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

basically the fact that Biden didn't get trounced in any of the two debates, and that Trump had negative takeaways from his first debate and his townhall = the outcome we wanted.

now to avoid any October surprises for a week and a half.

now let's hurry up and get him in office, and then before long we'll be on Biden's ass, like we should be

Can't see that anything big will come out of that. I worry a tiny bit that the bar is so low for Trump at this point--especially after the past two or three weeks--that just being coherent and sort of normal (independent of the truth of whatever he says), being combative but not crazy and interrupting, then that's enough. Biden was fine--he got tangled up a lot (I think he said "prevailing wages" at one point), but was always able to right himself within a few seconds and make his point.

This seemed shorter than usual.

Prediction: trump numbers up very marginally after tonight, doesn’t alter the outcome BUT Dems will not take Texas (which was a long shot anyhow, but what a sweeeet longshot to shoot for)

biden mostly fucked this up and trump, despite everything he said being bullshit, horrifying, or both, mostly did not, so this does worry me

yeah, first reaction is this won't change anything, which is very bad for trump

no way will Trump's numbers edge upwards. third debates (ok, 'second' debate in this case) rarely generate any prolonged bounce.

if Trump gets a bounce, it'll be based on voter trends from within the last week unrelated to the debate, or something that happens between now and then that we don't know about yet.

Texas is a bit of a reach, but if Biden doesn't win it, it has little to do with tonight IMO

totally get the fears about trump winning, still, for real

it terrifies me too. i remember feeling this strongly in late oct 2016 (yeah but trump? fuckin come on)

i also am probably alone (here) in thinking that biden did fine tonight

Karl otm. Main takeaway: nothing changes as a result of this. And given that tens of millions of people have already decided.

Biden needed to not fuck up very badly and that happened.

Trump needed to change the game and that didn't happen.

Trump rebounded at this point in 2016 as reluctant Republicans that couldn't bring themselves to vote for Trump started 'coming home' and being convinced to do it for sake of party, which began reflecting in the polls and narrowing Hillary's lead. this year, the Republicans are already firmly in his camp, they're not the problem, so the demographics he has to make up ground with aren't so easily malleable.

I am pretty convinced the legitimate results will be Biden trouncing Trump, I remain worried of course about GOP state governments, Trump, and other cronies interfering with the democratic process, as well as voter disenfranchisement. so in other words I am 90% sure Biden will 'win', I'm less confident that this will result in him "being President".

i'm still freaked due to my last point and I had to go back to taking sleep aids again to sleep last night asa result tho

Biden's in a tricky spot with all the "you had eight years" hectoring. He can't really say "I was vice-president, now I'm running for president" without undercutting both Obama and his own influence as VP. I'm sure he's loath to do the former, both tactically and as just the decent thing to do.

should be noted that numbers have improved for Trump in recent weeks, but I really chalk that more up to just how far Trump fell in the polls after his disastrous news cycle just under a month ago with his tax returns, getting COVID and lying about it, his awful first debate. double digit federal deficit, and significant deficits in many battleground states, he had very little direction to go but up

He also couldn't spend all his time responding to baseless accusations

xp

Trump very slightly better than Biden I thought - which is a horrible indictment of Biden.

I think Biden did fine. Glad he brought up "we had a Republican Congress" but I wished he hammered that more. Poor guy still believes in bipartisanship I guess.

Trump did better than he did last time but yeah that's an incredibly low bar. Still had a hard time following anything he was saying, not sure how any hypothetical undecided voter was gonna be won over by him at this point

he figured out at the end of the debate that the answer was "we had a Republican Congress," unfortunately that was after being prompted about 20 times

Biden's in a tricky spot with all the "you had eight years" hectoring.

No, he's not. As even Chuck Todd admitted, Trump spent the entire debate talking directly to Sean Hannity's audience. Nothing he said had any meaning for anyone else. All y'all motherfuckers need to put on some dry pants and go to bed.

Nothing will change.

Oh my god. My cousin was an usher at the debate tonight. He just texted me and said he was called backstage to help peel off Mr. Trump’s diaper. Apparently it really caked onto his cheeks. The diarrhea hardened throughout the evening and the pampers cemented to his skin. Ouch!

— Vic Berger IV (@VicBergerIV) October 23, 2020

Good night.

I was more upset that Biden and Trump regard black men as carceral state commodities -- have we jailed more or less of them, have we granted them more or less clemency.

always good to learn that wind turbine power is not just killing birds, it's also "releasing toxic fumes"!

the only newsworthy part of this is gonna be Trump responding "Good" when Biden brought up 500 kids without their parents

Except he didn't. He said "Go ahead" (to Welker wanting to move on).

If anything, Trump looked worse for being allowed full sentences. The "good" about parents ripped from kids should be the next line of Biden attack ads.

Biden looked older and more querulous than the last couple appearances, but we knew that already.

The Texas GOP (and their PACs) has been pushing the energy thing in their candidates' ads, basically stating that any Green New Deal provisions will kill us all (Fuckin' Crenshaw even has one that starts with him saying "I am an environmentalist, but...").

No, he's not. As even Chuck Todd admitted, Trump spent the entire debate talking directly to Sean Hannity's audience.

I don't really see those two things as being related. Whatever Trump's motives, I'm guessing Biden wanted to say something to the effect that "The decisions weren't mine." But he didn't--to his credit, I'd say.

The funniest moment was Trump completely missing Biden's facetiousness calling him Abraham Lincoln and pouncing on that like he'd just exposed the smoking gun re Biden's mental acuteness: "Look everyone--he thinks he's debating Abraham Lincoln!"

A friend told me Biden's line about wind energy will play just fine in Texas because it generates a third of America's wind energy anyway.

But J.R. Ewing won't be happy.

I was more upset that Biden and Trump regard black men as carceral state commodities -- have we jailed more or less of them, have we granted them more or less clemency.

― Patriotic Goiter (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, October 22, 2020 10:09 PM (fifteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

An unfortunate side effect of our predilection for presidential candidates old enough to recall when slavery was still legal.

https://i.imgur.com/LdIEIpF.mp4

before long we'll be on Biden's ass, like we should be

yeah, but more important than that is figuring out which progressive groups are out there building effective coalitions and recruiting good candidates at all levels of government, who'll be the next generation of legislators moving the country, and by extension the world, away from a rapid descent into hell. Then supporting them to the hilt.

Yeah we all know he’s controlled by the radical left

Unperson otm (many xps)

I know we hate a "Melania HATES him" narrative BUT I MEAN pic.twitter.com/dpXKEOe2So

— Pa-skull 💀 (@WalnutDust) October 23, 2020

anyway my take is that this will once again fool the media into asking if Trump has struck a "new tone" even though the reality is he only acted differently because he knew getting muted on live TV would make him look stupid

that narrative will probably get destroyed long before the 60 Minutes interview even airs

I was more upset that Biden and Trump regard black men as carceral state commodities -- have we jailed more or less of them, have we granted them more or less clemency.

Yes, and Biden's rigid insistence that the solution to drug possession arrests is to force people into treatment centers instead of jail, rather than to just stop arresting people.


The funniest moment was Trump completely missing Biden's facetiousness calling him Abraham Lincoln and pouncing on that like he'd just exposed the smoking gun re Biden's mental acuteness: "Look everyone--he thinks he's debating Abraham Lincoln!"

Trump regularly fails to comprehend figurative imagery and metaphor; I couldn't tell if that happened here, or he was just whipping up some bullshit to throw to Fox and the basket.


now let's hurry up and get him in office, and then before long we'll be on Biden's ass, like we should be

https://i.imgur.com/0DQwPFD.jpg

So the grand total of times that Bobulinski was brought up tonight was ... zero?

i was promised bobulinski

is he one of the final bosses on Punch-Out

mister bobulinksi mister bob bobulinksi

Zilch.

It was a Bobulinski-no-showski

A nonbobulinskifest

I think he had a whole live statement on fox news

Never mind the furthermore, the pee has drenched his pants.

I think we all missed it during the debate, but I just remembered the moderator saying "You refuse to take responsibility for America's handling of the pandemic --" and Trump responding "No, I will take responsibility, and I do I take full responsibility, but it wasn't my fault, it was China's fault." Truly impressive how many times this week alone he's sunk to new depths of pissbabyness.

xpost

also fuck, this week day alone