A Right Wing Cannot Flap Alone, or, Donald Trump Screwed the Putsch

[A Black Falcon]

lol we’re fucked. Buckle up for another four years of Trump and cross your fingers our institutions will hold strong against him again when he tries to overturn the next election or run a third term. 

ABF, that debate was painful to watch. Biden didn’t “just have a cold”, it wasn’t a stutter, he was mentally emfeebled.  He used the wrong words (“we beat Medicare”) froze up mid-sentence several times, couldn’t stay focused, and when he could have slipped the knife into Trump about Roe v Wade, HE INSTEAD BROUGHT UP AN ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT MURDERING A WOMAN.

This is a disheartening humiliation for Biden and the DNC. The media exaggerates for ratings, sure, but they aren’t just pulling this “Biden should be replaced” talk out of their asses. 

For the record, I think Biden’s done a fine job and will vote for him again, and not solely to keep Trump out. I’ve seen him in other recent long-form interviews, and he was lucid. But this debate was a disaster. He was already teetering poll wise, and this will probably tank him. Whether he can claw himself back up depends on how optimistic you want to be but this will take a lot of heavy lifting to recover. He handed clips for attack ads to his opponents on a silver platter.

No, he did have a cold.  They said he tested for COVID but was negative.  That's why his voice sounded so off.  And I could hear the stutters.  He'd start saying something, stutter, then drop the point or say something else.  I agree the one or two times where he lost his train of thought was bad, though, yes.  Fortunately he got it together later on in the debate, the worst moments were all early.

As for how much damage this will do, the press hopes it'll be a lot but I doubt it will be much.  The few polls we've gotten since the debate haven't shown much if any change from before, first.  Some people were paying attention to policy and not only optics and Trump's policy positions are insanely awful.  Also, this is a significantly earlier debate than usual, and at this point a lot of people aren't really paying attention to the upcoming election yet.  Apparently 48 million people watched the debate, which is a lot but tens of millions fewer than the first debate in '20.  It is also perhaps worth mentioning that more Republicans than Democrats said they were interested in watching.  But regardless of who was watching, there are quite a few months left and there will be a lot of news coming.  For instance, Trump's sentencing is coming up soonish.