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By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
‘Tis dangerous when the baser nature comes
Between the pass and fell incensèd points
Of mighty opposites. William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 5, Scene 2
The Time: “The debate will start at 9 p.m. EDT Tuesday and is expected to last 90 minutes.”
The Place: “The National Constitution Center in Philadelphia will take center stage in the race for the White House Tuesday as it hosts the first and only scheduled presidential debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump.” And how ridiculous that there’s only one debate. No doubt the loser will want a rematch, but the winner will refuse to grant one.[1]
The Rules: “ABC’s rules, first shared with the campaigns last month, largely mirror the format of CNN’s presidential debate in June between Trump and President Joe Biden, during which the candidates’ microphones were muted as their opponent spoke. It was a rule that the Biden campaign had insisted on but something the Harris campaign had sought to change after she became a presidential candidate. The network’s rules also state that there will be no audience, the candidates will not be permitted to have written notes, no staff can visit them during the two commercial breaks and the candidates cannot ask questions of one another.” And: “ABC said only the moderators will be permitted to ask questions. Each candidate will be allotted two minutes to answer each question with a two-minute rebuttal, plus an additional minute for a follow-up, clarification or response.” Funny how the mike rule now favors Trump, even though the Biden camp insisted on it.
Interestingly, both candidates have a similar weakness: Kamala, for word salad (honestly, “Exhausted about the division” isn’t English), and Trump, for what I call “jazzy riffing” (and what some specialists, perhaps tendentiously, call “tangentiality“). Trump’s riffing, however, has staying power; he can keep it up for ninety minutes, easily. About Kamala’s staying power, I’m not so sure.
Before the Biden vs. Trump debate, I wrote:
What I will be watching for — besides, I admit it, waiting for Biden to slip a cog or an “Oh, the humanity!” moment from Trump, plus both debaters duking it out, blow-by-blow, ZOMG the spectacle!! — will be how the candidates appeal, or have been managed or chivvied into appealing, to the small numbers of persuadable voters in the swing states (and from their appeals, perhaps to reverse engineer the future course of the race). For some reason, I’ve been watching Moneyball clips lately; this is an especially good one: “People who run ball clubs, they think in terms of buying players. Your goal shouldn’t be to buy players, your goal should be to buy wins. And in order to buy wins, you need to buy runs.” Those small numbers of persuadable voters are the runs.
Of course, Biden actually did slip a cog, majorly, so the debate seemed rather pointless after that, and I never saw what I said I would watch for. Perhaps this time!
However, if I had to imagine what one might call a decisive moment — Trump having achieved two, one with Clinton, and one with Biden, knocking the latter out of the race — I can see two possibilities.
First, Kamala. If Kamala comes out with a superbly crafted and confidently delivered statement for the prosecution, using the word “felon” a lot, Trump would need to knock it down, hard (the recent revelation that Bragg’s PR dude thinks that Bragg’s case was a crock should help here. Fani’s, too). She’ll need some assistance from the moderators to do this early, however.
Second, Trump. As we know, Trump has a genius for sensing weakness in others. He has yet to display this with Kamala. My pet theory of that case: Trump spokesperson Alvarez recently said that “the American people know ‘who Trump is,’ but ‘what we don’t know is Kamala Harris,” but I would take that further: The case can be made that Kamala doesn’t know who she is. It’s great to be Indian, Black, and a mixed-race person of color. What’s not great is to shift, chameleon-like, from the first, to the second, to the third, depending on the campaign. There’s also Kamala’s shifts on policy from 2019 to today. Surely Medicare for All and fracking are big enough issues that one might take a considered stand upon them that lasted more than three years? And then there’s the plagiarism issue: If Kamala really knows what she stands for, why on earth plagiarize Biden’s platform? And then there’s the oh-so-authentic collard greens and spices thing. What’s up with that? I don’t know how to reduce that to a debate zinger, but if I had to pick Kamala’s weakness, that’s what it would be.
Oh, and volatility is the central feature of this election, despite all efforts to keep things stable. It follows that the debate will be volatile, as the last one was.
P.S. I wonder if Melania releasing a clip on the attempt to assassinate Trump will be a topic in the debate. That should be interesting!
NOTES
[1] More on the National Constitution Center from WikiPedia:
The National Constitution Center is a non-profit institution that is devoted to the study of the Constitution of the United States. Located at the Independence Mall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the center is an interactive museum which serves as a national town hall, hosting government leaders, journalists, scholars, and celebrities who engage in public discussions, including Constitution-related events and presidential debates.
The groundbreaking ceremony was held on September 17, 2000, the 213th anniversary of the signing of the Constitution.
Frankly, I find the whole notion a little unsettling. If the Constitution were truly a living document, would there be a museum devoted to it? My sense of unease is reinforced by another detail:
Prior to its closure in December 2019, the Newseum, a journalism-themed museum in Washington D.C., had featured a four-story-tall stone panel inscribed with the text of the First Amendment as part of its exterior design. The Freedom Forum, a nonprofit organization that created the museum, announced in March 2021 that the panel would be dismantled and donated to the National Constitution Center for display in its second-floor atrium.
So the First Amendment was the first one to go….
308 comments
Comments are closed.
I think he should attack her for being an empty vessel with no policies. She’ll crumble if pushed to explain policy I believe.
He may just hammer the progressive liberal commie thing. Not sure how fruitful that is in terms of swing state votes. Maybe just fruitful enough?
I have to admit to a frisson of excitement at the idea of the Kamala vibes train derailing in a cloud of word salad.
doesn’t look like that’s happening. she is certainly talking policy as well as he is which is to say not well at all. she is vague and he is bombastic; both of them are liars.
I will say her vibe is better than Hillary’s
9:42 he’s getting rattled
the moderators are doing better than most
Waiting in the virtual crowd for this debate to start.
I live cheek-by-jowl with a whole buch of MSNBC liberals–many of whom are family and good friends–and I’m doubtful that audience will be able to hear anything that contradicts their deeply-held “joy” about Kamala.
Eschaton’s Douglas Black observed earlier today that the debates have become so “meta” that the real audience is the pundits and the “journalists” who simply enter quotes into their pre-writes.
The joy of watching a couple of master debaters at the zenith of their game, ah!
Let the BBee handle it: Nation Eagerly Anticipates Two Brightest Minds In Country Meeting In Respectful, Productive Dialogue
ABC debate stream on YouTube
If it accomplishes nothing else, this has already given my wife a half day off with pay. Parkway Central free library (the main library) sent everybody home at noon.
I’m not sure I’m aware of anybody who cares about Chris Christie’s opinion.
Chris Christie
20 seconds of ABC and I’m ill already. I should have gotten that bottle of hootch. This is a different planet to the one I thought I was on.
Kamala is that you?
Nope, Lucy Parsons here.
I gotta do Max Sweat workout tomorrow or I’d already be drunk, honestly. I guess there’s always 2028.
Ten minutes in and I’m turning the sound off. Y’all listen to it so I don’t have to. There is nothing either one could say that would convince me to vote for either one of them. Full stop.
I haven’t done debates in years and years, I’m taking one for the team this time!
Lol! It sure is a different planet all right. 10 minutes already and I’m ready to check out episodes of Bonanza or Andy Griffith show.
Harris and Trump have never met each other before now. I didn’t know that.
For a voter like me–a Bernie volunteer in 2020 and someone who subsequently ran for and won local public office after being thoroughly disabused of my hopes for the Democrat Party–I am watching this debate by bracing for thoroughly deranged talking points from both candidates.
She has a plan to lift up the working class and middle class. Believes in our aspirations.
And the tired old Opportunity Economy. Sounds like Biden.
Wow, a tax cut for families for people with families, only. I can go bite myself. That’s great, thank you. Hooray, small businesses! Congrats on living small businesses. A tax deduction! Which I also don’t get. Thanks again.
Why not let Trump describe what his plan is. Who cares about the deficit? Only the beltway. Defining Trump’s plan for him is a nice strategy though.
This is gonna be a long night; nice Trump rebuttal that Harris was “incorrect” on his plan.
Trump off to a great start though man. Owning it.
Wow. Blaming Trump on the Pandemic when Biden murdered more people. They didn’t clean up nothing. That’s why I hate these debates. It is just lies.
She’s certainly gonna be the president to murder all Americans stochastically, true statement there at least.
She’s quoting what Goldman Sachs said her plan woudl do. LOL wow.
Sounds like a stump speech
“Trump Sales Tax” is nice, but she botched the rhetorical support for her position.
Yes, she needed to call them tariffs and then explain why they would be an effective sales tax..
Each candidate is hemmed in by their oligarch backers, and many such are shared. Imo this will be short of policy and long on personal attacks by both.
Wow. Trump mentioned 1917! His record on COVID is good. Nice.
Again, no one I know who is watching this “debate” is going to even hear what Trump just said.
They are ringing the changes.
This is a disaster for Trump. Visually. Harris is lovely, high-cheekboned, speaking directly into the camera. Trump looks like a wrinkled frat boy who just took off his goggles.
He is effective when speaking, but the constant scowl he makes while she speaks may hurt him.
On second thought, it seems like his look away approach while listening is designed to avoid giving any chance of a photo of him looking at Kamala while she is looking at him and scolding.
not a good strategy: as a mother I can verify that he looks like a sullen adolescent who came in after curfew and doesn’t want to hear about it
I’m not watching, just listening. And Trump is nailing Harris on their economic policy. Whatever she says, the economy sucks today. Trump has a winner on that.
He pointed out that she copied and pasted her economy policy as well; someone in his campaign is paying attention.
The lies are hilariously brazen though. Trump calling her a Marxist. Harris wouldn’t know what Marxism even is. Nor would Trump.
That nasal voice of hers drives people away.
She comes across as smug and self righteous. Not a winning look.
I agree. Her sarcastic smirk really doesn’t work for her.
not as bad as Hillary though!
That smirk is going to get old quickly…
I’m going to bed.
6 minutes in and I’m tired of listening to both of them.
Comment on “opportunity economy” — this reminds of an MMT meme about training dogs to better compete among themselves for a pool of bones that is smaller than the number of dongs.
Aside comment: if what I have heard of DJT’s tariff concept, using punitive tariffs in place of sanctions, is true, it sounds like it might be an improvement on current approaches to economic warfare.
DJT: China will pay the tariffs. Umm, I think not — the importer pays the tariffs, I think.
Depends on the elasticity of the good which largely depends on demand and alternative sources of competition and substitution
I think that in the context of China the low-cost producer and Chinese manufacturers generally operating on thin margins (my information is dated, but I suspect that this is probably still roughly correct), there is little room for price reduction at the seller end or substitution of lower cost product from other nations.
In that context, the tariff will be added to the price the US consumer sees.
In context of China trade, DJT is IMO either lying or bullsh!tting when saying that the tariff will be paid by the exporter. Conceivably he’s using “pay” in a more metaphorical sense, the idea that China will suffer because of the tariffs imposed on imports. But what most hearers hear is that the consumer will not see a price rise because the cost will be borne by the Chinese exporters, which is not true.
IMO both of them often elide the truth, when they’re not actively obfuscating it.
Someone else noted in this thread, “we get the government we deserve.”
Franklin (I think) said, “I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just.”
Not happy this AM after the debate.
Harris is tripling down on Americans not having a clue. Quoting Goldman Sachs in a debate? And this is the Communist?
Would love to see both of their entire stock portfolios.
Calling her a communist gives us commies a bad name.
Just so long as they don’t call her a socialist I’m OK with it. #gramsci
This is really hard to watch.
LOL
#TheStruggleIsREAL
The is vacuous on both side. Ringing the Marxist bell.
DJT: KDH a Marxist (her father is a Marxist)
riffing on immigration.
(Ah, but how otherwise would we replace the workers disabled by Long COVID?)
she seemed nervous at start, some stumbling over her words
but now he is looking increasingly angry as she manages not to lose her cool
I think they’re both idiots btw
Kamala Harris got better and better as the night wore on. Trump got more and more angry and incoherent. The nonsense about people eating pets in Ohio was absurd. His evidence was that he saw it on TV! What a dolt.
She was coherent and got her points across. He was all over the map. He claimed she hated both Israelis and Arabs in the ME. His forecast for the ME sounds like a horrible Armageddon. She said that world leaders all laughed at him. His character witness was Victor Orbon! LOL.
She often looked right at him when she leveled charges at him. He never could look at her. After nine years he still hasn’t a health care plan. He said he has “concepts” of a plan. Sheesh.
> His character witness was Victor Orbon! LOL.
I don’t know enough about Orban to have a strong opinion about his character, but it seems to me that from the standpoint of “governance in the interest of the people to whom you are accountable”, he might be better than most of the European leaders who have been laughing at DJT.
Orban wants to facilitate a realistic soon end of the UKR/RF conflict. The rest of Europe protests, “Orban does not speak for us!” Orban is authoritarian, but the rest of Europe seems to be moving in that direction too, though toward a different political pole of authoritarianism.
It’s sort of like DJT and the rest of the US political class.
Trump’s immigration position is widely popular and also mostly perceived as reasonable with American workers who understand that their jobs and/or their wages are at risk when corporations know that they are able to replace white-collar and blue-collar workers being paid American wages with desperate immigrants who can mostly cover the work.
It’s a Marxian position to relieve pressure on wages by capital faced with the law of diminishing returns. Trump is a Marxist.
It is not a “Marxian” position; it is a part of a Marxist critique, straight out of Ricardo, of the development of capitalism as opposed to what one might anticipate in free markets
“When Congress passes a bill to codify Roe v Wade”
There’s a leap of faith.
She is laughing at him.Is she getting under his skin? She has a plan! And the plan is?
The abortion response by Trump is great in terms of returning it to the states, though. The made up stuff about Democrat gaiety killing babies at 9 months is the usual insanity.
Meanwhile, does Harris actually care about abortion, despite her passionate speech? Biden was out to lunch when Roe v. Wade disappeared. For a month, before they reacted. And they had a heads up. And she’s claiming there will be an abortion ban, and a national monitor of women’s pregnancies.
It’s amazing how much of this is just people making stuff up.
Bringing it back to the states does come off as a reasonable compromise.
And Trump gets to claim he supports pro life and with it at the states, he won’t ever have to face signing any national abortion legislation anyway. Thus his personal position can be discounted.
It seems most of this debate is just going to be a debate about abortion. Fun.
And IVF is a topic. I recall IM Doc mentioning that it is both very expensive and not terribly effective. What a niche topic to even discuss in the midst of an ongoing Pandemic, inflation, genocide.
Abortion debate being returned to states is legally and “politically” apropriate, but a PR loser, though. Somehow, Roe v. Wade came to be enshrined as something that affirmatively gave women the right to abortion, not a legal expedient where the judges had trouble finding where that “right” came from (there was a majority that agreed that it should be a right, conditionally–but they couldn’t agree on what the legal source of that right was) and pretty much every legal scholar agreed that it was a lousy law as far as the Constitution goes. Most legal scholars accept that it would be best if abortion was made into a right via legislative means–preferably at Congressional level. Of course, congressional politicians didn’t want to touch that, b/c the American public has always been schizophrenic on this (the popular opinion is still that this is not a good thing, but that it’s wrong for the government to ban or unduly restrict it–kinda like the views on free speech, actually: people don’t like certain speech, but they are wary of gov’t restricting it, and this has a lot clearer Constitiutional basis, unlike abortion.)
Babies die after birth all over the world by not offering any care or treatment if they are “damaged”. Not very different from the Spartan approach to infant health.
Her boss, if you can call him a boss, he’s always on the beach!
Didn’t take long. Already won buzzword bingo less than 10 min
I feel that I need an encyclopedic knowledge of US politics/policy/legislative/executive history to make sense of DJT’s remarks, to identify the referents. I find it difficult to figure out what he is talking about.
Some bits of truth shine through, such as the impossibility of Congressional action to codify Roe v Wade.
——-
KDH aggrieved tone may be effective. DJT sounds cross; KDH coming across to my ears as “righteously indignant”
Both mics on now?
> ” difficult to figure out what he is talking about.”
I have been wondering whether this rhetorical style might be “adaptive” in the sense that the (IMO) confusion that characterizes the statements allows sympathetic hearers to project onto them what they think he is talking about; the sympathetic will tend to be biased toward interpreting “unclear-referent” remarks sympathetically.
The unsympathetic are not going to respond favorably whether the rhetoric is clear or confusing, but confusing rhetoric leaves open the option that one can later defend oneself with “you misinterpreted what I meant!”
We saw this (albeit in a case of not-confusing rhetoric) last night when Muir asked DJT about prior remarks in which he seemed to acknowledge that he had indeed (albeit only very narrowly) lost the 2020 election. DJT replied that Muir had misinterpreted a remark intended as sarcasm to have been a factual statement. It’s a win-win: DJT earns some credit for honesty and respect for democratic process in “at face value” interpretation of the prior remark, but when faced with the “gotcha” of admitting the politically embarrassing reality that he recognizes that he actually did not win in 2020, he can backtrack and maintain his posture of righteous victimhood.
DJT has been described as a “bullsh!tter,” for whom the factual content of vocalizations is beside the point (not a truth-teller but also not a liar, for whom it is important to affirm something opposite to what is truth). I think that the rhetorically confusing style may be somewhat protective for this approach to content, in that it leaves open the option to later defend oneself as “misunderstood” rather than as “caught out in falsehood.”
———-
Unclarity and ambiguity are not great in negotiation with dangerous adversaries. I hope that they are not characteristic of his official communications.
Harris showing some trial lawyer chops w/r/t abortion. I think she won on this.
Just noticed that Kamala Harris’s mic was not muted when Trump was speaking…
So far the highlight for me was “Run, spot, run!”. I doubt they’re going to set any records for gravitas if I keep watching.
It ain’t no Licoln-Douglas debate…
Linkin Douglass. There, fixed it for you.
OMG the Harris smile and laugh is doing a lot of good work here. Trump has revealed himself and being insane. Let’s hope Harris doesn’t take the bait.
Regardless of any other bullshit, I judge Trump’s sanity and honesty by his repeated refusal to state if he wanted Ukraine to win the war against Russia and by the fact that the death toll has been high and he wants to stop the killing, full stop. He knows that the war is lost and I wish he had stated that clearly, but in the context of the debate it would have been used against him by his rather less realistic opponent sticking to her attack lines, including the stupid one one about Putin sitting in Kiev and eyeing up Poland, et al, as dessert, which demonstrates how unrealistic and dangerous her foolishness is if she were to be elected.
As a Brit, the longer this war goes on, the more likely we are to slip into a series of nuclear exchanges and it is not difficult to name three targets on Russia’s UK hit list which will leave NATO’s forces in great difficulty. Russia will also have to hit the coastal states of the USA to drive it’s point home, plus US bases in Germany, Kosovo,Rumania &c. If the US were to respond, human life will be over and the planet will either die or life will deveop in the seas, But maybe that has been God’s plan all along.
Kamala Harris is also one of only two people on stage who sit down to pee. Bragging up Goldman Sachs and now her prosecutorial record? This is topic changing at the pro level. PBS tried to give her the advantage on the switcheroo and Trump is being Trump.
Really wish I had some acid, this would have been a weird trip.
Missed this one. Kept referring to PBS when I meant ABC because I was watching the PBS stream.
I watch so little televised news that both moderators were unknowns to me.
“They’re eating the pets!”
omg
Family blog both these twats. I’m done.
Yea, we went ’till a bit after the 1st commercial, couldn’t take much more. I will note that the “moderators” have not “fact checked” Harris yet. They’ve done it a few time to Trump. Of course they both are lying often.
This is the best we got??? Off to Dodger baseball.
He loves his rallies. That’s hilarious. She tried to dump on people leaving his rallies early. I love how he keeps pivoting to immigration. Claiming the immigrants are eating the pets of people that live there, lol. When does cannibalism come next? This is nuts. And he is emphatic that immigrants are eating people’s pets. Harris can only laugh. True story.
Harris gets an endorsement from 200 Republicans. WOW she mentions Dick Cheney! What a dunk that must have been? Harris is all in on War Criminals.
LOL he doesn’t answer how he’s gonna depart 13 million or whatever people. Not a surprise. You can’t do that anyway.
“I think is so rich, coming from someone that is being prosecuted” says Harris. Smart to bring that up.
This debate is such a joke, honestly. Trump’s lies are epic. But Harris is of course lying as well.
Why hasn’t Biden addressed any of this stuff?
You have to admit, Harris’ lyes are ultrasonic as well.
DJT boasting about “size” (of rallies).
Immigrants eating host cities’ household pets. I have no idea what is the story behind this, but it sounds like a thing that isn’t worthy of mention in a Presendential campaign
DJT managed to completely dodge the question about his intervention to stop an immigration bill in the Senate.
I find it difficult to tell which stories are true these days, but if the pet eating is true-ish, it may have originated here:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/01/nyregion/manlius-ny-swan-eaten.html
I think the ducks and household pets thing is extremely meme-able and will hang around. It is tangential to any presidential level issue, but it is at least as worthy of mention as the couch joke.
The thing about pets being eaten was a fake news story circulating earlier this week. It was supposed to have happened in some town that had a lot of Haitian migrants. Someone called the fish and wildlife department in that town and they said nope, it isn’t happening. But the story had gotten out anyway. There was a thread about it (now deleted) on a non-politics forum that I frequent.
Web search immediately finds Snopes:
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/cats-ducks-haitians-springfield/
It shows that Trump and Vance trust the people rather more than the MSM or a city manager trying to keep a lid on a highly tense situation.
Trump talks about migrants eating pets from first hand reports of owners.
Moderator says city manager has no reports of this (the bureaucracy is always right!)
Kamala: (Giggle) talk about extreme!
Hmm, technocrats stepping up to edge of the deplorables volcano.
DJT now boasting about “size” (of number of votes).
pivot to immigration as the question topic
“millions of criminals”, terrorists, common street criminals, drug dealers. Crime is way down everywhere else because the criminals have come to US.
Again, my lack of encyclopedic knowledge is hindering my comprehension, I don’t know whether it’s true, lies, or just bullsh!t.
Christ, Harris sounds absolutely Victorian in her disdain for Trump’s criminal record. I don’t sound that white on Syttende Mai!
K now stepping out onto the ice of DJT being prosecuted for national security crimes
Whereas she has covered up Biden being to incompetent to stand trial on similar charges!
Trump: I am winning most of those cases and I will win the rest on appeal. It’s weaponisation. Comes out swinging!
K: let’s talk about extremes.
Looks like Extreme is on the Bernays bingo card. Continuity “centrists” for the win.
Not sure a single vote will be changed by any of this.
Best…H
Now the Prosecutor exploits the lawfare. “34 felony counts”
“Address bringing down the price of groceries” Sort like “fighting for lower prices.”
It’s the journey, not the destination, that matters.
KDH asked to comment on the lawfare. Avoids the question and criticizes a SCUS decision on presidential immunity.
I’m with Walter on this one…
I was thinking of another scene involving a baseball bat and a car except we the people are the ones getting f*cked
Oh boy. She’s proud of supporting fracking. That seals it, I’m voting for Stein.
Wow, Harris just drove it home hard that she’s the anti-environmentalist, frack baby frack candidate. Standing up for the vulnerable, except when it’s COVID, and then stochastic eugenics is the way forward. So glad she’s gonna be a president that lifts people up.
I’m glad we’re clear on that, that Harris doesn’t care about Climate change.
Trump: “wait a minute, I’m talking now, does that sound familiar?” — ouch.
Meanwhile Trump claims she’s gonna kill all fracking. Which is hilarious, because that’s not even gonna be a thing. Both parties support Big Oil.
KDH: asked to comment on policy flip/flops.
KDH favoring fracking. Tapwater drinkers everywhere rejoice.
Middle class upbringing. Raised by hardworking mother; doesn’t mention the university professor father (perhaps to avoid another “Marxist!” outburst from DJT).
Strength is in lifting people up (unless they’re on the Progressive Left; those have to be beaten down, still).
If “value” was one of the drinking words I’m going to have to throw away the cap on this bottle.
DJT charging KDH with being the environmental candidate.
We did it like nobody in history has ever done it before. People, the best people, come to me and ask how we did it, they’re like totally amazed, they say they can’t believe how great we did, and Biden was a complete failure and everybody is sick of him because he got kicked out in a coup, which was illegal in case you didn’t know…..
They’re coming here, eating foetuses, she loves migrants, so many dead babies and all because she hates America…. you’ll even have to make your dog transgender, if she gets in, oh it’ll be bad…so very bad. Imagine, migrants in your city, transgendering foetuses and eating them? That’s what she wants. And the police, oh the police, she wants to take their guns, replace them with solar panels, the poor police, because Marxists hate the constitution, and under me it was a great constitution, but they ruined it all…
Thank you both! This is hilarious!
Gosh, this is great! You cost me some soup, though….
Keeping this to chew on for dark days ahead! Ha. Thanks
You know sometimes he scans like William Carlos Williams.
We did it like nobody
in history
has ever done it before.
People
the best people
come to me and ask
how we did it
they’re like totally amazed
they say they can’t believe
how great we did
and Biden was a complete failure
and everybody is sick of him
because he got kicked out in a coup
which was illegal
in case you didn’t know…
> he scans like William Carlos Williams
Wow. I have to sit down for that one. Anyone care to do a This Is Just To Say parody?
The Haitians have eaten
the cats
that were in Ohio
And which Biden
was saving for
the transgender aliens
My plan is a brilliant plan
A great plan
So genius
And so stable
Peaceful transfer of power question!
Lol, President Trump, when did you stop beating your wife / electoral college?
And now Kamala was there, as victim, in the desecrated Capitol. 140 law officers were injured. And now Charlottesville. A mob with tiki torches – I think she misjudged how unominous a tiki torch is, unless she’s afraid of cannibals. :-)
“Attacking the foundations of our democracy because you don’t like the outcome.” Oh the irony, Kamala.
There is one thing I don’t understand about Trump’s responses here. Why did Trump not say that, just as Nixon refused to question the Illinois and Texas returns in 1960, and Gore accepted the Supreme Court judgement for the sake of the institution of the Presidency, he did question the returns to protect the institution of the Presidency because he foresaw that Biden would use an unclean victory to damage, not only the Presidency, but would undermine the Constitution as well, plunge the country into supporting insane wars in which millions would die and allow a genocide using vast numbers of US weapons against the weakest of the weak, and he knew it was and is his constitutional duty to query the Biden crime family’s legal right to the Presidency against the right of the peoople to be served by the President they had elected by the system laid down by the Founding Fathers?
DJT asked about any regrets on Jan 6.
pivots back to immigration — so many violent people coming in; so much worse than Jan 6. Crime rates down everywhere else ’cause US is importing the criminals.
KDH cites bill of particulars of DJT sympathy with some nasty actors,
Ha, Trump is painting a picture of taking K to Washington DC and waking Biden from his afternoon nap to sign a bill to close the border.
Why do I think of the movie “Idiocracy” while watching this bizarre event?
Yeah. Weren’t these better in the past? This is more like theater. Trump really does just make up random stuff. Harris is far more coherent, even though there’s no reason to trust her any further than you could throw her.
This really is a disgrace. This country is in terminal decline.
Wow. The rape. Harris believes the rape line. This is Harris full throated support of genocide? Nope, she’s splitting the difference. Talking about a cease fire deal, but the end of this is the US stopped weapons shipments, so it is a lie. And the two state solution is dead at this point. There is no credible two state solution, the Israeli’s don’t want it. And she will always give Israel the ability to defend itself, so that means weapons for genocide forever. Fun times.
Meanwhile Trump claims Harris “hates” Israel. And that she is going to end Israeli as as country.
This debate is farce.
What a screwed up country that both candidates have to demonstrate complete fealty to Israel, a state that would not even exist without US support.
And trying to out-national-security each other.
because we are living the Idiocracy dystopia. Turns out having media oligopolies and a networked supercomputer in nearly first-worlder’s pocket was a bad idea.
There was a scene in a “Buck Rogers” (1970’s NBC show) episode when Buck cleans house at Blackjack because in the future people can’t do simple math in their head…
we have something like that now with social media, wikipedia, and “timelines”/”feeds” on phones….people are fed (and seek out) content that matches their worldview (reflexivity). And people seek identity with “their tribe” to compensate for the anonymity/atomization of real-life.
I wish some of my favorite dead pundits were alive to witness/comment on the current state of the world (Art Critic Robert Hughes, Tim Russert, mathematician Jacob Bronowski, art historian Kenneth Clark, physicist Richard Feynman, Carl Sagan)
Yes. And because the jesters have always told the truth without fear, would love to hear from Molly Ivins, Mike Royko, and George Carlin on the current rat’s-nest of fools at the helm of humanity’s ship.
I keep thinking Bill Hicks would bring the proper clarity to this. RIP.
Simple math at the check out or at the popular chain restaurant…yeah the person at the register does not really need the math skill or capacity if the numbers get correctly punched into the machine in front. Alas…many times these past few years and pre Covid too, it went sideways.
I’d encourage any young child or teenager to focus on math and STEM. You may not go far but I always see roles posted for staff accountant or a GL accountant…
Or just follow some gal or dude on TikTok who instructs the “youts” in a cool manner.
George carlin would have a field day
I am actually starting to change my opinion of her. I kind of think my face turned into a rictus grin as I have listened to Trump’s horseshit tonight and that may be why she also has those grimaces towards him. My brother just text me “He is fucking nuts”.
ABC moderation is horrible. Not even trying to be even handed.
Definitely going to give Trump fans and conspiracy types a lot to work with…
Truth fans and fact fans will have a lot to work with. The ill-defined “conspiracy type” trope is inarticulate and cliché.
Speaking times definitely indicate otherwise. They also did not allow Harris to respond as much as Trump. Lastly – the moderators were taking so many more shots at Trump. Trump just has unfortunately inability to stay focused or tell the truth
Trump turns the “I’m talking now” line on Harris (from 20s in)
ABC now participating in the debate with follow ups to their follow up factchecking.
Harris mocking Trump for not listening to the courts is “deeply troubling and the American people deserve better.”
The moderator, Muir, is now debating Trump.
You could argue that this 3v1 now, which will probably be a Repub talking point after this.
Trump is a mess, going off the topic (which I don’t care that much about I guess) and tossing out a lot of complaints but often coming back to immigration. And I just don’t think people rank immigration all that highly.
Also, get ready for a lot of ads that play a clip of “THERE EATING OUR CATS AT DOGS”.
I think we can put a fork in DJT*.
*Events!
DJT using “bill” in place of “executive order” re: closure of the border by presidential order.
2020 election: DJT maintains he won. intersection of fraudulent voting with illegal immigration.
KDH: questions temperamental fitness of DJT to serve; connection to reality
DJT boasting that he intimidated China, N Korea, Russia.
DJT noting the antidemocratic character of KDH’s nomination.
Israel/Hama next (head in hands)
> 2020 election: DJT maintains he won. intersection of fraudulent voting with illegal immigration.
Bad idea then, bad idea now.
K: I have talked to world leaders, they say you are a disgrace.
Playing the man, not the ball. Very playground. Kamala has nothing in the policy tank but Orange Man Bad!
I hope, if they are going low, Trump goes lower and says something about K climbing to the top in California on her back and knees.
K: Israel has a right to defend itself….
did you not notice the comment above yours?
“DJT boasting that he intimidated China, N Korea, Russia.”
he opened the door, she just went through it.
If I remember correctly, she had baited the trap by claiming he had sent love notes to Kim Il Jong. Or did that come next? It was 3am and the hay called!
My expectations for Harris were really low. I’ve never seen a substantial clip of her speaking. All I’ve heard is she does “word salads”. The fact that she can make points in complete sentences (no mater how empty the points), has to be a win for Harris
I think that’s true. The bar was set pretty low for her. Most of the country doesn’t have the critical thinking skills to separate empty rhetoric from substance.
That was also my interpretation of her performance. Thin gruel and I have no idea whether or not it moves the needle very much.
> The fact that she can make points in complete sentences (no mater how empty the points), has to be a win for Harris
True. I’ve heard and read the word salads, too. Not tonight, though.
That moderator is something else. It’s obvious that Trump is in enemy territory here.
Israel/Hamas
How would KDH pressure Israel toward a resolution
“We will continue to work around the clock.” “2-state solution”, “will always arm Israel”
dodges the question of how to pressure toward a resolution
DJT: asked same question. Answer — “If I had been president, the problem would not have arisen”. Pivots to attacking KDH for anti-Israel sentiment.
Both of them dodge the question of actual policies to pressure the Netanyahu government
no kidding. I’ve seen enough. I was just curious if he would be able to intimidate/rattle her as he did Hillary and Jeb!, little Marco, etc.
the answer is no
> I was just curious if he would be able to intimidate/rattle her as he did Hillary and Jeb!, little Marco, etc. the answer is no
Yep. Pretty amazing that he intimidated Clinton but not Kamala.
Of course, because there is no possible resolution to this problem other than war, clearly. I see no reason to think otherwise. The “two-state solution” died with the Oslo process and the rest of the policy is to make Palestinians suffer, get tortured, killed, starved, and terrorized. There can only be, therefore a one-state solution and that cannot, considering the fanatical people who largely populate Israel, include any Palestinians so war is inevitable at some point–won’t happen now for strategic reasons if it happens it will happen after the election–probably after someone is crowned President.
Awful stuff. Kamala is a better liar than Trump, hands down she’s been coached up by talented professionals and it works. Trump is just ranting. The POS that is moderating (the guy) clearly has picked a side.
Still both candidates are bad. I’m embarrassed as an American on the one hand and, on the other, it discredits the central government which is the best hope for mankind, i.e., a weakened imperial center that looks ridiculous may be progress (I hope).
“Flattery and favors.” Hey it worked for Willie Brown.
There’s a bad follow up to this given one of what Brown “scored” was on the stage tonight….
A real shame none of the networks invited Biden to provide live commentary of the debate as it was happening. Would have rounded out the comedic value of it all.
Trump repeating himself is tiresome but Harris using repetition as bullet points is the definition of “canned.”
g’night
Trading insults about competence re: national security
DJT churlishly declines to give JRB credit for the destruction of Nord Stream II. Inexplicably, KDH doesn’t claim this policy success either.
On the Nord Stream issue, not surprising.
Can’t admit the US were involved.
They confirmed for me why I cannot vote for either with their :answers” on the Gaza question.
The commercial break/intermission is refreshing; sadly it is relatively short.
Did you get ads for ‘joker – follie a deux’. Very meta
I did!
But because of how I had arranged my windows, I did not see the “folie a deux’ subtitle.
How wonderfully appropriate! One suspects that someone at ABC perceived the opportunity to prank the duopoly. At least I hope someone did; it would make me feel slightly more hopeful about the future to know that there are people in the media who perceive the sh!tshow character of this campaign.
Harris right now is coming across as just straight-up lying about everything she’s saying about Israel’s depraved and ghastly genocide in Gaza. I’m analyzing her performance, not her actual words. She clearly doesn’t really care about what she’s saying. This is where I feared this “debate” would go. There was never going to be a voice of peace in this debate, but Trump goaded Harris–who went willingly down the garden path–into doubling down on the “right of Israel to defend itself.”
During the commercial break, ABC ran a Harris political ad.
Both can’t love Israhell enough. Trump bleating she hates Israel.
That and fracking support. The poisoned ground water presidencies.
Fake numbers and more. Billions and billions, nobody knows like I do. He is coming off the rails and how can you negotiate a treaty with a power if you are president elect?
Trump sounds quite angry and at times incoherent. I wish that RFK Jr. were the nominee.
I think he’s frustrated that she is not intimidated or rattled by him.
she speaks in platitudes, he makes delusional boasts and threats.
neither represents me.
but I do think the moderators are acquitting themselves pretty well
moderators are acquitting themselves pretty well…..
Huh??? It’s 4 against one. Have they “fact checked” Harris yet? Nope.
“We have a president who doesn’t know he’s alive.” LOL!
Trump preaching a kind of peace, and Harris making a fool of herself talking about Ukraine.
I would have liked to be a fly on the wall listening to Zelenski’s reaction to her.
Did the commercials on ABC News at intermission make anyone feel stupid? This is the garbage that’s on TV these days? Deity help us all.
Wow, if Putin wins, he might move into further countries. Oh noes! He’s right about the uselessness of the war in Ukraine. Ha. So Trump wants NATO countries to pay up. That’ll fix Ukraine. That’s funny, everyone respects Trump. So respected. So Trump is gonna settle it. He’s gonna get ’em together, and stop the war, lol.
Honestly, I wish I had gotten drunk as balls watching this. This is horrific to watch.
Trump is right about where is Biden, what happened to him? Thrown out like a dog.
Maybe he really does believe that these are wasted lives. Who knows.
Harris accuses Trump of wanting to give up the war. Do any Americans actually care about who wins in Ukraine other than liberal Democrats?
So Harris will lie about US machinations in Ukraine for the past decade.
Putin would seat in Kiev now with Trump. So what. She Harris is insinuating that Putin wants to move west. With his eyes on the rest of Europe.
These people are nuts, too.
The difference is, Harris sounds competent. But this policy is insane. These people are nuts.
Harris wants to uphold international norms, except when the US unilaterally invades other countries. LOL. These people are both garbage.
Republicans – the anti war choice
Trump is anti-war. He’s cognizant of the nuclear threat and also appears to care about human lives. Why is he making me think about voting for him.
Why is he making me think about voting for him.?
Because he’s the lesser of two evils, unfortunately.
Kamala: “You adore strong men instead of caring about democracy.”
I think the word that will be used is “passionate.”
After hearing Kamala talk about foreign policy, I’m afraid that if she’s elected Russia will quickly make a decapitation strike!
Look, everything both of them say is nonsense engineered to capture identified demographics as is par for the course. Both will just do whatever presents itself as most advantageous to them and their coalition as the POTUS. It is what it is, to take anything these people say seriously is a mistake. I’ll probably vote for Trump because the enemy of my enemy is my friend (I think). My enemy is the (anti-) Democratic Party and the System. Trump at least symbolically opposes that System.
I totally agree with your reasoning about how to vote. My vote will count in California and I’m going to vote for RFK. But I hope Trump wins. Desperately. I’m a lifelong socialist…
But this Democratic party must be removed from power, decisively!
Dems would only change if they first lose over and over. And maybe not then,
Did the discussion end? Re Ukraine DJT has acted like the peacemaker and KH the compleat neocon.
Now Kamala is blaming Trump for inviting the Talian to “storied” Camp David.
The great advantage Democrats have is that they have Hollywood and bi-coastal PR firms to train Kamala and though I find her obnoxious she’s more coherent–Trump, who is uncoachable has clearly been outclassed. I disagree with both of them about almost everything. My beef is that Kamal will be the puppet of a committee of oligarchs even more than Biden is/was.
Trump is right that we’re at risk of World War 3 because of the Ukraine war, but I don’t think he would lower that risk.
True, but I think Harris would raise it.
Actually, Harris won’t even admit it. That’s one of the things that was showcased in the debate tonight. Trump is willing to talk about the real problems, but he’s the only candidate who is
> Trump is willing to talk about the real problems, but he’s the only candidate who is
RFK too, much as he makes my back teeth itch half the time.
Sometimes she’s completely airheaded and then other times she’s the oracle of the inner circle!! Madness!
Sometimes, she was never even near the inner circle: she has nothing to do with Joe Biden, remember?
Back to live from the national constipation center.
pivot to Ukraine/Russia conflict
Muir to DJT: do you want Russia to win?
DJT: wants the war to stop. Pivots to criticizing European NATO countries for contributing too little. IMO DJT mistaken that Biden had no idea how to avert the war; it seems more likely that the West wanted the war.
bully for DJT to not take bait on US interest in Ukrainian victory
KDH: Speaks, in effect, against a soon cessation of conflict on terms acceptable to Russia. Boating about Western support for Ukraine (strikes me as reality-challenged.)
DJT: reminds that Russia is a nuclear-armed power. Blames KDH for the start of the war.
KDH: a lot of buzz words about american leadership, upholding “rules and norms” (but we rarely here about “laws” too).
DJT: goes back to NATO country payments
pivot to Afghanistan
KDH: agreed with decision to withdraw. Blames DJT for actions prior to JRB, negotiating with Taliban. (Well, at least she’s consistent — we don’t negotiate with people who aren’t our allies)
DJT: claims botched withdrawal from Afghanistan incentivized VVP to invade Ukraine. I call bullsh!t on that one.
Trump butchers the race question. All he had to say is “I looked at her campaign ads.”
Kamala well-briefed: Central Park West, Trump real estate.
Trump pivots to the economy. “She is Biden.”
“Clearly I am not Biden.” “New generation.”
Kamala sounds whiny….
I barely heard that, I’ve finally devolved into shouting into the air while finishing the dishes. This is such a garbage election. Harris sounds reasonable if you don’t understand US political history for the past 50 odd years. And now they’re just all talking over the moderators. And Trump keeps making up stuff that Harris is going to do when she’s demonstrably not an environmentalist or a socialist.
Trump really says just random stuff. The other choice is a dutiful servant of The Hamptons crowd, Goldman Sachs, and Dick Cheney.
“I have concepts of a plan, I’m not president right now”
LOL. Wow.
> “I have concepts of a plan, I’m not president right now”
That was… not good.
Fwiw, I was in the charity clinic seeing patients when this began…,lots of Latino patients with the Tv on in the waiting room. Intense applause etc for Trump. Nada for Kamala
I got back to the doctors lounge for the Ukraine back and forth. Let me put it this way. That did not go over well for Kamala among the present PMC.
I am thinking from what I am seeing that this is not likely to make a difference.
Trump: “ObamaCare is lousy health care.” He’s not wrong….
Harris: “Tim Walz and I are both gun-owners. We’re not going to take anyone’s guns away.”
Kamala: “He doesn’t have a [healthcare] plan.” She’s not wrong.
Personally, I’m voting for Jill Stein and Medicare for All.
Already decided on Jill Stein so no need to watch these oligarch tools/scum/genocide supporters rant at each other. Also changed to the Green Party.
> Kamala: “He doesn’t have a [healthcare] plan.” She’s not wrong.
True! And here we are with unfixable ObamaCare.
“The late, great John McCain”.
This woman loves war mongers. Wow. The Democrat Party really is just the modern Republican Party, but socially liberal.
Medicare can only negotiate 5 drugs. What a joke. And insulin isn’t capped for everyone. Just lying about Biden’s record now.
And if you have sh1t ObamaCare, healthcare is still just a privilege, not a right. What a comical joke.
LOL. And Trump is claiming she supports government health care. Like this is retarded. Has Trump ever even met a socialist?
LOL And Harris is claiming Climate is real, but she’s all in on fracking. How can you even comprehend that kind of cognitive dissonance.
Please, help it make sense. I would have drunk myself under the table tonight. I honestly wish I had at this point, but I’d be in the ER now. Wow.
The Spartans didn’t care if who you slept with (ancient Greeks were “liberal” that way, but they also made a regular practice of massacring the Deplorables, eh, Helots, as well as wanting to start wars with just about anyone just because…. Just sayin’.
This woman loves war mongers. Wow.
True dat. Earlier, she was proud of the endorsement of Dick Cheney. Incredible.
> Has Trump ever even met a socialist?
Probably not.
… socially liberal. I can’t think of anything the dems have done in a generation that is socially liberal. Granted, they’ve become the most fervent forever war party.
Can’t vote for lying genocidests, voting green for Jill the only good choice
I usually vote Green. So I get it. But my problem is that the DP is so wedded to a totalitarian future that I may vote for Trump and, as I’ve been saying, I prefer the direction of neo-feudalism to totalitarianism.
Trump has given me a couple belly laughs, he must be growing on me because I start to find him entertaining. Harris annoys with the nasal whiny voice and smirking. She lacks gravitas.
A clash of intellectual titans this is most definitely not. If only…
The late great John McCain?
Are you family blog kidding me? No wonder she embraced Cheney
I’m surprised Trump hasn’t dunked on her about Cheney. He’s a swamp thing for sure
Maybe Trump’s afraid he’d get shot in the face /snark
He’s already gotten shot in the face, interestingly enough….
Too bad Trump didn’t quote the classic version of Biden from the speech he gave back in 2008 in the VP debate with Palin.
Back when Joe was lucid he did a nice job taking Darth Cheney down on his abuses of power and called him the most dangerous VP in history:
https://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/02/debate.transcript/
Not impressed with either one really, trumps it would have never happened didn’t address manifold specific failings, kamala doesn’t really say anything just emotive posturing and both won’t stand up to aipac. The biased moderator is irritating, answering the question then asking for thoughts and kamala just bullshits as I noted above. I do think trump wavered in the right direction with ukraine, just end it, but won’t address nato expansion as the true cause. Her voice is silky disingenuousness. I think nuclear war is more likely in a kamala presidency.
We’re screwed I won’t vote for either one.
I think she’s worse as the standard bearer for the status quo. And her milquetoast persona will just make excuses for evil in that whiny voice.
Thank you! Perfectly expressed.
Harris must want the gun vote. This is too wild. What a $hit show.
The late great John McCain! From the candidate who was “honored” for war criminal Dick Cheneys endorsement.
Malicious lying and vile people arguing about who is more loathsome is a trigger for me, so I just tuned out of the Trump/Harris “debate.” I’ll look forward to the NC analysis tomorrow.
> I’ll look forward to the NC analysis tomorrow.
The only thing that matters is polling in swing counties and swing states…
That’s true. I predict the media will trumpet that “Kamala crushed him” but that will have no effect on the polling. This will lead to panic for the Dims early next month. Much has been written about October surprises but I feel we will be in for a doozy this year. They need to create panic and desperation in the electorate to push her across the finish line.
I have had enough. Going back to the ER. My take home lesson tonight…….I really miss the League of Women Voters and I miss people like Jim Lehrer. What a disgrace the moderators were. I really get the vibe that Muir and Kamala rehearsed together. We really need to do something about this system. It is a national tragedy.
That the politicians were allowed to jettison the League of Women Voters has been a huge win for them and a huge loss for the public.
I got the vibe that Muir would make an
iconic national politician. To me it was almost like an audition…
Looks like three against one. / ;)
KDH talking about policies:
I would like a conversation about “Medicare for All”
a lot of talking over each other now.
Huh! pivot to healthcare:
what is DJT plan for healthcare in US. They’re (Rs are) still working on it.
the weaving is sometimes a bit bewildering.
“We’re looking at different plans”. They’ve had 8 years to think about this, but they’re still thinking.
Conclusion: they will never have a plan.
KDH: ACA doesn’t need improvement (not her words — but the implication of the evasion of the question of her plans for improving US healthcare)
I think the boast about drug prices negotiation is overblown.
KDH: “Access to healthcare should be a right”
pivot to climate change:
“what would you do to fight climate change”
KDH first: kind of evading the answer, boasting about prior policies (which are inconsistent — increasing natural gas production while spending lots on green economy)
DJT: returns to tariff policy (focusing on autos). DJT never speaks to the question of climate change at all.
DJT cut for 2nd intermission.
There should have been more frequent breaks for all the participants in drinking games.
“The Joker” advert.
Seems appropriate to the context.
did anyone else just breath a mental sigh of relief when he just said closing statements are next, and this pain is finally over. I wouldn’t wish this debate on anyone, a completely substance free, fact free debate of servants of the elite.
I WILLL SAY NOTHING NEW HAS BEEN GIVEN TO THE PEOPLE TO DETERMINE WHAT CHANGES WILL BE IN STORE FOR US . YOU HAVE THE ROSEVELT INSTITUTE WHICH IS A PLAY BOOK FOR THE DEMOCRATS AND THE REP. 2025 PLAYBOOK. BOTH CANIDATES HAVE EACH TAKEN SOME THINGS FROM THESE THINK TANKS OF WHERE AMERICA SHOULD BE GOING. EQUITY AND EQUALITY HAS BEEN THE ROOT OF OUR PROBLEMS FOR EVER. WE ALL HAVE THE FREEDOM TO CHOOSE OUR PATH IN LIFE, SOME HARDER THAN OTHERS, BUT WE CHOOSE, WE SACRIFICE AND IF WE WANT TO PUT IN THE WORK TO GET WHERE WE WANT TO GO,WE ACHIEVE WITH A BELIEF IN OURSELF. WE ARE OUR OWN WORST ENEMY IN A COUNTRY SO FULL OF ROADS WE CAN TRAVEL TO ACHIEVE WHAT KIND OF PERSON WE WANT TO BE.
Maybe this is just me, but Kamala’s voice rings completely false to me.
Trump does too, but I know how to discount for it.
Trump made lots of facial gestures but mostly didn’t interrupt and didn’t side eye or turn towards Harris while she was speaking.
Harris tended to look at Trump while either was speaking.
Body language experts might say Trump demonstrated more control than Harris in that metric.
Somebody somewhere said that she was using “method-acting” as her technique. So,if true, she is inhabiting a character known as Kamala Harris which is much easier than being herself. She had a script and showed talent being coached, probably, by the best of the best no doubt. I think she did a good job acting, Trump was just the cranky old guy but he has this quality of appearing sincere even as he tells obvious lies.
most lethal (diabetic) fighting force climbing mountains on electric bikes
zero substance just like processed food. Might as well be cardboard.
We might not go back, but going forward we’re family blogged
Trump: “Why hasn’t she done it? She should leave right now and do these things….”
“It’s the economy, stupid” redux. And Trump has the advantage because the economy was better under him, and most people were doing ok (or better like me) during covid because of “Bernie Bucks,” PPP loans, child tax credits, and direct cash payments. And all that emergency cash dried up basically right after Biden was sworn in.
“Opportunity economy” is focused group hollowness that you expect from someone deliberately conning you. It’s “hope & change” for suburban republicans, who will ultimately vote for the guy promising the tax cuts that actually benefit them.
Kamala is also ensuring that she loses the Muslim vote in swing states by being so pro-Israel, again & again, a vote that could easily cost her the election.
If this were a functional country, with a real debate, the first question might be why Pandemic aid that halved childhood poverty was allowed to expire under a Democrat trifecta.
I mean, anyone here could probably come up with 10 really good questions about policy that actually matters.
A debate about what really matters this was not.
To save America more pain, we should just cease having any future presidential debates. It’s just a complete waste of time. It is a pointless exercise, might like voting for a Democrat or a Republican and expecting change to materialize.
> “hope & change” for suburban republicans,
Ouch
ABC has the kneepads on now…
Closing statements:
KDH: I’m the “change” candidate. “opportunity economy” again (but I think they need to have more bones, too, in addition to the opportunity to compete for the umber that there currently are)
KDH’s claim to “care about you” rings a bit hollow to me, but what do I know
DJT: Ouch! “Why hasn’t she already done those things?”
Dumping all over JRB administration; finishes with a shoutout, again, to immigration.
——————–
Mostly likely, absent something very unexpected, one of these will be the next president. We’re f@cked.
> Closing statements:
Thanks very much for the blow-by-blow. Greatly appreciated.
Now into the commentary….
They replay the handshake, and she initiated it. She sought him out..
Clearly no knockout blow. “What you had was that optic.” Trump was angry….
“Harris looked like she belonged on the stage.”
They interview Walz. “You saw a President for all America in Kamala Harris. An economy that moves all of use forward…. An old man yelling at the clouds.”
Debate to be won or lost in the spin rooms afterwards I suppose.
The more ABC goes on, the more it is clear the Harris campaign didn’t get what they wanted.
As IM Doc already said, not likely to change much. Might be bad news for Harris.
And now let’s talk to Tim. No, no bias here…okay, well they are talking to Vance now. Wonder if they flipped a coin.
Walter Kirn suggested, correctly I think, ABC and Harris basically teamed up. Harris could answer whatever she wanted. Trump was the bad guy who had constantly answer to questions about mistakes from the past. Harris nothing of that sort.
But despite this: I did not have the impression it led the Harris campaign anywhere.
I doubt it will change anything about those polls.
For that these shows are too ridiculous and timid.
Because they COULD say the truth about those candidates. But then they would have lost their jobs with ABC within 10 minutes.
Reply to Lambert:
And I give you the predictions market from a post here on naked capitalism this week:
https://polymarket.com/event/favorite-to-win-on-polymarket-one-day-after-debate?
Camilla currently at 65%!
> the predictions market
Unless they were gamed…
I’m glad I avoided it. Thanks to all of you that took the hit. From the description here my prediction is that only a few people who were undecided before that watched this have now made a choice. Harris may not have been a disaster and Trump may have struggled after not rattling her, but nothing mentioned was new ground. Neither has given the undecideds a real reason to choose.
Whether they stay home, find a third party to vote for or flip a coin in the voting booth, the small percentage of people who will be deciding this election in the handful of states that will determine the electoral college vote are not being given anything to vote for, and neither boogeyman attached to each of the major parties’ candidates is enough to seal the deal.
You were fortunate. I regret my choice. I feel worse about our nation’s prospects today than even yesterday.
I actually no idea why I would vote for Harris, other than there’s money if you’re having a family, which doesn’t help me, and money if you’re starting a small business, which also is not for me. So, not really sure economically why I would bother. Meanwhile the risk of WWIII remains high.
Trump can at least point to a booming economy prior to the Pandemic, and that happened to be true, even if his policies had nothing to do with it. In Trump, I guess there’s some kind of immigrant deportation policy and tariffs, but the former isn’t credible and won’t happen. Maybe tax cuts will.
I’m left with little reason to care about voting. And no end to the Pandemic. And no movement on Climate. This country is in deep peril.
I’m not sure how well those will play with the undecided in the states that will determine the President. They are used to the bait and switch. Think about the six hundred dollars that Biden still owes. The Dems with Kamala’s help cut the extra funding for families with kids. (Trump might even wins there, they got some help in his administration due to Covid relief. Small business is probably a draw, as even the Covid relief ended up in the hands of anything but small business.)
Any money the Dems promise will either be delivered to a public-private partnership that steals or squanders it, or means tested and tax credit tied to the point that practically nobody without a wily accountant or tax lawyer can claim it. Mark my words.
Listening to the Taibbi/Kirn livestreaming, and they are piping in CNN. I thought this was a zinger (I have to paraphrase b/c I can’t remember the exact quote): “Harris showed that Trump is running against her and not Joe Biden.” So who was the real vice president last 3 and 1/2 years? Dick Cheney? Well, that certainly would explain a lot!
And ABC’s first guest post-debate is Tim Walz !
To be fair, they had JD Vance on following Walz. They should have had Vance debating Harris.
Vance sounded very well-spoken to start, but thinned out pretty fast.
Ok I went this far with Taibbi/Kern. But now it´s boring and I have more important stuff to do.
One questions: did the “journalists” address the assassination attempt just once?
Not as far as I have watched.
You would have a major scandal of bias just there.
Imagine such an attack would have happened to either Biden or Harris…
They would probably be floating the idea no election process necessary at all.
Just for compensation you know, trauma and stuff… “Come oooon, just give ´em the Presidency and don´t be a dick.”
I win! I didn’t watch.
Liver-failure isn’t the worst way to die…
😂👍
p.s. personal anecdote if anyone cares:
My uncle used to be an alcoholic for 30 years. When we visited him in my childhood the first thing we had to do was check every bar in the area to find him.
Everybody said, you haven´t only lost everything, including your family. You will die too if you carry on with this.
He didn´t listen.
Then after 30 years, one day he went to the doctors after he had discovered some yellow in his eyes.
The doctor told him he was surprised that he was still alive and that he would die within a couple of months if he didn´t stop drinking immediately.
The man stopped immediately. He was that afraid. Became sober within 24 hours. Just. like. that. And stayed that way. Not touching even a chocolate with rum.
And now is 90.
Do I respect him for that…?
My Dad – who hates his brother – yelled at him:
“You know what?! You are a fucking coward. That´s the only reason why you are still alive.”
And actually he is right. My uncle made it only because he is a coward.
He didn´t have the guts to stand up in life, ruining his kids´ lives, and ruining his own (and a few other things.) But when it came down to actually dying and when it was only about him, he “shied away”.
I watched but had the sound off.
When Harris got the “nomination” I made the point that the campaign would build on her smile/laughter, “mouth section”.
People mocked me. What an idiotic thought. Build a campaign on a “laughter”.
Well, here we are…
p.s. in the movies when you train to become director, DOP, casting director etc. you train yourself watching movies with sound off.
I can only recommend it to anyone if they wish to understand what is actually going on on the screen, be it a motion picture or this “debate”.
Kamala may flip some undecided to her.
She clearly won the debate to critical thinkers.
Not sure how many there are that will not vote Stein.
Not I. But she may have gotten a boost in the swing state race…which is all that really counts
Not sure how repeating slogans and meaningless homilies wins over critical thinkers.
I think this was a draw.
Yes. However, I don’t think anyone can dispute that this was a pretty decent sized “win” for Harris. She sounded fairly competent and reasonable through the entire debate. She didn’t self-destruct the way Rubio did in 2016, Harris herself did in 2020, or Biden God knows when that was. It’s probably a draw in the final effect, though: nothing that really hit on the people who were on the fence.
> She clearly won the debate to critical thinkers.
How so?
Her sentence structure was better? She is and was totally full of the nastier form of wast materials but she sounded better and had good body language because she made the effort to rehearse. I didn’t listen to most of it, too painful but she was more on the ball. So a win for her.
I view critical thinking as focusing on content, not form, so sentence structure doesn’t do it for me. The counter-argument to that would be that the ethos of the speaker is content (being “on the ball”).
If Walz’s post-debate “old man yelling at clouds”* talking point takes hold (a stronger form version of Kamala being “on the ball” Trump is in trouble).
NOTE * At clouds. Or at cats?
Walz, “old man yelling at clouds.” Hold on, old man Walz is the same age as Harris.
I don’t think critical thinking is a thing for the vast, vast, vast majority of people in the West at least.
I’m waiting for Bibi’s October surprise before evaluating Harris’ chances. And I don’t think she clearly won the debate but she did perform better than Biden.
If your drinking game words included “ global warming”, you will wake up hangover-free in the morning.
Fortunately mine was fracking
Watching with a few friends, all various shades of blue.
Lukewarm to moderate support for Harris’ performance, none for Trump.
As the only greenie I tried to gently point out that both are deep into genocide (tho Harris did discuss Palestinian; that trump is right about lawfare; that both eagerly tried to prove how much they love fossil fuels.
But heavily vote shamed for expressing support for Jill, with no positives for offering brother west as my first alternative 😬
If I’m scoring, Harris wins on points but no damage done by either side
Moderators thumbs on the scale pretty subtle… not
“They’re eating our cats and dogs!” is my quote of the night. That’s what’ll show up in ads from Harris when talking about “weird” Trump.
> “They’re eating our cats and dogs!”
Winger hysteria, that one. Brought the gun up, pointed it at their own foot, fired, and maybe took down their own candidate, too. KRON4:
Trump campaign needs to do damage control on that one for sure. Or maybe they can bring out Lisa Simpson with a tearful story about her cat.
To be fair, maybe the virality of it has already hit swing states….
Could this be the source of what Trump was talking about?
https://www.bitchute.com/video/cMosmqKz2sQg (31 secs)
Apparently a Facebook page, but KRON4 doesn’t get a link. The BitChute thing looks an online genre to me; Tiktok avant la lettre.
As I said (hat tip MaryLand for the Drudge Report):
Cat tip?
> If I’m scoring, Harris wins on points but no damage done by either side
Moderators thumbs on the scale pretty subtle… not
Thinking all the way back to 2000, when it took two days for the press to reverse the initial impression of a Gore win to a Bush win (Gore “sighed”).
Now I need to look at the transcript, yech.
On abortion: Talk about divisive! I don’t think it’s feasible to have a national law on abortion. The Democrats never codified Roe when they had the chance, and bet the farm (and women’s reproductive freedom, I might add) on the Supreme Court remaining stable. Now it’s too late. In fact, leaving it up to the states is the centrist position (and throws the pro-lifers under the bus, too), so the Court handed Trump a gift.
re: abortion
On Consortium News when they had their panel on DNC Margaret Kimberley – I believe (would have to check again!) – suggested this not-codifying Roe v Wade into law while Obama had a super-majority to do so was intended to keep in the backhand a typical Dems-issue as scare-mongering leverage over their own for darker times when majorities turn against Dems.
https://consortiumnews.com/de/2024/08/23/watch-cn-live-assessing-the-dnc/
It doesn’t sound like she performed badly enough that she’ll get nobbled by donors and party faithful and replaced within a matter of weeks. So that’s arguably a win for her. The bar has been set pretty damn low.
We get the government we deserve. Tonight we got feces!
Belly up to the smorgasbord.
Smorgasbord of charred bones, bwana, eh?
Smorgasbord of beloved pets.
Reminds me of this: “It’s a big sh1t sandwich and we’re all gonna have to take a bite!”
Full Metal Jacket, I think?
Appreciate all you East Coasters hanging in there. Me, I’m going back mi Los Padres
The fastest hot take in my inbox: Nate Silver, “Kamala Harris got the debate she wanted”. Sixteen points but the bottom line:
Point #7:
And point #8:
If I had to trade winning the economy argument and winning the abortion argument, I’d take the economy. If that’s what voters think, it doesn’t matter what the pundits say.
“it doesn’t matter what the pundits say”
Yep!
That´s at least how it went down for me.
Just like Germany in a way…
p.s. since I have hardly watched these people before – is Trump better on TV debates than on stage where there is much less formatting?
(a bit like acting for film vs. stage acting)
“If I had to trade winning the economy argument and winning the abortion argument, I’d take the economy.”
This is probably true (I originally attributed this to Silver, but realized that this is actually Lambert–I should have known who was the smart person of the two). Abortion is an issue where Democrats think they can pwn the Reps, but works only to stir up their own people. The truth is if abortion is such a political winner, Dems would have enacated a law fully legalizing abortion at the federal level any of the times that they had control of the WH and the houses of Congress–including the time when Harris herself was literally the Senate majority. It’s a political loser beyond their base, and the Dems know that. So they’d been putting all their weight on the bad law undergirding Roe (not saying that the decision is bad on its basis, but it’s a terrible sign when the judges who were on the side of abortion rights could not even agree on where the rights came from in the Constitution. A Constitutionally astute person would have made a lot of hay with this point and why this had to be done through the legislative process–somewhere but that makes for bad electoral politics, besides the fact that the argument would have put most people to sleep.)
> if abortion is such a political winner, Dems would have enacted a law fully legalizing abortion at the federal level any of the times that they had control of the WH and the houses of Congress
I think that D conception (sorry for the unintended pun) that “threat of overturning RvW is a political winner” [an argument that a D president is needed to appoint SC justices to avoid overturning RvW] is why they never codified a national abortion-rights law.
And now, the overturning of RvW is a political winner in that it’s an argument for why a D-dominated legislature and D president is needed to (finally) enact that law that previously wasn’t enacted because it was politically useful that RvW be perpetually at risk of being overturned.
Actually settling the matter with a national law seems to have always been the least politically useful path in the sight of the Ds, and I predict that there will never be a national law precisely because it is so useful to keep the matter in contention.
It’s something that Ds can forever pledge to “fight for” (but never actually achieve) that isn’t that costly, the way “universal concrete material benefits” would be.
Abortion is and remains a fundraising unicorn for team blue, as well as an effective get out the vote mechanism. It will be neither if Roe is codified into law.
On Ukraine: I thought it took some courage for Trump to take the position that he did: We’re killing a lot of people, spending much too much money, war with a nuclear power is risky, we should negotiate (although whether Putin would do that is another question). Harris’s hawkish response was whiny and vacuous. That exchange does not seem to figure largely in the coverage; Silver doesn’t even mention it. But for Trump to take that position is quite remarkable (in 2016, Trump counties suffered disproportionate losses in whatever wars were going on at the time).
I truly believe that Trump’s personal feelings are more anti-war than any leading Democrat. I just don’t believe he’ll do anything about it if elected. Certainly not when it comes to Palestine.
I think that applies even to the Middle East (although not in a moral way). I still think, strategically, the Abraham Accords was a brilliant idea that would have put on paper something that was already de facto true for a couple of decades at least. It was either this or make peace with Iran, if one were to just consider interests and ignore morality altogether, and Biden and Harris, being what they are, dropped them both.
> On Ukraine: I thought it took some courage for Trump to take the position that he did: We’re killing a lot of people, spending much too much money, war with a nuclear power is risky, we should negotiate (although whether Putin would do that is another question). Harris’s hawkish response was whiny and vacuous.
IMO it had something of the character of “materialist” versus “neocoservative and neoliberal idealist” (KDH’s reply to DJT’s “end the war” language had something of the character of Alexander Mercouris’ observation that for neoconservatives, material means are never a constraint; the only obstacle to victory is “national will”)
Which, I think, actually makes DJT more nearly the Marxist, at least in that exchange. And KDH might be leaning in the direction of that disagreeable European ideology of the first half of the 20th century.
I think DJT could earn “points” drawing public attention to cost accounting of the Trillions spent on these wars and their aftermaths (just domestically, higher VA costs for a generations) as a better alternative to the conceptually flawed “this is your share of the national debt.”
Drudge Report usually has a who won the debate poll after these. None this time. Just a headline “The Night Trump Lost It All.” Not taking any chances with a poll.
I’m so old I remember when Drudge was on the right, famously so. But plus ça change?
Here’s the story Drudge links to, from NBC: Trump pushes baseless claim about immigrants ‘eating the pets’
Of course, “baseless claims” is the phrase the press settled on for at least some material that’s directionally correct, and people could tune it right out.
To me, the whole cat (and duck?) thing is evidence-free and tactically stupid. But I could be out of touch with sentiment on this, and Trump poured gasoline on anti-immigrant hysteria purposefully, that being an appeal in the swing states. That said, it may be over the line into nutty for voters, too.
Interesting point on the debate.
I have not been in touch with “mainstream” media for so long that I didn’t realize Drudge went totally anti-Trump. So, we have Cheney, Drudge, Morning Joe, and, presumably, Dubya on one side and we have the official Republican nominee on the other side. This is a strange universe we wound up in.
On a number of occasions while I was living in NYC, there were people in line at a food store who were obviously poor and likely living on the street, and who bought nothing but cat or dog food; the kind that comes in cans.
It’s not the same as eating somebody’s pet but it should never have happened.
Burning issue for Team Trump:
‘childless cat ladies’ vs. immigrants ‘eating the pets’
which poses the greater threat to our national bodily fluids?
discuss amongst yourselves
I agree that the “immigrants eating pets” was a very bad rhetorical move. It’s just … weird.
I wonder whether the context of the gaffe is significant.
IIRC, the preceding KDH remark was about DJT preferring to “run on a problem rather than solve a problem.” Her reference was to DJT intervention in a Senate vote to prevent passage of a bill that would have strengthened control of the southern border — the motive for this being that DJT wanted to keep the problem alive until he could run against it in 2024.
And this issue could be very dangerous to DJT, since he was right there in front of our eyes, running on the problem that he had previously exerted himself to prevent the JRB administration solving,
IIRC, Muir then asked DJT about why he had intervened with Senate Republicans to influence their votes on this border-control measure.
DJT dodged the question, but the dodge involved the absurd (politically absurd even on the supposition that the underlying claim was true, which it evidently is not) riff on “immigrants eating our pets.” And he doubled down when Muir cited local authorities’ assertion that the reports were untrue.
I wonder if he was rattled by KDH’s claim (IIRC this did happen; good debate prep on her side) that DJT had intervened to prevent passage of a border control bill in order to keep the problem “live” until he could run against it.
————
It reminds me a little of a story I heard years ago that Nixon had wanted to enact national Federally-funded health care, but Senator Ted Kennedy prevented the measure as Kennedy wanted to be the President who signed this program into law; TK was confident he would be the ’76 nominee and the next President. Thanks, Ted! Thanks, Donald! There’s a lesson here: never allow political considerations to delay implementation of wise policy; there may not be a second chance.
A final “wrap-up” thought is that “preferring to run against problems rather than to solve them” is a compact description of 5 decades of D governance with respect to the RvW issue (and perhaps may others); it is a plausible explanation for why RvW was never codified into Federal law.
KDH’s pithy put-down may come back to bite the Ds.
It all fun and games until you are served your first Muffy-letta sammich.
> IIRC, Muir then asked DJT about why he had intervened with Senate Republicans to influence their votes on this border-control measure.
The thought occurs that KDH (and Muir, assuming that he was intentionally favoring Harris in terms of differential challenges to evasions, and even giving DJT more opportunity to speak out of turn) actually had DJT in a tight spot at this point.
I think this will come up again in a notional future debate, and perhaps in D advertising: “DJT claims that the border is a serious problem for our country and that only he can solve it. But when the Senate was considering major legislation to strengthen the border, DJT persuaded R senators to work against passage of the measure. DJT didn’t want JRB to solve this problem because DJT wanted to run against JRB’s failure to solve it.”
I would think that the immigration problem can’t be completely ignored by the Ds, but a persuasive demonstration of “bad faith” on DJT’s part with respect to this issue might help to weaken its utility in his campaigning.
—
Of course, that cuts both ways — DJT can point to 50 years of D inaction on their stated commitment to the protection of abortion rights, which they repeatedly could have done with Federal legislation, and never did.
It would be clarifying — both parties run against problems they have no intention of solving.
(And perhaps for that reason these particular lines of political attack will not be exploited)
I hesitate to chalk anything up to good debate prep when she was clearly wearing an earbud.
Finally, I don’t think Kamala’s continually outraged, virtually spitting incredulity that such a man as Trump ever became President necessarily plays well for anybody not already persuaded. Trump became President in 2016 because half the country voted for him! And was the economy better? Yes. Were we at war? No. So who cares about the other?
This whole, “Trump is s-o-o-o divisive, let’s unify the countryMR SUBLIMINAL By disempowering Trump voters, who are deplorable is so clearly contradictory it’s hard to see how anyone could fall for it, even a very low information, undecided voter. See the Pensyz debacle.
“Were we at war? No”
Yes, you were – Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq etc
“Extreme” seems to be the word I’m remembering lisping out of K’s pouting rictus.
Come on Lambert, you know better than that. In a winner-takes-all, (FPTP) system, with an electoral college, and only a bit more than half of eligible voters who vote. In general, only 25% percent of the potential electorate actually determine the election outcome. The underlying problem of lack of meaningful choice and lack of a functioning democracy should also be obvious. US politics is a combo of entertainment, distraction and religious zealotry.
Who cares about the intelligence-insulting, superficial, stage-managed spectacle? Of course I couldn’t stand to watch such an embarrassing, cringeworthy freak show. But apparently I have unrealistic expectations of human behavior.
Did not watch the debate, though did hear some commentary.
Worth noting that Harris was interrupted at her post-debate press conference (and CNN interrupted their coverage) with the announcement that Taylor Swift endorsed Harris and Walz.
I can’t tell if we’re being trolled by Belle or by Taylor Swift!! Time to go to bed, good night everybody!
I imagine that Harris, being prettier than Trump (whether naturally or not) would have won the debate on TV, in the same way that Kennedy won over Nixon.
I heard a clip on radio and her accent was enough to have made me pull the Republican lever if I were an American; Trump at least sounded gruffly human even though the words he was speaking were completely deranged (but probably aimed at his deranged constituency). Whereas Harris’ bullshit was directed at her gullible constituency.
Expectations for Harris were low. Everybody knows that Trump is a fairly capable debater within the limits imposed by his crazed party; he took down Biden, after all. The fact that he didn’t take down Harris means that Democrats can tell themselves that she won in a triumph.
But I suspect that the debate will not make a lot of difference to most voters.
Less then ten minutes after the debate closed, I got the fundraising emails. Both weirdly erase the Biden adminsitration:
There is something intersting about Harris looking upward. Apparently, she actually asked for the shorter platform (or something). Is there a rationale behind this? That seems so contrary to my intuition (and reinforces my impression of Harris as the passive aggressive sort) So much for Scully boxes….
Could it simply be that she looks younger when looking upwards? Doing so smoothes the skin around the neck/jowls.
This morning I thought about Biden’s attempt to have all bank transactions greater than $600, as one does. I think it behooves “Kamala Harris” to erase Biden as much as possible, pretend 11 million “migrants” doesn’t matter, screaming inflation, 1.2M dead from Covid most on Biden’s watch, take off that mask and smile! Hunter who? So yeah. Starve Trump of material by disappearing Biden and memory hole his admin as much as possible. During the debate while Trump railed about Biden and who is running the country, KH looked down, shuffled notes and her lips tightened slightly. Then she moved right past the moment. Trump’s in trouble.
Here is Jill Stein’s rebuttal. She waited for the two main contenders to finish, lady that she is. She also has courage with a capital “C”.
Enjoy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftL8uv74q-k
Trump could have delivered a knockout punch in his opening statement. All he needed to do was summarize her path upward in California, identifying who granted her favors (a single person – the politically powerful Willie Brown). The zinger would be for Trump to ask Harris if she thinks she would be standing on that debate stage without Willie Brown in her past.
But wouldn’t that be the same as asking him if he would be standing on that stage if it wasn’t for his fathers billions? I have no problem with both being asked those questions.
And Politico:
The coverage is really high-school level. Kamala getting under Trump’s skin, trolling, body langaage. But here we are. And no mention, apparently, of Trump’s “felonies”?!
> no mention, apparently, of Trump’s “felonies”?!
KDH did mention JRT’s “34 felony” convictions (the ones that were in themselves misdemeanors [business filings violations] but promoted to felonies because committed in aid of another crime [though, IIRC, there were irregularities in the prosecutor’s case with respect to those offenses; were they proved in the trial?])
Yippee! Harris campaign wants a second presidential debate with Trump WaPo:
So the Harris campaign thinks they can at least say they won.
We’re gonna need much stronger drugs if there’s more debates
Didn’t watch but aggregating a number of reactions from various nooks on the web seems like Harris took a split decision which is all she needed given what I perceived as nervouness about Harris serving up a choke job by the usual suspects in the mainstream press. If this rings even remotely true I can’t see Trump’s team leaving it at just this single debate. Off to FOX-land we go I suspect.
Something that I still think that flew under the radar from the Biden/Trump debate is Trump’s performance there was not great either but overshadowed by Biden malfunctioning on stage. When I eventually strap in to watch the VoD Im mainly going to see if the same habits from the first debate bubbled up here again. Namely, I feel like Trump has slipped a gear or two this cycle and that could be the core contrast here now that he’s not debating a cadaver.
After a while I tried watching Taibbi and Kirn and Kirn said something to the effect that people he knows who notice these things had texted him that half of Harris’ hairdo never moved and could easily have been hiding an ear bud. That would be consistent with her facial expressions when Trump was speaking which ran a gamut but her default expression was neutral but smug in a very I’ve got a secret edge kind of way.
If you judge this debate by class, Harris showed too much and Trump not enough.
When the “smart” people are already voting for you, looking smarter doesn’t necessarily move the poll numbers. Trump was boorish but I’ve noticed over the years that when I agree with the party being rude, they don’t seem rude so much as passionate. Yeah you tell ’em is exactly the feedback Trump wants from home viewers.
I skimmed Revolver and Citizens Free Press and the right seems happy with Trump and already factchecking Harris. Another Kirn observation was that when Trump ripped Harris for meeting with Putin and then Russia invaded three days later, the ABC guy asked her if she’d met with Putin. That’s when she went on a stemwinder that somehow never got around to answering the moderator’s direct question. No follow up.
Missed maybe half the debate all in all but feel like I watched a double header. Short of being tied down and rigged up like Alex watching psyops to Beethoven in A Clockwork Orange, I don’t think I could have sat through the whole thing. Had there been an audience and I a part of it, at some point early on I would have fixated on the lights or sound system. I’m sure I would have counted the room at least three times.
I did not hear Make America Healthy Again, RFK Jr’s new meme. I hope that doesn’t mean it’s just RFK Jr’s and not Trump’s as well. Trump didn’t hurt himself, Harris didn’t pick up any votes. Advantage Trump.
> never got around to answering the moderator’s direct question. No follow up.
Both repeatedly dodged embarrassing or difficult questions (for example DJT’s interference in a Senate vote on a bill to strengthen border security, on which Harris made hay, IMO: “he’d rather run on a problem than solve a problem”. Both refused to talk about how they would (really, “would not”) pressure the Netanyahu government to agree a ceasefire).
IIRC, Muir did press DJT repeatedly for an answer to a question (maybe multiple questions) that DJT had dodged. I don’t think KDH’s evasions were challenged.
> I don’t think I could have sat through the whole thing.
I think this is one of the advantages of the live ‘blog way of hearing these things. The effort of thinking about, summarizing, and interacting with what is being said has the effect of distracting one from the disagreeable experience of listening to the speakers. It also makes the time go by quicker.
This podcast is absurd in a “wow” kind of way.
re: identity politics – novel review – Obama/Harris – hypocrisy – elitist discourse
Involuntarily hilarious, naive, revealing, embarassing.
On the other hand informative and elaborate.
Podcast conversation with NEW YORKER critic Vinson Cunningham about his novel about the Obama election campaign 2008, which Cunningham was part of: “Great Expectations”. And what it means for the Harris campaign on an exclusively symbolic level. .
“Know Your Enemy: Political Fictions
Matt and Sam talk to Vinson Cunningham about his debut novel Great Expectations, political theater, and Barack Obama”
https://www.dissentmagazine.org/blog/know-your-enemy-political-fictions-vinson-cunningham/
It´s enough to start TC: 13:00 / on Harris TC: 55:00
I always thought comical characters in TV shows like “THE CHAIR” or a movie like “American Fiction” about life on an elite humanistics campus were exaggeration. Obviously they are not.
And if one listens it becomes evident how this current reign of madness in US reporting is even possible.
On the election as well as Ukraine. (complete navel gazing.)
In the very end however the three speakers agree on the scandal that the assassination attempt on Trump has been eclipsed so fast.
It would have been very interesting to hear them ruminating about who managed to pull that media behaviour off and how.
Because they are informed folks. But instead embracing that expertise they rather want to be artists or talk about art.
Oh and this is none other than Moon of Alabama – pre-reporting however only:
“Harris And Trump Debate Whatever”
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2024/09/harris-and-trump-debate-whatever.html#comments
Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate, is an empty vessel. Voters have never liked her. I have seen her nicknamed Incitata. It fits. The favorite horse of Roman Emperor Caligula was named Incitatus (from Latin ‘incitare’ – ‘to encourage’):
According to Suetonius, in the Lives of the Twelve Caesars (121 AD), Caligula planned to make Incitatus a consul, and the horse would “invite” dignitaries to dine with him in a house outfitted with servants there to entertain such events. Suetonius also wrote that the horse had a stable of marble, with an ivory manger, purple blankets and a collar of precious stones.
Calligula’s idea was to mock the Senate.
I lasted til 11:00 EDT!
I want my $50K to start a mead brewery in my basement! now! Too old to be bribed to have a kid.
She is selling!
I also insist US spend a few trillion keeping kleptocrats safe behind Stalin’s borders carved from the Russian empire.
I have not had a mortgage since 2000. When do I get 25K to buy a retirement home?
Trump sounded unhinged and unfocused, making Kamala superficially seem like the more reasonable choice until one analyzes some of her responses. Particularly disturbing to me is how closely she’s sticking to the Democratic neocon forever war, foreign policy narrative. They just can’t give up on this ridiculous and dangerous idea that geopolitics is an all or nothing game where the U.S. has to ‘win’ by somehow crushing 1.4 billion people in China, and laying waste to Russia and Iran, while bankrolling the Zionist ethnic cleansing of Palestine. It’s little wonder that she has earned the Cheneys’ endorsements. Trump’s a narcissistic jackass who has no business anywhere near the halls of power, but imho, Kamala is the more dangerous candidate because she will continue the zero diplomacy, all stick and no carrot policies that are the hallmark of the current regime that is sleep walking us into WWIII.
Reckon they’ll schedule a VP debate performance between JV Dance and Tim Waltz?
Both have muted mic’s, debate style TBD, my vote would be one of either Modern Interpretive or Breakdance.
If Modern Interpretive, noises allowed but have to be loud enough for the moderators’ mics to pick it up – see here for example.
If Breakdance, choice of backing track will be crucial. I’m not sure where the East Coast/West Coast hip-hop feud stands these days but that’s the angle most likely to resonate with the millennial crowd.
Since they’re both Midwesterners, I suggest a neutral venue, like Lukas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. Or the Silverdome in Detroit (is that the one that got blown up? All the better.)
My money’s on Waltz, everyone loves to see a big man who’s light on his toes.
I couldn’t be bothered to watch the freak show, but did either debate on how much faster they want to exterminate the Palestinians? Or how much more of our public resources to use to facilitate the extermination? Any mention of a comprehensive health system? (like Richard Nixon proposed). Maybe Chris Hedges is right: the US is a suicide-death cult.
Vote early, vote often, and Vote Genocide 2024!