intent on running the only candidate that could lose to him.

Not gonna lie I was hoping I, personally, would be totally fucked in 3 to 5 years instead of 1 to 4 years. Biden being the oldest man alive on stage sure is making me escaping this country feel even more urgent

Yeah but who votes on the basis of policy? Buttigieg fans?

All that matters when it comes to policy can be condensed into the passions people feel towards, say, roe v wade. You don't need a good candidate there. You don't need reason or proposals. You just need to be on the podium and make sure not to demoralize your team. Biden is incapable of that. Barring some unforeseen demographic situation in the electoral college, Trump can totally cruise to election.