I didn’t watch the debate, and most of the professional commentary I’ve seen on it has both not provided me with any new information about the race and inspired contempt for the commentators. I don’t know if I’m a typical American in this regard, but that’s where I’m at.
I hope you're right, but right now, every word I have read about the debate is from here on Bsky. Are you telling me this wasn't as significant and a blow out as the last audience-free debate?
I'm w/ur wife on this one. I don't understand the y'all-think-he-lost crowd. Like did we watch the same debate?
My grndparents died at least a decade ago. Not too long ago 4me. Every person CNN is talking to seems to think old & slow is sick & decrepit. Y'all didn't see Biden's spicy fire? Gesssh.
I think there’s a lot of people that follow politics that handwring, especially after 2016. I’m one of them! But if anyone thinks Donald Trump gained voters tonight by saying he won’t accept the results, or that “everyone” wanted Roe v Wade overturned, they really don’t don’t get it.
The problem is, people grade Trump on a curve. Dude didn’t have a coherent answer tonight but Biden had a cold and he lost? Trump claimed, UNCHALLENGED, that doctors are murdering just born babies.
Yes, it was unchallenged. There was a guy there, about 10 feet away, who could have done that and he fucked it up.
It's an easy way to point out he's wrong and not at all connected to reality and Biden missed it.
The fact that we're going to get at least twice as much mention of Biden having a raspy voice than we are of all the substantive batshit stuff Trump said is such a failure of our media ecosystem. People can figure out that someone has a cold and is old without the professional commentators.
The polls are tight. Most voters don’t follow politics the way those of us on this site do. I’m a suburban Mom and all of my suburban Mom friends are freaking the fuck out at how Biden performed. It looked awful, and we need to quit lying to ourselves and saying it doesn’t matter.
Yup in both counts. I would say that the answer is that Biden should just have four talkings points that he always reverts back to BUT we would also call him out for that
As someone rooting, hoping, pleading, for Biden to do well, never pushing for him to drop out previously (though, admittedly I'd have preferred it), this debate was a nightmare.
I wish we could assume the average voter would read a transcript. But they won't and his age is all that played.
I still have just not seen any new information. I’m well aware of Democrats fretting about Biden’s age and his stutter. I wrote a book about it a year ago.
The new information, per se, was how he rammed the age issue home as an own goal.
The SOTU refuted/softened those arguments.
Tonight was throwing lighter fluid on the fire at a time that low-info voters are just starting to tune in more
Completely agree. But it all depends on the next four months. Tonight he matched the low expectations for his energy set by media and Trump campaign narratives. It set a low bar for the campaign. If he improves from here, his surprising acuity will be the news alongside his record and agenda. Good
Who cares. That’s what they were going to read no matter what. Stepping down is just handing the right the win they haven’t been able to get when it’s put in front of the voters. They want the chaos of us picking again, it’s more opportunities to alienate minority voters, split the electorate, etc.
I'm looking for the best chance to win in 2024, not the best chance to save face vs the "he's too old lol" MAGA crowd.
I honestly think that after tonight the odds of Biden winning are less than that of a different Dem winning and that its not close.
Narratives matter and Biden locked his in.
FWIW I was freaking out just from watching. Not from tuning into Spcial media. This is my personal opinions which originated before the inevitable Twitter/Bsky doom loop but not based on some media narrative, but my own eyes and ears.
No, I know. Everyone let the media repeat “he’s so old” until it became a concern - not one anyone actually seems to have, but a concern that everyone else has the same concern - and somehow we’ve all agreed that’s more important than national security, felonies, etc. This is all the left does.
We let the right define the frame, we let the media reinforce it, we accept their realities, and we self police. It’s how we ended up at this point slowly over decades. To me, we are now at the finish line, we should not do the same things we’ve been doing that make us lose.
Dude. I had a concern about his age in 2020. It was my biggest problem with a guy who I otherwise thought was fine and effective. I was 100% sure he was going to be one and one and figured that was part of the deal.
He and his admin have been effective. But we've all been walking on eggshells
I think you owe it to yourself to watch a replay of the debate & ask yourself if Joe Biden is fit for office. I definitely think you should watch clips of Kamala Harris and Gavin Newsom on the surrogate circuit and see for yourself their inability to mount a coherent defense of Biden's performance.
I watched the debate and it did not change my mind on this. I don’t know why it would. Debates have their uses, but they are not the actual job. Biden has done the actual job relatively well for four years.
Right, but that's looking backwards. We have to look to the future and take into account a disastrous appearance on TV. Take away any notion of who "won" or "lost" the debate. Biden doesn't look fit for office and that had been successfully mitigated until tonight.
You said we should watch the debate and ask ourselves if Biden is fit for office. I did and I answer “yes” bc I can see what he does in actually holding the office. Now we’re changing the question to…how I predict he will look in the future?
It's fine. We obviously disagree about the mental capacity of Joe Biden AND its relevance to performing the duties of President of the United States. I live in California so there's no reason for me to vote for Joe Biden and I literally CAN'T vote for him after tonight's performance.
So then that means you vote for Biden. When he is re-elected get a strong campaign for contacting the VP office & all his cabinet to push to get Biden to step down and Harris to step up.
