First Presidential Debate

[Bill the Cat]

Do you agree that undermining faith in elections is an existential threat to any democracy?

No. Unless you are planning on calling Obama's interference in the Israeli election an existential threat to Israel.

[Bill the Cat]

Chris Wallace's AWFUL Moderating During the Debate

[Mountain Man]

No. Unless you are planning on calling Obama's interference in the Israeli election an existential threat to Israel.

Never mind that the Democrats have spent four years trying to undermine the public's faith in the election process by first of all falsely accusing the President of conspiring with Russia to win, and secondly, crying about how "unfair" the electoral college is. And now they're pushing for an untested voting system that is so deliberately broken that we're being told we may not know the outcome until weeks after the election takes place and may require the involvement of the Supreme Court.

[LiconaFan97]

I don't know what Chris Christie might have said, but Rush Limbaugh claimed that President Trump was loud, boorish, and rude? Not that I can find. Let's go to the source:

I’m gonna do my best here to try to remain somewhat facile, cogent, and organized. But man, oh, man. So much about last night, it’s just so frustrating. Trump desperately wanted to debate last night. It was obvious and clear. I thought the first five minutes of this debate last night, I thought it was gonna end up being a grand-slam home run. Trump came ready. He was loaded. He knew what the strategy was. Now, you can disagree with the strategy. I think the strategy was to try to rattle Biden and to facilitate whatever they thought might happen with the mental deficiencies that the candidate has exhibited. The effort was to try to hasten that.

And the frustrating thing is that Biden was demonstrating that, and Trump interrupted him rather than let it happen a number of times. That is because Trump desperately wanted to debate. The moderator kept interrupting. The moderator and the questions. And just — get out of the way. You got a debate starting. You got a debate raging. Let them go at it.

This is not a question of is the moderator gonna be elected president or is the moderator’s job performance gonna matter a hill of beans in terms of the future of the country. Let the candidates engage. Let the audience decide who’s more in command of facts and more in command of the stage. Instead of this silly attempt to enforce a bunch of rules. Let the candidates enforce the rules. Let’s find out who can stand up for themselves and who can’t.

[...]

It was rather obvious to me that Biden did not want to debate. He wanted to mumble a bunch of facts he wrote down and he wanted to make sure he articulated them before he forgot ’em. But Trump wanted a vigorous exchange. He was thwarted every time a debate nearly broke out. You know, part of a free flowing debate is to measure strength and tenacity, assertiveness. Those are all Trump strengths, as well as his record and his accomplishment.

[...]

Now, I realize a lot of people think that Trump could have brought a different attitude and it would have been better, that he could have brought the Trump of the rallies, that he could have brought… Oh, I don’t think the word they don’t want to say but what they mean is “likability.” You gotta understand — and I think a lot of people do — this is ball game.

[...]

It was frustrating all the way around. I really thought, folks, after five minutes… I thought Trump was gonna blow Biden away. I thought Trump was calm, he was informed, he was tough. And then it turned into this circus as if Trump didn’t really think or wasn’t aware beforehand what he was up against. I don’t know. It looked to me like Trump wasn’t prepared for the kind of moderator that he got last night.

I mean, he adapted after a while, but it looked like he was… I don’t know. Maybe I’m wrong. It looked like he was a little taken aback. He seemed surprised that Biden would slander him. He seemed surprised that Biden would lie. I can’t believe he was surprised by it, but the way things changed after the first five minutes I just had to wonder — and I had some regrets too.

You know, Biden was in the process a number of times of melting down. He was in the process of forgetting what he was saying. He was in the process of losing his place in his mind, his train of thought, and Trump saved him. And the reason Trump saved him was Trump has got so frustrated over the lies that Biden was saying that he just couldn’t resist jumping in and correcting what Biden was saying, which stopped Biden’s meltdowns dead in their tracks.

[...]

I know many of you think that Trump was a bully, and I know that he makes Millennial women scared. But you know what? Forget bully. We need to get used to the fact that we have somebody who’s going to stand up and fight — and a lot of people saw that last night and appreciated it.

RushLimbaugh.com

I think what Rush said supports my point just fine.

[LiconaFan97]

No. Unless you are planning on calling Obama's interference in the Israeli election an existential threat to Israel.

If what we did in that instance undermined faith in the election then yes, it would be an existential threat to their form of government. How could it not be?

[oxmixmudd]

Still seeing chatter from various pundits saying that Biden should skip the next two debates. Does anybody really think they would say that if they genuinely believed that Biden won? Nah. They know that Biden was at the top of his game and only barely managed to go the distance, and that it's not going to get any better from here. I suspect that Biden's anemic presence next to a strong and energetic President Trump scared the Democrats, and they're going to double down on trying to keep him carefully contained.

Of course they would. Biden won the moment Trump ran his mouth non-stop and refused to allow Biden a counter. A debate involves two people debating, not one person trying to shout the other fellow down everytime they say something they disagree with.

And yes, I could only watch the first 15 minutes before I had to turn it off. I then steeled myself against the inanity that is trump and managed to watch the last 45 minutes or so. But Trump made the entire thing so completely inane that there was very little that could be learned about either candidate. It was a complete waste of time wrt a debate's actual purpose, which is to let the two candidates discuss and debate their differing ideas about the issues important to the election itself. To give people a clear understanding of their positions and how they justify those position. Trump turned it into a tom cat pissing contest. Why anyone would agree to do that again is beyond me. But we can hope the debate commission can come up with ways to prevent Trump from shouting Biden down, of preventing Trump from forcing Biden to respond in kind to get his points across. Basically, they need to be capable or shutting off Trump when he tries to shout down Biden (and vice versa, but that is mostly not necessary).

Put them in plexiglass booths, miked, with a time clock that shuts off the mike when their time to respond is exhausted. Then if Trump want's to waste his words on cheap shots and garbage talk, fine. Once he's done, Biden can then present his position intelligently and calmly in the time he is officially allotted. If Trump can't control himself then Trump will show himself once again to be the fool and a$$ that he is, and Biden will always get the last word and will be able to make his points.

[Bill the Cat]

If what we did in that instance undermined faith in the election then yes, it would be an existential threat to their form of government. How could it not be?

Unless it can be clearly shown that actual votes were changed, it isn't. And I don't think it can be, nor has it been, shown.

[Mountain Man]

I think what Rush said supports my point just fine.

Then you're delusional.

[Mountain Man]

Of course they would. Biden won the moment Trump ran his mouth non-stop and refused to allow Biden a counter. A debate involves two people debating, not one person trying to shout the other fellow down everytime they say something they disagree with.

And yes, I could only watch the first 15 minutes before I had to turn it off. I then steeled myself against the inanity that is trump and managed to watch the last 45 minutes or so. But Trump made the entire thing so completely inane that there was very little that could be learned about either candidate. It was a complete waste of time wrt a debate's actual purpose, which is to let the two candidates discuss and debate their differing ideas about the issues important to the election itself. To give people a clear understanding of their positions and how they justify those position. Trump turned it into a tom cat pissing contest. Why anyone would agree to do that again is beyond me. But we can hope the debate commission can come up with ways to prevent Trump from shouting Biden down, of preventing Trump from forcing Biden to respond in kind to get his points across. Basically, they need to be capable or shutting off Trump when he tries to shout down Biden (and vice versa, but that is mostly not necessary).

Put them in plexiglass booths, miked, with a time clock that shuts off the mike when their time to respond is exhausted. Then if Trump want's to waste his words on cheap shots and garbage talk, fine. Once he's done, Biden can then present his position intelligently and calmly in the time he is officially allotted. If Trump can't control himself then Trump will show himself once again to be the fool and a$$ that he is, and Biden will always get the last word and will be able to make his points.

I have to give you credit, you are a master of spin.

[LiconaFan97]

Unless it can be clearly shown that actual votes were changed, it isn't. And I don't think it can be, nor has it been, shown.

Undermining faith in elections is one the first steps in the slip towards authoritarianism. That is well established by history. Votes don't need to be changed for people to lose faith in an election. They merely have to believe that their vote doesn't matter.

[seanD]

Chris Wallace's AWFUL Moderating During the Debate

I honestly don't know why everyone is saying Wallace did a poor job. He did what an establishment hack was there to do; provide cover -- deflect, change the subject, interrupt with a question, etc. -- for Biden if he got cornered.

[Bill the Cat]

Undermining faith in elections is one the first steps in the slip towards authoritarianism. That is well established by history. Votes don't need to be changed for people to lose faith in an election. They merely have to believe that their vote doesn't matter.

A decent chunk of the country already thinks that, and have for years. And it has nothing to do with outside interference.

[LiconaFan97]

A decent chunk of the country already thinks that, and have for years. And it has nothing to do with outside interference.

Of course some people believe that voting doesn't matter. The issue is working very, very hard to increase that perception. That's something Trump is doing. I didn't mention an outside influence.

[Bill the Cat]

Of course some people believe that voting doesn't matter. The issue is working very, very hard to increase that perception. That's something Trump is doing. I didn't mention an outside influence.

The left has also been doing that for decades, especially in blue states.

[Ronson]

Never mind that the Democrats have spent four years trying to undermine the public's faith in the election process by first of all falsely accusing the President of conspiring with Russia to win, and secondly, crying about how "unfair" the electoral college is. And now they're pushing for an untested voting system that is so deliberately broken that we're being told we may not know the outcome until weeks after the election takes place and may require the involvement of the Supreme Court.

They and their lackeys (the media) have also spent four years insisting Trump is racist and won't denounce racism, yet he has done it over and over and over and over ... but they just ignore it and pretend it never happened.

This OAN video is amusing, to see how many times Trump has denounced white supermacist groups - and the media just spins their own reality.

https://www.oann.com/president-trump...-supremacists/