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Old guys need to pass the torch for their brands to stay relevant.
It’s a selfish act to be 80 whatever with this much political capital and not have been developing protégés with whom to share and support.
Biden should be on a rocking chair sipping a lemonade for the rest of his life at this point, maybe calling in favors as necessary for a 40 or 50-year-old high energy leader who actually has to live in the future he creates.
i want to cry that this needed to be said
You had one person trying to listen, keep track and respond earnestly to each point of a serial liar, and struggling to do it.
The serial liar would make one statement making light of the last thing that was said and then confidently go off on whatever they wanted.
We’ve seen before that Americans want a confident but evil self-serving idiot over a tepid but smart, compassionate leader.
Next morning Edit: My one hope is that the news of Grants Pass, EPA SCOTUS decisions show the real consequences of electing Trump.
a tepid but smart, compassionate leader.
Is that really what you saw on that stage tonight? I saw a guy who lost his car keys because he was so angry at those kids on his lawn. Whether or not the narrative on Biden is fair, he just totally legitimized it.
I get what you’re saying about debating with Trump, or any Republican really. Debate is a lot easier when you care nothing for the truth. Overcoming that is the Democratic candidate’s job. That’s what Biden signed up to do. That’s what the Democrats picked him to do. A candidate who can’t function in that situation has no business on that stage. There are a great many Democrats who could have wiped the floor with Trump.
Yes, he is smart, and showed great intelligence, but in this instance severely underperformed in his ability to communicate clearly, like someone having a panic attack at a presentation. If you read a transcript of the debate it would be clear who is a leader and who is a clown. The raspy cold voice compounded things but those are all superficial elements, not on the substance (which Trump had nothing but lies and snide remarks).
I agree this isn’t what any Democrat including Biden wanted in the debate and AOC, Sanders would be way better orators. I’m saying regardless of tonight, Americans have picked before a charismatic comic in Reagan over a tepid, but smart, compassionate leader like Carter.
There are a great many Democrats who could have wiped the floor with Trump.
AOC would fucking shred him
I like AOC. Unfortunately the majority of people, due to innate racism or misogyny, won’t vote for her. One of the only reasons Biden is there is they know he’s the most likely to get votes from all over the country.
Kamala is the backup the party leadership chose.
And what a fuckin poison pill that bitch is. Honestly feel like Sarah Palin is more palatable.
I also think she wouldn’t win the vote. For similar reasons as AOC.
As can be seen by the first person to reply to your post.
She’s also a cop with a very unpalatable record. But yes, misogynoir is also a huge hurdle for her, as per that other comment
I saw a guy who didn’t just lose his car keys. He shouldn’t be allowed to drive period. America is so fucked and thus so is the rest of the world.
Gish Gallop, I don’t know why they even try against that crap
Biden used to be really good against that tactic, it’s why he won the debate in 2012 against Paul Ryan. Ryan gish galloped and Biden responded with a simple ‘POPPYCOCK!’. It worked.
Honestly I don’t know how much better I could do than biden in an argument with trump. His look of just complete confusion as trump just continued to say complete nonsense was pretty much the same look I had listening to it.
really fair, it’s certainly an uncommon skill but it’s definitely a skill we should be able to expect of our literal leaders
Imagine downvoting “I think the President should be good at public speaking”
Obama spoiled us. Hell, even dubyuh was more articulate than either of the geriatrics we have now.
Imagine if Trump had been debating John Stewart
But this was bog-standard Trump for his entire political career. Gish galloping is what he does. This shouldn’t have been a surprised Pikachu moment.
I think you can do a lot better than he did, any of us could. Just look at the transcript here. ctrl+f for “golf”. You’re gonna tell me you don’t have a better response than Biden here?
I’m just gonna come up with 5 things right now Biden could’ve said:
- “I don’t think the American people care how good my opponent’s golf game is. They care if he can run the country, and as you can tell from his answer he doesn’t even remember what that involves.”
- “Again with the cognitive tests. No one asked whether you took a cognitive test Donald. But if you wanna brag about it, at least release them to the public so we can see if you actually passed.”
- “I think everyone’s seen enough from both of our 4 years in the white house - they can see I’m focused on the economy and foreign policy, while he was focused on golf as he still is.”
- “I’ll fully concede that he’s a better golfer than me. After all, he spent so much of his last administration practicing.”
- “This guy claims he won two club championships at the age of 82? Does anyone seriously believe that? This guy is delusional folks.”
Instead Biden talked about his height (which he didn’t mention) and challenged him to a driving contest. WTF. I recognize how bad this would’ve sounded before yesterday, but literally any random person we pick from this thread has better odds than Biden at this point.
Trump did absolutely horribly. His answers can be fairly described as completely and transparently delusional. But Biden managed to make him look good.
That’s pretty much been the playbook since day one, just shotgun blasts complete bullshit left and right, it’s the equivalent of verbal chaff. Misdirect, confuse, and trip up the opponent so that they have to waste time refuting your BS than actually talking about the facts.
The man couldn’t even properly answer the abortion questions, I seriously hope you’d do better than that.
He did OKAY on the abortion question, but then incoherently rambled for a few seconds and somehow brought immigration up. Still better than Trump’s response.
Democrats are handing Trump another term on a silver platter. But I don’t expect them to do much soul searching if it happens. I expect them to just shift the blame onto everything else.
Swing voters and those who haven’t decided yet often make the difference. I don’t believe for a second they will turn out in droves for Biden. He is not the guy. If he’s like this now, what’s he going to be like in 4 years time?
If the Dems had a young firebrand type as a presidential candidate who could really take Trump to task, I think they’d walk the election.
I’m confused why people don’t consider the idea of Kamala taking over if Biden does win and steps down. I know she’s not popular, but it’s like everyone forgets our system can handle the president being incapacitated.
Probably doesn’t help that the administration has used Kamala as the bearer of bad news. Any time bad news gets released, it’s coming from Kamala instead of Biden. Because the administration wants to keep Biden’s nose clean, but that comes at the expense of Kamala.
She also does not excite voters tho. Don’t get me wrong, better than trump sure, but no one wants a cop in the white house.
The president is like one of the highest ranking cops in government.
Would Kamala beat Trump in the election?
I don’t think she has polled well, but who knows. Drives me fucking insane that a convicted felon that staged an attempted coup is polling better than anyone to begin with
She self-imploded her own primary campaign, so no.
If Trump wins there could be a major realignment of parties in the near future.
2016 part two
cynically i feel the DNC might just dig in their heels and hope people memory hole this. because jesus fuck i sure want to, that was horrifying
At this point what I think is happening is Joe has one of those old age bugs except this one specifically makes the brain to mouth communication issues that come with a stutter a lot worse.
Because communication seems to always be this guy’s biggest stumbling block, if this were just a report card comparison there wouldn’t be a race, he’s obviously still a competent guy as old as he is, the problem is that something’s going on that makes it way harder for him to adequately communicate that whenever he needs to.
That’s really the only way I can self reason why he then proceeded to be completely fine in the much lower pressure environment of his after debate rally.
Edit: report card not credit card, although personally I’m willing to bet that Joe’s credit score is way better than Donny’s too
I don’t even need Biden to be competent. Just surround himself with a competent cabinet. Which he has, and is why we’ve gotten so many wins and why Trump did so horribly in his first term.
Yeah, good thing all that matters for a president is the ability to have good ideas, and there is no need to be able to convey these ideas to other humans.
People will memory hole it IF Biden does better in the future. The last thing that happened is always the only thing that matters in US elections.
I only got to see the closing statements. Biden looked worn down. Unconfident. Soft spoken. I could barely understand what he was saying and I had to turn on closed captioning.
Then Trump starts talking…and it’s all bullshit, but God if he doesn’t sound good spewing it.
America is fucked. The world is fucked. We’re all gonna die. Buckle in.
They’ll tell us that Joe did great, and that anyone thinking otherwise is being subliminally influenced by Russian propaganda.
He had a decent performance. I understand more about his policies and called trump a felon and a fat loser. That’s what I wanted out of it. Trump literally could not answer half of the questions because he was still rambling about the previous question.
Biden had a hoarse throat from a cold and a bit of a stutter but he turned on a dime when he was asked different questions. Both dudes are old af. The choice is: do you want senile grandpa who can’t answer the question or the guy who has a soft voice?
Biden’s clearly still with it but slower, and trump is clearly still nuts, possibly moreso. I choose Biden because he’s the only one who occasionally says things that make sense.
Lol yeah pretty much. Just got round to watching the highlights today and what a joke. Nobody even bothers to mention democracy or freedom any more because now its pure politics. It’s been perfected to the point that it finally bears no resemblance to human nature whatsoever.
Well, to be fair, you said you only watched the highlights.
I guarantee you that none of the normal question and answer sections made it into the highlights reel.
Both candidates said plenty of substance through the night.
The whole debate was designed to generate clips. One minute responses is a terrible format. All the responses were just high energy rapid fire buzzwords with no real substance.
Should we have them just explain their platforms for an hour each uninterrupted? Kinda like campaigning?
Trump is the perfect representative of the US tourists we see here in Europe.
Not all, of course, because you don’t notice the quiet / decent ones. (Hey, just like the election , huh)
I’m currently visiting Greece, the Americans don’t seem to be any more clueless than the rest of us. The only difference is that they use taxis instead of public transport.
I wouldn’t call them clueless. Just obnoxious.
To anyone thinking, “We surived one term of Trump. How bad can another one be?”
Very bad, as John Oliver points out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYwqpx6lp_s
He said he’d be a dictator in day 1. How many dictators ever gave up power voluntarily? He’s going full fascist jan 21 if he wins.
This could literally be the last real election the US ever has.
Cincinnatus would.
No, no, you don’t get it, letting fascism win is Making A Moral Stand. I have been assured of this many times on here.
please add /s
No /s, I have definitely been assured of it many times by commenters on the Fediverse.
I’m just not in agreement.
This is why America needs a constitutional monarchy
Lmao. We’d just install the Sackler family.
Who?
The ones responsible for the Opioid crisis. They silenced reports that their drug was highly addictive, bribed the FDA, sold it directly to the people with kickbacks for doctors, and acted like it was just a bunch of junkies when the lawsuits started.
To anyone thinking “we survived one term of Trump, how bad can another one be?”
Read this:https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias
And then read this:https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2022/dec/us-maternal-health-divide-limited-services-worse-outcomes
A lot of us straight up didn’t survive one term of Trump
Video not available outside the USA, and yes, the rest of the world is very worried about Trump getting back into power.
It’s available in my non-US country. Probably there’s some local deal wherever you are (edit: using a restrictions checker app, the link is only blocked in Canada, UK, Australia, NZ, and Iceland, and available everywhere else)
They also go out of their way to put up whole episodes for non-US viewers (these are not available in the US) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCRySbsLKiA
Just… Why? Why make it avait everywhere EXCEPT Canada, UK, Australia, NZ… I hate regional blocking, fuck everything about it. Yeah, yeah, VPN might fix that, but why do I need to fuck arout to get the same as everyone else?
Usually it’s because they have a distribution deal with a local TV station in that country where the deal prohibits them from distributing it themselves. The local station wants you to watch it on their own streaming service. That would also explain why it’s mostly English-speaking countries since nowhere else would carry an English-centric news show like this.
Thanks for checking. I’m in NZ, and the link you posted is also blocked here.
I guess it’s because Sky TV ( branded as ‘neon’) owns the rights to that show in NZ so if you want to watch it you have to pay them money
https://www.neontv.co.nz/series/last-week-tonight-with-john-oliver
What is the app you used? That sounds super helpful to have in the toolbelt
I just googled “YouTube region block checker” and there were a bunch of results, I used the first one https://watannetwork.com/tools/blocked/
His voice is too annoying for me to listen too, unfortunately.
That’s a shame cause he is by far the best legacy from Jon’s Daily Show and HBO money lets him do all kinds of wacky shit
Yeah I’m so glad HBO gives him so much room. He’s able to go after people who would otherwise keep him tied up in court. I always miss the Colbert Report but this guy, who is definitely Bill Maher, is my other favorite.
Who is pretty much the opposite of Bill Maher you mean?
The only Maher I like is Skid from Glass Cannon
It was a joke on the Indian Elections ep of Last Week Tonight about Modi/'s people going after anyone criticizing Modi.
I love the part where the democratic leadership made sure there were no viable alternatives during the primary.
How did they do that?
Biden is the incumbent so obviously the only one that can possibly win. Crush all other prospects and tell them to wait their turn
furthermore any challengers are just giViNg tHe eLeCtIoN to trump
Nobody stopped people from running, though. In fact people did run they just lost like primaries are supposed to work?
Pretty sure they dropped out one by one due to political pressure
Really? They didn’t drop out because of lackluster polling? Can you point to them rapidly rising in national approval ratings?
No candidate would ever win a primary against an incumbent president. Which is why the right decision would’ve been for Biden not to run.
Name one real option the democrats has promoted.
The fact is that the democratic Party went all in on Biden early one and has refused to promote anyone else
Yes there’s been a few candidates, but they are all largely unknown and no effort has been made to seriously bring them up.
It’s news to me that “democrats” (???) have to promote a candidate as opposed to a candidate running and captivating the primaries electorate… You know… As Barack Obama did in 2007.
Yes there’s been a few candidates, but they are all largely unknown and no effort has been made to seriously bring them up.
Well I’m sorry but beggars can’t be choosers.
You could’ve run; why didn’t you?
But this beside the point, considering the goalpost has moved a mile from “The DNC didn’t allow anyone else to run.” lol. People here need a lesson in basic civics, clearly.
I get so tired of seeing people hand-wave away democracy like it’s some kind of amateur sport. This is not how fair and impartial primaries are ran. We can recognize the tech-monopolies and the unfair practices (and untold wealth) they use to squash competition but when it comes to elections? shrug
Even Bernie Sanders could’ve run again if he wanted to, but he chose not to. Nobody at the DNC “forced” him to not run as was suggested.
more hand-waving, “anyone can make a video platform”. No, you need infrastructure, SEO attention, Creators, etc etc. You don’t just “decide” to run in elections, the bar for entry is beyond anything a citizen or even most politicians can accrue. Bernie Sanders fell in line a long time ago with the same party he openly said was unfairly treating elections. Vote Biden if that’s your choice and I fully support that, but we need to stop sugar coating and pretending everything is A-ok in the DNC if we ever want an elected official who represents the average voter in the party.
More hand-waving, indeed.
Bernie Sanders whose convictions and experience are without question understands the game better than anyone here, I suspect.
I’m okay with saying the DNC has poor strategy. But that is independent from claiming they prevented anyone from running. So I say again, NOBODY FORCED anyone to NOT Run, and zero evidence to the contrary has been provided. This is an obvious wedge-driving issue that originates from right-wing and foreign operatives intending to wedge-drive the Democratic coalition. Please, don’t drink the kool-aid.
For one thing, they didn’t have a primary candidate debate, which would have helped the challengers get some exposure.
Didn’t have a primary in FL at all.
Okay, and? What is your point?
This is just a misunderstanding of how primaries work and basic civics. There are Democratic primaries in FL. For Senate seats, House seats, etc. Those primary dates differ state-to-state, and Florida’s just so happen to take place in August. Nobody met the requirements to be submitted on the Florida ballot in time, and second to that, it wouldn’t have made a difference ultimately as we would come to find out since nobody achieved any competitive results in earlier primaries or in national polling.
There wasn’t a Primary for President because those who voluntarily threw their hat in the ring either (a) dropped out, (b) did not meet the minimum ballot requirements, or © Biden already earned enough votes for it to be irrelevant. Florida was never make-or-break for anyone else who, again, voluntarily threw their hat in the ring.
I was referring to the presidential primary (as that is the topic of discussion in this thread). Florida did not have one.
As was I, which I explained why it did not happen. Please read more closely.
Basic civics.
The “explanation” doesn’t change that it did not happen. My previous comment did not require a qualifier.
Basic reading comprehension.
Ok, cool? I simply gave context showing your factoid contributes nothing meaningful to the conversation.
None of these kids ever seem to know what they’re talking about. And the moment you point it out with any proof- they disappear to go post their shit elsewhere having not learned a thing.
It’s why I don’t bother anymore trying to persuade them with facts. I just call them out and move on.
Thank fuck I’m not American. Now, if you’d excuse me, I must get ready for the potential imminent arrival of fascism in about 2 days in my country (France). Can’t wait to see the US fall as well! Wow! What a wonderful fucking world awaits us, huh? 💀
Shall we both bring out the guillotines? Or should start at setting things on fire? As an American, I’m not sure how your French protesting works, but I’m willing to learn.
As someone living in the UK, I’d also like to learn from the French
First you wait for an event that pulls a lot of media to your country like the Olympics, then you start fucking shit up
We are in the 4th turning. History repeats. The end of the 4th turning is a crisis. Call it mysticism but things are looking like a repeat of the 4 turnings in the past. Usually ends with war, disease, and famine before revolution.
Just sitting here watching the US elect a man who openly buffalo buffalo buffalo wants to turn it into a theocratic dictatorship…
Imagine US turning into a dictatorship.
Imagine US being on the Axis side of the WW3.
The US chose the winning side in both wars, was extremely permeable to fascism after the second war, and use the Red Scare to purge political dissensions.
The US not helping Germany is mostly due to financial interests (for the politicians) and Pearl Harbour (for the masses).
My point is, let’s not pretend that the US being on the wrong side if history in WW3 is a surprising idea.
In which we can die in droves fighting the nazis for those other countries just to get called axis.
You guys can’t be fr
what does buffalo (x3) mean /gen
Random gramatically correct nonsense to mess with data scraping.
Wild! And might actually be effective, unlike the weirdos putting a “license” on their comments.
The license works. Just ask your grandparents who posted those disclaimers on Facebook 15 years ago.
I will never not downvote every single comment with that stupid useless attention-seeking “license”
To be fair Biden has had a stutter for all his life. How quiet he was and with everything going on it didn’t look good though. I wish we could have different candidates. I’m not sure if this will change anyone’s vote or not though.
To be fair Biden has had a stutter for all his life.
That gets repeated a lot, but I think the people who think that’s a good enough excuse have not actually seen middle aged Biden speak.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_v00iGJCLY
The Biden of that video has some incredible charisma, but he has nothing to do with the person today.
It is obvious age has effected his ability to communicate. I suppose it’s just something to keep in mind, not an excuse. Like I said before, I wish we had younger candidates on both sides. I think most people didn’t want this rematch. The person in that video would have been great, but we only have what’s left of that now.
It for sure will, republicans have been ripping critical thinking out from the educational system since Reagan. In fact, it looks like they got a hold of journalists first.
it looks like they got a hold of journalists
Republicans understood that that they must control the news in order to control the people. Problem is that they made the “news” into a dumpster of lies. They are now going after education. Idiocracy, here we come.
They found they just need to accuse the media of treating them unfairly, and they’ll fall in line to avoid looking biased, ironically becoming biased in the process.
Also Idiocracy would be an improvement because Komacho literally put the smartest man in the world in charge
I was considering voting for Biden. I’ve never voted before. I think after seeing all this though the only way I’ll vote for Biden is if my dad votes for Trump just so I can cancel his vote out lol
Voting for Biden is not voting for the man, it’s voting for an ideology, for hope, for a future less grim. Vote for Biden.
Honestly that’s overselling Biden and their own pitch is you are voting against ending democracy. Biden isn’t going to make the future less grim (unless we protest), but Trump would certainly make it worse.
He absolutely is making the future less grim. The industry news I read for my work in the energy industry is full of progress in environmental regulation. It’s a fight vs Republicans and Biden is really making progress.
What progress will you have to make if Biden who has been polling 40/40 or 39/41 loses to Trump? It may be less grim (if he can win) but it is much more likely to be grim if Democrats don’t take their heads out of the sand and consider nominating someone actually able to handle a debate against Trump.
Those are the same reasons people use to vote for Trump. I’m around it all the time. People on both sides are voting out of fear of the other side. Reason and reality are no longer relevant in politics. Only fear.
And are you not afraid? I fucking am
That was my point.
Because they have a very public plan to completely restructure the government to make Trump a dictator and the US a theocracy. This isn’t normal. They’re openly telling us they’re going to do that.
If you’re not afraid, you’re either trying really hard to not pay attention, or you just hate America and want it to fall.
Of course I’m afraid. Probably more realistically than everyone responding as if I wasn’t. I don’t see a way to stop America from sinking further into a dark age.
It blows my mind how anti-intellecualism is so strong when we have so much information at our finger tips. The greedy takeover of Reddit is painful. Like a lobotomy. Finding sources and more perspectives was never easier than what had been built on that site. This last year has made it indistinguishable from other forms of media.
We are perpetually getting dumber and more afraid. And before I am questioned again, “we” includes me.
“I wouldn’t be affected by project 2025 so there’s no reason for me to care”
Just be honest dude.
Again. That was my point! Fear is controlling us.
Okay, but one side uses fear to roll out voting rights while the other takes those same rights away. Fear isn’t controlling all of us because it is up to us in how we respond.
And the left uses fear to say the polls are too close for Biden to have such a miserable debate performance to risk democracy… and what do the Trump supporters do? They say… no Biden is your only option against Trump.
I’ve got more uncles than my siblings and I can cancel out - wanna help us? :P
You should vote regardless if your dad does or who your dad votes for.
If you like the ability to vote then there’s only one choice my man.
Please consider just doing it either way.
You forgot the golf argument they had towards the end
Trump is the only guy who would bury his ex-wife on his own golf course just so that he could continue to cheat on her.
Things I didn’t expect to read in Bloomberg Tax
What’s weird is part of me just wishes they’d just settle it in a golf match. 1 month practice, PGA rules. I don’t even like golf.
Biden challenged trump to a game, but only if trump carries his own clubs.
🤣🤣🤣
We all know that will never happen.
“You can’t even Carey your own Golf bag” is also is also such a rich guy insult. Imagine someoene in the street throwing that insult at your head.
I literally had to turn it off. What was this golf argument?
Trump just said Biden sucks at golf, then Biden gave an incoherent response.
Oh man, I wish his response was “Of course I’m bad at golf. I’ve been too busy leading a country to have time practicing my hand at golfing.”
I’ve yet to see any footage yet and with all these comments now I’m wondering if bumbling Bush Jr looks like a genius now compared to these guys…
Biden’s voice was very faint and weak, unusually so.
Trump was Trump. Incoherent, but in a way that morons adore, apparently.
Biden did not do particularly well. I think his voice and tone made it seem worse than it was, but it wasn’t good.
Especially with Trump just lying about anything and everything, as usual.
We’re so fuckin cooked lmao
