2020 Presidential Debates

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So, who's winning the Presidential debates?

Trump of course - he steamrollered Biden
0
No votes
Biden of course - Trump made himself look like a blustering fool
4
44%
Winning? This farcical pantomime was cringingly embarrassing
5
56%
 
Total votes: 9

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Post by TheFallen »

Zarathustra wrote:[People are reacting to tone, that's it. They aren't actually listening to what was said.
True, but that's because in the US at least (and quite possibly everywhere else in a few short years to come), in general, people cannot be bothered with demanding stuff like "content". With today's 10 second attention span, it's all about tone and optics. Speaking of which...
Zarathustra wrote:He didn't do it dramatically and look into the camera for stage effect (which, for some reason, seems to impress people)...
For the reason this impresses the majority of people, see my comment above. It's all about the superficial, the lipstick, the packaging. The actual content seems to be entirely irrelevant. Kneejerk 10 second decision-making based solely on appearances is apparently the order of the day.
Zarathustra wrote:I don't think this is as big a deal as people are making it. It doesn't make our country look bad.
Sorry, but you're just plain wrong. It may not matter at all and you may simply not give a rat's ass either - and that's a whole nother separate discussion - but it absolutely does make the US look ridiculous and diminishes you. Figureheads they may merely be, but still, these two "old white gaffe machines" are being proffered as the crème de la crème, the very best and most "fit for purpose" candidates for president that the US can come up with. Really? And moreover, following Tuesday's debacle, you honestly think that this has no effect on how the US is viewed by the rest of the world?

Here's the relatively dispassionate and level-headed BBC...
BBC.co.uk wrote:Presidential debate: How the world's media reacted

US voters have endured the first of three presidential debates between President Donald Trump and Joe Biden.


The event has also prompted a huge reaction from world audiences who tuned in for the chaotic event.

Newspapers and commentators around the world have criticised the tone and tactics of the debate.

UK

As The Times in the UK wrote, "The clearest loser from the first presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden was America."

The paper went further, saying the event "was not a debate in any meaningful sense" but rather "an ill-tempered and at times incomprehensible squabble between two angry septuagenarians who palpably loathe each other".

"The rest of the world - and future historians - will presumably look at it and weep," the paper wrote

France

"Chaotic, childish, gruelling" - that's how French newspaper Liberation described Tuesday's debate. Le Monde agreed, calling it a "terrible storm".

Germany

Der Spiegel's analysis of the debate is headlined "A TV duel like a car accident".

In a piece titled "Part fist-fight, part play", Suddeutsche Zeitung wrote: "Both Trump and Biden could go home satisfied because as far as the theatrical performance is concerned, both did their job properly. Donald Trump played Donald Trump, Joe Biden played Joe Biden, and fans should have liked it."

Italy

"Never had American politics sunk so low," La Repubblica's US correspondent wrote, describing the debate as "Chaotic, rowdy, and based on mutual contempt".

India

Hindi-language news channel AajTak accused both candidates of "mud-slinging", while broadcaster Times Now said the debate was "marred with personal jibes and political barbs".

But the strongest commentary came from The Times of India, the country's largest-selling English-language newspaper, which compared the debate to "mud-wrestling".

"The US embarrassed itself before the world for 100 minutes," it wrote.

link.
Zarathustra wrote:We don't elect Presidents to make us look good. It's not about appearances . . . or it shouldn't be. It's about policies.
...with the key operative phrase there being "shouldn't be". But sadly, that is exactly and solely what it's about - and both sides are utterly insistent on making it about this. Obvciously both Pub and Dem High Commands have decided that for the majority of the US electorate, this presidential contest absolutely should be presented as a glorified reality TV personality contest. And bear in mind that the strategists having decided that are not stupid people. They'll have done all their research and both sides will have concluded that dumbing down any debate to the absolute max - literally to Jerry Springer show levels - offers their side the best chance of winning the White House...

Now I'm not sure whether that says more about the smarts of the average US voter... or the contempt in which both sides hold the average US voter... or both.
Zarathustra wrote:So they interrupted each other. So fucking what? This is a high stakes game of deciding who will run our country.
I don't think that's the primary motivation at all. Well okay, it may be what the electorate is being hustled into thinking is up for discussion and decision.... but from the two respective High Commands' points of view, it's all about getting purely self-interested control of the swill trough. Altruism, morality and ideology are just the paper-thin masks worn in a calculated attempt to hustle votes...

Regardless, unless something notably dramatic happens between now and Nov 3rd, Trump is single-handedly well on the way to ensuring his own loss. The guy is demonstrably uncontrollable and uncounsellable - and his extreme narcissism combined with his massive ego and completely over-inflated sense of his own abilities are going to hand the White House to the lamentably piss-poor Biden and the Dems.

As I have said before and I'll stand foursquare by it, because to me it's very obvious truth...

Nov 2016. Pub win. Because = Hillary.

Nov 2020. (Ever more likely) Pub loss. Because = Trump.

Seems self-evident to me that nowadays, no individual or no party is good enough (or talented enough... or uniting enough... or inspirational enough) to win a US presidential election. It's all and only about who's shit enough and crass enough to lose one.
Last edited by TheFallen on Thu Oct 01, 2020 11:10 am, edited 4 times in total.
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Post by sgt.null »

TF - still time between now and then. But with the news that Philadelphia had the memory stick to their voting machines had been stolen. I can see what is happening.

https://www.inquirer.com/politics/elect ... 00930.html

It doesn't matter. Biden will get whatever number of votes he needs. Every other day we hear of more tom footers having to do with ballots or votes.

We should have the most secure voting system in the world and we don't. Its a bigger joke than the debate.
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Post by Gaius Octavius »

That's fake news. Our electoral system is NOT rigged. Otherwise, Trump never would have fucking won in the first place.

If the voting system is truly as corrupt as you say, then Trump could never have won because the establishment has a clear motivation for him to not win.

The pattern you are supposedly seeing is just cherry-picked news that is being used to radicalize and rile up his own base. In fact, Republican operatives are on the record for lying about such incidents. Stop paying attention to it.

Trump's ramblings about electoral fraud are just the rantings of a mad man who is desperate to win. Go look at the polling data, and you see that Biden does not even need to cheat. However, it does make you wonder if Trump's desperation to stay in power stems from a feeling that the walls are closing in on him and his family.

I am very certain that there will be criminal charges brought up against members of his family once his presidency is over. His office gives him some protections from such criminal charges, but he will lose those protections once he's out of office.

His calls in 2016 to jail Hillary might end up with him being jailed after January 21, 2021. The irony.
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Post by Gaius Octavius »

You saw Trump's behavior Tuesday night. Do you really believe you can trust a word that man says? Do you really believe you can trust a word that comes out of the mouths of his enablers (loyalist GOP politicians)?

Hell no!
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Post by wayfriend »

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Post by sgt.null »

ur - i get it. No matter how many stories pop up about election fraud yiu aren't going to believe it unless it harms your side..
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Post by wayfriend »

I wonder which of these true, documented facts sarge thinks is fake news.

+ Trump has frequently declared without evidence that the elections are rigged.
+ Trump has frequently declared without evidence that mail-in voting is prone to fraud.
+ Trump has frequently asked his constituents - total randoms - to "monitor" voting, folks who would claim they found fraud if Trump asked them to (just like you do, sarge).
+ Trump has corrupted the Justice Department so that, instead of being fair and impartial, it works on Trump's behalf, so that they will declare whatever Trump tells them to declare.
+ Trump has stacked the courts with droolers so that they will rule on any voting dispute the way Trump wants them to rule.
+ Trump has asked states to use unfaithful electors, to wit, first declare that mail in votes are fraudulent (whether or not they are - queue DoJ), to then declare the count invalid (whether or not it is - queue SCOTUS), and to then claim that in order to represent the will of the people (whether or not they do - queue GOP) to cast their electoral votes to Trump (whether or not he won).

Prediction: none, combined with deflection.

Democrats are seeing this all line up, so of course now they are shouting that Trump is rigging the election. Don't be stupid and say that this is the same as what Trump is doing. Trump is using a fantasy problem as an excuse, the Democrats are responding to facts. Trump is actually plotting, the Dems are only warning. Trump has the means and the motive, the Dems do not and do not. And starting a fight is not the same as being in a fight that someone else started.
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Post by Gaius Octavius »

Trump would like to rig the election, apparently, using some convoluted reason why he's actually the person America wants. Unfortunately for him, polling data is not on his side.

Fivethirtyeight stats (all are polling averages, so more accurate; pulled 10/1/20):
National: +8.2 Biden
Pennsylvania: +5.8 Biden
Wisconsin: +7.0 Biden
Michigan: +7.1 Biden

Biden only needs to carry those three states (all were flipped in 2016 and led to Trump winning) in order to win the election.

Interestingly, despite Trump doing a lot of campaigning in this state, here are Minnesota stats: +9.1 Biden.

Here are some other states:

Texas: +1.7 Trump
Georgia: +0.5 Biden
Iowa: +0.4 Trump
Ohio: +1.3 Biden
Arizona: +3.8 Biden
Florida: +2.2 Biden
N. Carolina: +1.2 Biden
Nebraska (1st): +2 Trump
Nebraska (2nd): +7.6 Biden

As you can see, these states are very competitive, within the margin of error (except NE-2). The trend favors Biden, so Trump could very well lose some of the red states in this list that are so close.

This is why I say that Texas is a purple state this year.


Also, as you can see from all the numbers above, this is why Biden does not need to cheat in order to win. He has a very comfortable lead, and Trump certainly helped him with his...whatever you call it...that we saw Tuesday night.

We have about 30 more days to go, and polling averages seem to have an uptick post-debate. There are some extremely favorable polls coming out after the first debate that favor Biden, so I predict that the debate severely hurt Trump.

EDIT: For comparison, 2 days after the first debate in 2016, Hillary Clinton was only up +1.9. Biden is more than four times her lead at this point of the race. Trump only won in swing states by a small margin. Razor-thin in many cases. And that was with Clinton just being within a couple of points in polling averages nationally, nowhere near the lead that Biden has right now.

On Election Day in 2016, Hillary Clinton was only +3.9 points over Trump nationally.

2016 was complicated by strong third-party candidates. For example, let's look at Pennsylvania, which FiveThirtyEight gave something like "77% chance of HRC winning."

Projected vote share on the day of the election was 48.9% Clinton, 45.2% Trump, 4.6% Johnson. In order to help compare 2016 to 2020, let's add Johnson's projected vote share to Trump's. That gives: 49.8% Trump, 48.9% Clinton. That gives Trump a projected +0.9 lead over Clinton in PA during the 2016 election, right on election day. Trump won PA by 0.72% in 2016, which is pretty damn close to my number of 0.9%.

For 2020, the projected numbers are: 52.2% Biden, 47.1% Trump. This gives Biden a 5.1% edge over Trump. That is assuming things don't change over the next 30 days.

As Hashi and now TF are realizing, the race does not look good for Trump, no matter how you cut it. Therefore, all this stuff about electoral fraud being committed by Democrats in 2020 is absurd. Biden is doing well enough right now that even if he was inclined towards cheating, there would be no need to.
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Post by Gaius Octavius »

In other news, Trump is already saying that he won't accept any rule changes at the next debates. He is either trying to strong arm the debate commission to allow the next debates to be just as chaotic as the first (in that scenario, what is even the point of having the debates?) or he's setting the stage for him to skip the next two debates altogether.

Both options would be grave mistakes for the Trump campaign. In the first, he will just continue to make a fool of himself, and all Biden has to do is sit back, say what he can about policy, stay calm, and look like an adult. In the second, Trump bailing on the debates would make him look like a coward after months of suggesting that Biden would never show up and debate him.

I don't think either would really fly except among his most ardent supporters. As we can see on these forums, some pretty Republican-leaning voters here aren't happy with his performance in the first debate. To any reasonable person, all of this should make you cringe.
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Post by Gaius Octavius »

Trump is spreading a lie that Biden is cancelling the next debates.
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Post by Avatar »

I'm sure it's in some other thread too, but I did wonder immediately if his Covid diagnosis was a way to avoid the other debates.

If he's a-symptomatic, they could do them virtually...it would be fun to watch him muted when the other participant is talking. :D

But if he doesn't wanht rules changed, can't see him accepting that.

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Post by Gaius Octavius »

Imagine him faking this whole diagnosis as an elaborate excuse to avoid the rest of the presidential debates because he so utterly failed at the first debate. That would be pathetic.
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Post by sgt.null »

ur-Nanothnir wrote:Imagine him faking this whole diagnosis as an elaborate excuse to avoid the rest of the presidential debates because he so utterly failed at the first debate. That would be pathetic.
So he got a doctor to lie and they scrambled jets is your fever dream?
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Post by Hashi Lebwohl »

ur-Nanothnir wrote:Imagine him faking this whole diagnosis as an elaborate excuse to avoid the rest of the presidential debates because he so utterly failed at the first debate. That would be pathetic.
Why not go all in on the worst possible conspiracy theory? Trump knew he was positive and infectious before the debate and chose to try and give corona to Biden on purpose.
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Post by Gaius Octavius »

It's not any crazier than the conspiracy theory about Democrats using mail-in ballots to commit electoral fraud, especially when they are so far ahead in the polls.
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Post by sgt.null »

I believe I missed this one...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... a-ballots/

And here is how secure our voting machines are in Philadelphia.

https://billypenn.com/2020/10/01/philly ... integrity/
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Post by TheFallen »

You want a crazed conspiracy theory involving assassination? Okay, here's one for y'all.

Trump catching COVID is not coincidental. It's the first part of a plan to remove him (and quite possibly permanently) on the part of the Pubs and the military-industrial complex before Nov 3rd.

Why? Because by now they know that with the uncontrollable Trump at the helm, their party cannot win next month... hence the most desperate and drastic last ditch measures are called for...

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Post by sgt.null »

Such conspiracies belong in fan fiction somewhere.
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Post by Gaius Octavius »

If you think such theories sound bonkers, that's exactly how I see you regarding the "Democrat are rigging the election with mail-in ballot fraud" conspiracy theory.
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Post by Gaius Octavius »

You still spread the conspiracy theory and conveniently ignore the data I provided you to look at, which would quickly dispel any notion that Democrats have a need to rig the damn election in the first place.

Any sane and rational person wouldn't believe the nonsense you are spouting about the election, Sarge.
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