Trump was a lying liar and Biden was a hoarse doddering old man who got lost mid sentence.

On MSNBC, Joy Reid pointed out that Americans want their president to be an avatar. They want a commander who looks strong and tough, and we saw that when the populace couldn’t get behind Al Gore (who she credited as being a great mind) who acted more like a policy wank than Bush, who felt more like a (New England) cowboy.

Earlier in the week, I caught a bit of Steve Bannon’s radio show where he railed about how we need to eliminate the deep state – the Praetorian Guard – that indicted Trump and props up Biden. At the time, I wondered who this Praetorian Guard was supposed to have assassinated, who was bribing them, and which combat actions they’d fought in. If nothing else, I think this debate proves there is no deep state/Praetorian Guard because they’d have assassinated Biden last week during his preparation rather than let him get on stage.

Look, in any large enough group, there are going to be some incompetent people and some competent bad actors. We have to vote for the people who will admit to that and get rid of them. The U.S. is going to have to choose between a leader who tries to install good people to run the government and one who intends to install people bent on dismantling the government and giving loyalty to the leader alone. Even IN the debate, Trump asked Biden, “Who did you fire?” – that you have to fire bad people … but this was in reference to firing the General who claimed to have heard Trump call veterans “suckers and losers”. I can’t prove Trump did or didn’t say that, but I do remember Trump skipping the memorial ceremony.

Trump said Charlottesville never happened. I remember it. Trump said Nancy Pelosi admitted responsibility for January 6th. She did not. Trump said the ex-governor of Virginia was not just for late term abortion, but infanticide. He is not. His lies were too numerous to count.

Biden lost track of his thoughts early on and blurted out “We finally beat Medicare.” Trump said, “He did beat Medicare and he beat it to death.” Biden said Trump had sex with a porn star while (uh, uhm stumble) his wife was pregnant. Trump asserted he did not. Biden called Trump a criminal. Trump said Biden would be the criminal when his term was over (not exact words).

It wasn’t good in any direction. It was ugly. Through it, though, Trump maintained his TV-personality persona while Biden generally looked infirm.

Personally, I want a deep state that does things like: build roads, enforce food labeling laws so that the box accurately reflects the food inside, eventually hires enough judges to have a fast turn-around time for family court and the like. It should be really hard to fire them when they are speaking the truth as the understand it and easy to fire them if they are distorting the truth. Alas, I worry that Joy Reid is correct and the U.S. will vote for the guy they think is most like John Wayne.

          • t3rmit3@beehaw.orgEnglish
            3·
            6 months ago

            His model was previously based entirely on predicting the popular vote. Now he’s switched it to just predict the winner based on EC delegates. I think we’ll all be thrilled if Trump loses in November (or ideally, just plain dies), but a statistical model that doesn’t factor in things like Republicans trying to pull fake or rogue elector hijinks doesn’t fill me with confidence. And who knows what SCOTUS will do if it’s thrown to them (Lichtman also predicted Al Gore’s ‘win’).

            Also, looking at the list, I’m pretty sure more than 6 are false:

            1. True
            2. If you inspire 650,000 to conduct write-in votes against you, is that a challenge? In any case, not counting this as False.
            3. True
            4. Mostly true (and RFK really pulls from Reps anyways, polls show)
            5. Debatable, so I won’t count
            6. Debatable, so I won’t count
            7. Debatable. He did push a lot of changes, but the number of rightward-changes that happened under his watch (like Roe being overturned, MQD being bolstered, etc) have overshadowed basically everything else)
            8. False. This entire year has been non-stop protests, and not just over Gaza (1)
            9. False. Whether it was a bullshit thing to prosecute or not (it was), Hunter’s conviction is a major talking point on the Right to attack Biden (and specifically, to push independents towards viewing Biden and Trump as equally criminal). (2)
            10. False. Between the Afghanistan withdrawl and Gaza, he’s got military and foreign policy failures in both flanks’ eyes. (3)
            11. False. I think that if Republicans had not been paid by the Kremlin to sandbag aid to Ukraine, he might have had one, but as of now Ukraine is not a success, and I can’t think of any others that are known to voters. (4)
            12. False. He was never considered charismatic like Obama, or a “National Hero”. (5)
            13. False. Trump’s charisma among his base is a trademark of his populist campaign. It’s why Trump can dominate the Right and DeSantis falls flat. (6)
              • t3rmit3@beehaw.orgEnglish
                2·
                6 months ago

                For Biden now. I’ve updated my comment above with the list and my assessments.

                I do think Lichtman’s right about debates not changing outcomes, tho

                What confuses me is how debates don’t play into whether a candidate is considered charismatic (questions 12/13).

                  • t3rmit3@beehaw.orgEnglish
                    2·
                    6 months ago

                    I think what he means by “charismatic” is someone like Reagan who appeals to the other side of the aisle (Reagan Democrats in this case); Trump is only charismatic to his own followers.

                    Hitler was also only charismatic to other Nazis, but no one really denies that he was charismatic. I don’t think working “across the aisle” is really what this is about; I think this is about voters’ perceptions of them as people.

                    I consider the Afghanistan withdrawal to be, overall, a highly positive thing; yes, it was handled badly, but it’s the easiest thing in the world to keep a forever war going, and at least there Biden put a stop to it, so I give him high marks for that at least.

                    Gaza and Afghanistan are polar opposite reactions, depending on what flank of the Democratic party you’re on:

                    • Gaza is an unmitigated disaster to the anti-war/anti-genocide/anti-SetCol Left flank, and a moderate success to the pro-Israel/ pro-war Neoliberal Right flank.
                    • Afghanistan is an unmitigated disaster to the pro-war Neoliberal Right flank, and a moderate success to the anti-war Left flank.

                    Not trying to blindly defend Lichtman or anything, just trying to cling to whatever shred of hope remains.

                    Understood. I guess for me my anger is more important right now, because this was so avoidable, and Trump feels like he’s close to coming back because of the DNC’s endless hubris (again). And I’ve already seen people trying to somehow blame the anti-genocide/ pro-Palestinian protesters for this over on Reddit, since they reflexively scapegoat any and all centrist Dem failures, and they don’t have a Bernie or Nader to scapegoat this time.