Forums / Discussion / General

They say that politics makes strange bedfellows.

I'm shocked that it was closer to an actual debate and not a shit show.

My dad said Harris was "more slick" after turning the debate off and going to bed

Trump got fucked and cummed over on public television, it was a complete total domination. Jesus christ.he got wipped in public.

but he has the idea of a plan
my uber driver today was saying how she was going to get some popcorn for this. at least one person got what they wanted from Trump tonight.

I applaud the moderators for doing their job tonight. While I didn't like how they unmuted his mic whenever he wanted to talk, I liked how they corrected him whenever he brought up a false claim like immigrants kidnapping and eating people's pets, or when he said that he was being sarcastic when he said that he lost the 2020 debate by a whisker.

Also, post-debate analysts on ABC are saying that Trump looked angry and rattled for most of the debate while Harris looked like she belonged on the stage.

Edit: Tim Walz said that Trump reminded him of an old man yelling at the clouds.

With Trump…

One highlight was when the media and his handlers got him to admit he lost the 2020 election--then he just completely trashed that moment.

Another was when, asked if he had solutions, he said, "I have a concept of an idea!" That made me genuinely facepalm. How are you this far along without a concrete solution?

Another was Trump falling for Kamala's bait, going off on a 5-minute tangent about his rallies when the question was about immigration.

Then there was his classic "they’re eating the cats and the dogs!" line when asked about foreign policy, and getting immediately fact-checked on live TV.

Lastly, seeing Trump genuinely angry on screen, his rapid-fire gish-galloping just made him sound unhinged.

As for Kamala…

She had no major flaws.

She was boring.

She handled some really tough questions masterfully.

There were moments when she went for the throat, which was satisfying.

But her attempts at empathy came off limp and fake.

Overall…

I’d give Kamala a B+ and Trump a D-.

I give Trump extra points for being a showboater--his message will still hit with his base. This debate was ultimately about him, or rather, watching him fail. But it was still about him, so he'll dominate the airwaves, even if it’s for all the wrong reasons.

Edit:

And then there’s this gem: “She’s going to give transgender surgery to the illegal aliens!”

Holy fuck, that was bad.

Oh and Taylor Swift officially endorses Harris/Walz.

The shitshow shall be legendary.

yeah, I've seen enough, kamala's winning south carolina. mississippi is in play. trump campaign offices in tennessee are boarding up the doors as we speak.

LMAO I wish
best case scenario is every swing state plus NC

If by support then you mean whether American think that the US should provide military support to Israel in this war the answer is still in favor of yes: "36% of Americans favor providing U.S. military aid to help Israel in its war against Hamas, while 34% oppose it. The remainder say they neither favor nor oppose military aid (14%) or are not sure (15%)."

In terms of sympathies Americans lie squarely with the Israelis.

I don't hate ceasefires. I hate the term "ceasefire" being applied to what should be clearly "terms of surrender".

A ceasefire presumes that both sides are on equal footing, and implied that they should exist afterwards, and I for one do not want Hamas to exist afterwards. Do you?

My take on the debates:

Trump's strengths is that when he is focused on issues that he knows he can really drill into this administration he is a juggernaut. His weakness is exactly what I thought it was: his own ego. The moment Kamala Harris started prodding his ego (the size of his rallies, for example), his focus began to change, and it is clear that the very positions that he had a lot of strength on began to spiral into incoherence.

Harris strengths in this debate is that she knew when to start the psychological jabs at Trump's ego and bait him into incoherence. Her advantage here is that she's on "home turf" area, that is the ABC staff clearly didn't fact check her but they did Trump. Her weaknesses, however, are many. She doesn't come off as able to connect to the deeper issues people have, it is clear she is over-coached and does not know how to handle questions outside of talking points. If this was anybody else that she was debating she would have floundered, but all those weaknesses would be veiled by the fact that she knew here to attack Trump most: his ego.

Neither candidate did a good job actually answering the questions directly. And Trump had a strong lead in the beginning. It was clear that Harris was told by her handlers to push the Project 2025 issue, and she did, and Trump deftly handled it by publicly disavowing it, and within 5 minutest she brings it up again, even though he just disavowed it. This was clearly her low-IQ moment. She brought up quotes from Trump, such as the Charlottesville and once again he was deftly able to point out that he is misquoted. Again, clear low IQ moment, clearly something her handlers probably told her to use as a card. On the issue of abortion, which Harris should have been viewed as one of her strengths she attacked with blatant falsehoods – and only got away with it by the fact that Trump also delivered a bunch of falsehoods.

But then she attacks him on the crowd size of his rallies. When she got him to go totally unhinged we got some real bangers.
"She wants to do transgender operations on illegal aliens that are in prison”
A rant into the recent – seemingly debunked meme about Haitian immigrants eating people's pets. He became increasingly unhinged. And only towards the end it seemed like he was able to get back his footing, but the damage was done.

Kamala is actually very weak on a lot of issues, there were plenty of opportunities to attack her: drill her flip-flopping hard (and as I said before she's a candidate that sticks her finger in the air to feel the wind and go with it). She won because she exploited the weakness in Trump's persona, not his policy. She didn't have to answer to alot of the issues she's responsible for.

Trump's greatest points, however, were the Afghanistan issue, and the fact that in the last 3 years the Biden-Harris administration couldn't do what she is claiming she is going to do.

>rump deftly handled it by publicly disavowing it, and within 5 minutest she brings it up again, even though he just disavowed it.
trump lied so she brought it up again because trump supports it

Another problem with Trump is that he is 78 years old. Send him to the nursing home where Biden and Clintons should also be.

Send him to prison with the clintons*

I see how Trump lived long enough to become The Clintons, but never saw it.

This is after years of the American Right just not giving a shit about the religious extremist policies in the US. They have no credibility to suddenly pretend they care. That's the weakness to the strategy of constantly playing down and ignoring issues. It's short term and one eventually doesn't have the credibility, sincerity or trust to actually make a case.

When one has as detailed a plan as Project 2025, choose a VP with ties to it, has the American Right still push for Project 2025 type policies and have not done anything to dismantle it, and most of all just have a track record of lying, the shame shouldn't be on the person bringing it up.

It should be the party who cultivated all of that.

You can't really determine whether or not he lied about that.
I doubt he actually read it, and at best probably got a briefing on it – and the response to it. The best you can do in the debate is calculate how he responds. He disavowed it. At which point, it would be a bad idea to bring it up again as a debate strategy.

You can't really determine whether or not he lied about that.

I mean, you can, but only if you lower your standards to "it came to me in a dream". Having his own plan and rejecting Project 2025 should suggest that he doesn't really support it.

When one has

Who is "one"? Trump? The Heritage Foundation? The Republican gestalt?

In much funnier and lighter news, Elton John finds Trump's nickname for Kim Jong Un to be hilarious.

Sure you could. Associates and policies speak for themselves, unless the strategy is to go from playing dumb to quite literally excusing him being senile and unaware ('it's never the fault of the Tsar, it's always that of the scheming boyars').

But then, I'll question your characterization of "deftly" in all of this, I'd say it's the same clumsy and complete evasion of any responsibility that has characterized the administration for years. No straight answers, no condemnation, no introspection, but only attempts to reverse accusations and try to ignore and continue rhetoric (because that fits better for the 24/7 goldfish memory news cycle).

Maybe it's bad strategy, or maybe not. You mentioned Charlottsville, and I don't think "the both sides" of his was deft, like with Jan 6th it's all plausible deniability. One that has worn thin enough, after all, like the Russians saying they were only going for training exercises on the borders of Ukraine, there's a moment where the bluff falls apart.

I think there's enough moments where political violence was engaged and theocratic policies were passed by the MAGA's, to say that there's a pattern of behaviour here.

Speaking of the debate? I sort of liked how Harris mocked Trump's simpering relations with dictators and it's Trump that brought it up first, using Orban of Hungary as an example for a foreign leader he has good relations with.

Now, wasn't the relations between the American Right & Orban's Hungary disavowed? It meant nothing, and thus the "disavowal" means nothing.

I feel like this Haitian rumor was probably also spread by Dominicans because those guys are rivals with Haitians, but maybe I am looking differently.
@Spaghetto
Elton John is a guy that must be protected at all cost. Rocketman is a nice song and Don't Go Breaking My Heart is wonderful.

@Gilan
No, no you can't. P25 came out after the Trump presidency ended. You can make the case that P25 is building on top of his policies but it is also prescribing new policies which, again, in terms of the debate, Trum disavowed. Clearly he has no problem burying his associates, like JD Vance under the bus, because again, he's all about his own ego.

I say deftly because his response was the correct response. The Democrats, for almost a decade keep throwing this Charlottesville "both sides" thing purposefully ignoring the next line. It's cheap, and it's such an easy way to deflect that these days by just highlighting the very next line. Why give Trump that point? It's a bad attack that has little strength in it and that her operatives insisted she use it shows how out of touch they are with it.

You cannot compare Charlottesville to Jan 6. With Jan 6th there is a clear case of fraud with the fake electors plot, compared to literally the very next sentence that people who attack him with it seem to always neglect to mention. I don't like it when people take quotes like that out of context, especially when the literal next line (or the line before the quote) completely paint a different context.

Kamala did not perform well in this debate and if there was a Republican candidate that did have the discipline and the focus to not get blatantly manipulated, like Trump was, she would have had it far rougher. The issue here is that she succeeded in turning Trump into exactly what Obama said he was during the Democratic National Convention. She took a gamble on attacking his obsession with rally numbers, and holy hell did it work! She won by literally showing how utterly undisciplined, easily manipulated, and outright unhinged Trump is. Trump is literally a President who is brain rotted from social media!

But she's got her own big weaknesses:
>She doesn't have a clear way of separating herself from the Biden administration. Nor does she have a way to create an identity for herself.
>She has no rhetorical answers as to why she flip flops on so many issues from 2020 to today (and let's be honest, they were trying to out-progressive Bernie and Kamala's whole thing is to stick her finger in the air and feel where the wind is blowing).
>She's weak on immigration (In fact, I'd argue the Democrats have turned more right wing on immigration without ever admitting it), which Trump knows is her biggest weakpoint, and why she chose THAT EXACT MOMENT to pivot to the issue with rallies.
>Her price-gouging, and wealth tax plans are badly thought out and are open to attack.
>She can't answer as to why the Biden administration (and her) kept, and expanded on the Trump tariffs on China without also admitting that his cynicism on China was correct.

Trump's strategy of reinforcing the immigration issue was a good strategy. Too bad it all falls apart when she manipulated you into taking the bait and completely becoming the weird drunk uncle on Thanksgiving night.

My point here is in the debate. Trump lost. Bigly. Not because Kamala was better. But because Kamala knew exactly how to unravel him, and policy issues no longer matter, what matter is you have a candidate that is so clearly easily manipulated, who loses it the moment his ego is slightly bruised. Do you want the guy who is saying Kamala is forcing trans gender surgeries on illegal immigrants in jail? Like holy hell, and I am watchin the fallout on social networks from the MAGA crowd and it's nothing but straight up copium. They blame the bias of the moderators, they say she had an ear piece, non of that matters, non of it, because it was not about policy.

Elon's not the only one. Dave Rubin, a conservative political commentator who was recently revealed to have been spreading Russian propaganda, told Swift to reconsider her endorsement in a very creepy way.

you know what they say…if you cant beat them….have sex with them.

Musk will attempt to have sex with Kamala next

Who said anything about sex? Nowhere in the rules does it say the child needs to be "yours"

Musk will have sex with XI Jinping

In all honesty if I had an opportunity to have sex with Taylor Swift I would take it. Especially if if ends up producing a child. Hilariously, my wife would probably approve.

You know what? Fair enough, I forget this was a debate and trying to get some kind of concession when that is more the job of a court or any kind of investigation is bad strategy.

The point was that the past i still in play (because we're no longer in a situation where Trump and his faction are political newcomers). For both candidates, they can be reproached for past actions & policies and it's not that easy to deny, and in terms of weaknesses, Kamala Harris does have many, of which you mentioned.

So, Trump's ego became his Achilles's heel. I understand the strategy of that. I guess it's wishful thinking to focus on prior policy than whoever looks more weak/like a lunatic. However, even the MAGA crowd thinks this went badly? Huh, I thought nothing would phase them.

Trump is pussing out of a second debate

The heritage foundation dictated trump's first term, project 2025 is their work iirc

Australia introduced a bill that included sweeping powers to fine tech giants up to five percent of their yearly turnover for breaching online safety obligations. Musk was quite unhappy with the bill and called the government “fascists.”

Government Services Minister Bill Shorten’s response: “When it’s in his commercial interests, he is the champion of free speech. And when he doesn’t like it, he’s going to shut it all down.”

My goodness. I did not expect this website to have so many stuff happening irl to trend and have this thread still be here unlocked.
I was going to mention the time I browsed some imageboard that was made in 2000s, likely 2007 or 2008 and still have threads from 2008 there, but that would make my post pointless.

I like how even government officials have transitioned away from legalese & bureaucratic language to commenting on Musk's hypocrisy. If that billionaire goes for chatroom name-calling (which only impresses his vicious and moronic followers), than commenting on his character is the only thing that they'll understand.

This is conjunction with the news that there's apparently new evidence on RT being an arm of the Kremlin

Like Musk, like Tenet Media, like RT everyone already knew that they had an agenda. It's just that now they lost enough credibility and countries have enough proof that action can be taken.

The wheel of justice grinds slow, but it grinds fine.

I forgot about it in the hubub, and the Haitian rumeurs shared by Trump (and it's ensuing consequences and example of irresponsibility) has eclipsed it, but there's a part in the debate that I think should be mentioned: Kamala Harris told the truth about abortion

A former Trump administration staffer, now a senior adviser in the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 team, has made a remark mocking the veracity of women who died due to the abortion. They also got a lot of pushback from it.

[1] [2] [3]

However, the way the abortion ban and how many people it got killed has to be mentioned, because a lot on the American Right and allies have been callous and apathetic, and now even pretend it's not happening. If they don't care about that, what insurance is that a conscience will suddenly grow for anything else, such as from Project 2025?

I can see the strategy of not emphasizing Project 2025 because it will be denied, but outside of a debate it has to be admitted the deception is only skin-deep. Denial and downplaying is not the same thing as true disavowal.

Well, this is terrifying.

There's already a lot of shaky ethics surrounding organ donation, since of course the donor can't be completely dead if you want viable organs. But if the "donor" is conscious and not even dying, any ambiguity goes out the window and you're looking at just fucking murder.

You'd think they would do some tests to determine if brain activity is irrecoverable, but they didn't even do the basic "check if the patient is reacting to what you're saying" test. Good thing that some hospital staff have basic morals.

Americans fear Bosnians eating lambs

Americans have no knowledge of Balkan eating lambs. I knew MAGAs would become stupid people. I knew it.

Dude…wtf?!?!

this may be regional bias talking but…

you guys don't have Bosnians around you? There was a huge wave of Bosnian immigration. There's a real strong tie between the diaspora and the nation itself, to the point where there were school children sending in drawings after 9/11.

Eat the damn Burek. They've been our neighbors since the 90s.

i have no idea.

Now this is interesting, looks like CNN is fact-checking the Harris campaign, or at least their shitty clickbait Twitter account.

so Vance admitted it was made up and he believed racist rumors without the slightest bit of checking.

you see why this is just as bad right?

Vance will probably see the problem and then ask Trump to bomb France just because their colony was kind of responsible for the problem Haiti has today.
That's why I wouldn't vote for him even if I were a MAGA guy. He is too smug and naive.

hey remember several months ago during the whole texas barbed wire border debacle when several of us said that what could come from the widening gap and hatred between left and right in america was not so much a second civil war but rather "the years of lead America edition" ?

well, we are not there yet,personally I think we are still ways away from that, but given recent news…. I still think that's the direction we are going towards.

for context: someone shot up the golf course donald trump was playing at, suspect is under custody.

We don't know if he was aiming for trump or if it was an unrelated event, especially since the articles ive seen quoted have the event happening at least 2 holes from where trump was playing, which on a full sized golf course is so far away that its highly unlikely the shooting could have impacted him. Sheriff reports at the time mentioned it being a fight between 2 people, but its hard to verify because of how many people are insisting it was an assassination attempt