"Will you shut up, man?" US Politics October 2020

getting another chance to denounce white supremacism again.

"you always do this...you always do this to me..."

"here's the deal"

"i denounce white supremacy, and frankly, i denounce antifa, i denounce the left " bla bla bla

now getting asked about qanon

More bounce to the denounce.

trump knows that qanon is "very much against pedophilia, they fight it very hard"

then pivots to radical left and antifa burning down cities run by democrats

he just doesn't know about qanon

he's really mad at her. he really hates women

there are people in the townhall with masks on visibly shaking their head NO violently, left and right

he just said "so cute" to her

i'll stop.

you'll be reading about this later, for better or worse

On ABC, Joe Biden is giving a lengthy, cogent explanation of his plans to handle the pandemic, incorporating recent scientific findings and recent testimony of the CDC Director encouraging mask wearing.

— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) October 16, 2020

trump seems honestly befuddled, like completely confused, that savannah hasn't heard about the corrupt ballots. every day, he watches and they talk about the corrupt ballots.

omg, these brave town hall people. they are getting to live the dream of asking the president to be accountable for their actions, and then they have to stand there and stare at him for 2 minutes as he lies to their faces. this very first question, you can tell the person who asked the question fucking HATES him

and now the moderator is leaping in to interrupt his bullshit and call him out on it. trump campaign is going to regret this decision

there were 3 blurry faces in the background. 2 of the 3 shook their heads NO as trump was talking

is this an intervention? for trump, i mean. not for me. but this event almost seems lined up to force him to go face to face with the people he has fucked over

I watched the Trump shouting session for five minutes, thought Savannah Guthrie did better than Chris Wallace, and said "fuck you people" for watching this. Nothing has changed.

Watching Trump of course, and enjoying the moderator's badgering of him.

(There's an African-American woman in back of him nodding yes to everything he says--that's a little disorienting.)

Flipping between Trump claiming he hasn't heard of Qanon and ANTIFA is burning down our cities and bales of Trump ballots thrown in the trash; and Biden explaining how the a competent WH organizes a crisis response, showing his work, emanating empathy from every pore is...a trip

— Rick Perlstein (@rickperlstein) October 16, 2020

How's Biden doing?

xp I think that is a little harsh on me for watching, but I understand

xpost Apparently so far so good, even with a couple of tough questions/follow-ups.

Biden spent like ten minutes answering this question and then offered to finish talking to the guy backstage https://t.co/ax24s9ECJd

— Ed MD (@notdred) October 16, 2020

Biden's an old dude doing his best. Trump is an asshole shouting. I was touched Biden asked a young Black kid to meet him backstage to continue a conversation.

Keep going Karl. Watch it so I don't have to, you're a saint

I'm not watching/listening; has Trump lucidly, coherently offered his detailed, game-changing, comprehensive health care plan yet?

Apparently Joe dropped 'shoot 'em in the leg' again?!

Biden proffered his shoot'em-in-the-leg thing again.

Yet! The woman who asked the question looked cool with it. I'm #outofstep.

Trump seems to confirm he owes more than $400 million in debt. He says “it’s a tiny percentage of my net worth.” Then says it’s for mortgages. Says it’s not to Russia. Then asked if he owes foreign banks, and he says: “not that I know of“ before saying “probably.”

— Manu Raju (@mkraju) October 16, 2020

"Probably"

Biden proffered his shoot'em-in-the-leg thing again.

in a few weeks maybe someone should put this strategy to the test since he's such a fan

I will say, I just tuned in to Biden for a second, and he was cogent, coherent, thoughtful ...

Just switched on Biden, trying to talk about not defunding the police. In terms of communication and sentence structure, he's as incoherent as Trump, but he's very much trying to communicate a positive message, not one of blame and hate. His actual words are unfortunately very much the opposite: doubling down on "shoot 'em in the leg" (right down to the apostrophe), saying we have to pay the police more so they can be trained in deescalation and community-based policing, but saying that the problem is that the cops already have to do to much of this, like school teachers, and it's too much for their brains to cope with. Most cops don't like bad cops - they don't - they don't! - despite the fact that he also said in the debate that the bad cops have infected and ruined the entirety of American policing.

As Alfred says, he's an old man doing his best; one can hope that people who understand issues better than he will actually have the full responsibility reforms and policies if he's elected.

big xposts

reading these posts about Trump and the news coverage tonight I won't be surprised if he wins again, so many people seem mesmerized by him

Some idiot now asking Biden how he'll avoid the temptation to punish Trump once he's out of office; Biden responding with endless waffle about good intentions and understanding and an infrastructure bill??!?

Four more years of infrastructure week

There's a weird setup whereby Reagan's awful Transportation Secretary Drew Lewis' son wants Biden's reassurance about #bipartisanship or something. But, wow, the guy's in tears. Ugh.

Dude who asked the question looks mid-60s, and is trying to hide his frustrated confusion at Biden's inability to complete a sentence.

reading these posts about Trump and the news coverage tonight I won't be surprised if he wins again, so many people seem mesmerized by him

― Dan S, Thursday, October 15, 2020

Trump? He's shouting again as if he had no COVID. He's reassured his base again.

Biden did not dismiss expanding the Court btw.

“I know nothing about it,” Trump said. “That was a retweet. That was an opinion from somebody. I’ll put it out there — people can decide.”
“I don’t get that,” Guthrie replied. “You’re the president, not somebody’s crazy uncle."

Oh, I missed that he was someone in particular

Ron Howard Narrator Voice: He was, in fact, somebody's crazy uncle.

I think Biden sounds fine, like a normal, boring politician. I'm having no problem following him, as far as that goes. Trump, I have trouble just hearing him.

Watched The Candidate (1972) last week; the seats in the televised debate there were as far apart as Biden and the moderator guy tonight.

Has anyone asked the less-evil one about weed because it's fucked up if they don't even give more of us a chance to buy drugs legally.

Biden is boring. Trump is awful. He fucking said dangerous bullshit about masks again. I can't believe there's even a comparison.