Presidential debate megathread (debate 1: June 27, 9pm EDT, CNN)

[YE]

Who is excited for the Democratic Party to move right? And for left wing ideas to be associated with the supposed failures of the Biden administration moving forward? And for us to have to deal with Trump's authoritarian tendencies for 4 more years (though I don't think this will be the last ever presidential election). Because that's what is about to happen unless Biden turns it around. This really sucks because I really like Biden personally and I've supported him strongly for 4 years but idk anymore - I expected much, much better from him tonight. 

I don't see the party moving rightward. On social issues perhaps - Maybe toning down the intersectional rhetoric - but not economically or socially in other ways. Abortion I don't feel will be tossed aside for instance, by the party I mean. I don't think issues like gay rights will be. But I do think on other social issues you may see a moderation. But one hopes that the Democratic Party will go back to being the party of (all) the working class.

I had hoped for this after 2016 or at least most of this. Boy was I wrong. Democrats just drifted left culturally in reaction to the reactionary and divisive Trump politics and the result was the absolute madness that were the 2020 primary candidates (with a few exceptions). Scranton Joe of all people tonight barely mentioned what he was planning to do in his second term. 

[Eraserhead]

Well, Harris would do WAY better in that next debate.

But let's be real, we all know that Trump would love to run against her.

[dspNY]

Claire McCaskill: I think a lot of people were heartbroken seeing Joe Biden tonight (paraphrased, not a direct quote).

"This could be a situation where everyone talks it out...but his campaign advisers are going to have a heart to heart with Biden about projecting strength."

"Harris and Newsom are signaling to the American people, why are they not running?" (because they are excellent advocates)

[emailking]

Claire McCaskill says from her conversations she thinks a lot of Democrats in high elective office think we're facing a crisis. She also said her heart was breaking for Joe Biden watching him tonight. He had one thing to do, reassure people that he could handle the job on his age, and he didn't do it. Of the Dem activists I've heard she's the most negative on this so far, but definitely being very sincere.

(Also says she doesn't know what the solution is and the weeks to come will tell us what will/should happen.)

[Alben Barkley]

MSNBC and Rachel Maddow are all but openly begging the White House directly to make Harris the nominee.

Utterly surreal to watch this.

Open talk of replacing him, every anchor including Claire McCaskill raking Biden over the coals and outright calling him a failure.

“I don’t know” if Biden will even be the candidate now???

“My heart is breaking?”

“We feel terribly for Joe Biden, how did we get here?”

“We are confronting a crisis.”

My god.

Guess I got my wish. But even I am stunned it was THIS bad.

We might well see the craziest convention since 1968 folks. In Chicago again at that! It’s like poetry, it rhymes.

[Arizona Iced Tea]

https://twitter.com/BidenHQ/status/1806527484982112420
Why couldn't he talk like this during the debate?

[wnwnwn]

Imagine...none of this would be happening were it not for Bernie Sanders supporters in 2016.

Imagine if she had put Brown as VP

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Harris's ratings aren't any better than Biden's. If Dems were to sack him, the smart play would be to sub in Newsom. I saw him speak in 2014 when he was running for re-election as Lt. Governor and he's a very charismatic figure. I would expect him to beat Trump if he entered the race.

[#BernieBros4Kamala]

If you're looking for some more substantive analysis, people are very quick to forget the first Obama-Romney debate. And that happened a month before the election!

Still 4 months of ball left.

[Pray for Steve]

Yeah, Atlas hates Newsom but he is very talented, looks the part, and would beat Trump.

[Alben Barkley]

     Harris's ratings aren't any better than Biden's. If Dems were to sack him, the smart play would be to sub in Newsom. I saw him speak in 2014 when he was running for re-election and he's a very charismatic figure. I would expect him to beat Trump if he entered the race.

Newsom, Whitmer, Beshear, Shapiro, Warnock… Virtually anybody really. The Democratic bench is not starving for strong younger candidates. If Trump wins again and this country suffers for it, the blame will be at the feet of the old entrenched Democratic establishment for nominating a historically unpopular dementia patient for president when they had no shortage of options to do literally anything else.

[emailking]

If you're looking for some more substantive analysis, people are very quick to forget the first Obama-Romney debate. And that happened a month before the election!

Yeah I don't think we know how this will play out. Though I think Obama did better in that debate and there definitely was no credible calls for a new candidate. But Trump could do something in the next week even that turns the conversation around. Plus he's going to be sentenced next month. We don't know what the effect of that is either.

[Spectator]

Who is excited for the Democratic Party to move right? And for left wing ideas to be associated with the supposed failures of the Biden administration moving forward? And for us to have to deal with Trump's authoritarian tendencies for 4 more years (though I don't think this will be the last ever presidential election). Because that's what is about to happen unless Biden turns it around. This really sucks because I really like Biden personally and I've supported him strongly for 4 years but idk anymore - I expected much, much better from him tonight. 

I don't see the party moving rightward. On social issues perhaps - Maybe toning down the intersectional rhetoric - but not economically or socially in other ways. Abortion I don't feel will be tossed aside for instance, by the party I mean. I don't think issues like gay rights will be. But I do think on other social issues you may see a moderation. But one hopes that the Democratic Party will go back to being the party of (all) the working class.

I had hoped for this after 2016 or at least most of this. Boy was I wrong. Democrats just drifted left culturally in reaction to the reactionary and divisive Trump politics and the result was the absolute madness that were the 2020 primary candidates (with a few exceptions). Scranton Joe of all people tonight barely mentioned what he was planning to do in his second term. 

The 2020 primary field was incredibly weak, but that was also a byproduct of the entire Democratic bench being completely decimated over the Obama era. The new Democrats elected in 2018 obviously were too fresh to run. If you had an open primary right now, I do not think the woke DEI panderers (Gillibrand, Booker, Harris, Buttigieg) would win out. The Democratic bench is incredibly strong now that the Obama-era decimation is in the past. Certainly better than the Republican one. It’s just that Biden (and Harris by extension) are creating a bottleneck.

[Comrade Funk]

If you're looking for some more substantive analysis, people are very quick to forget the first Obama-Romney debate. And that happened a month before the election!

Still 4 months of ball left.

You're comparing Biden with a president who had zero doubts about his cognitive abilities, was still in his 40s, and had markedly higher approvals

[DrScholl]

Unless she declined skipping over Harris in favor of a White candidate would create a big problem with Democrats with Black voters and put off voters who would have preferred to have a say in the primary.

[wnwnwn]

Biden shouldn´t had run this year.
His goverment has been OK, all things considered, but maybe it's time for something new.

I think Kamala is better than Newson overall.

But the swing voters are:
- Moderate suburbans
- Moderate unionized WWC
- Moderate zionists

Which potential dem could do better with them?

[philly09]

Biden is now at a Waffle House in Atlanta. He was asked if he had a cold, and he said he had a sore throat. Said it was also hard to debate a liar.

[Obama24]

MSNBC and Rachel Maddow are all but openly begging the White House directly to make Harris the nominee.

Utterly surreal to watch this.

Open talk of replacing him, every anchor including Claire McCaskill raking Biden over the coals and outright calling him a failure.

“I don’t know” if Biden will even be the candidate now???

“My heart is breaking?”

“We feel terribly for Joe Biden, how did we get here?”

“We are confronting a crisis.”

My god.

Guess I got my wish. But even I am stunned it was THIS bad.

We might well see the craziest convention since 1968 folks. In Chicago again at that! It’s like poetry, it rhymes.

Alben, I've come to respect you. Let me ask - what do you see happening?

[Spectator]

Unless she declined skipping over Harris in favor of a White candidate would create a big problem with Democrats with Black voters and put off voters who would have preferred to have a say in the primary.

It’d have to be a black Democrat, yes. And Warnock is out of the question due to his Senate seat and the prospect of a Republican appointing his replacement. Which leaves Wes Moore.

[Biden Derangement Syndrome Haver]

Who is excited for the Democratic Party to move right? And for left wing ideas to be associated with the supposed failures of the Biden administration moving forward? And for us to have to deal with Trump's authoritarian tendencies for 4 more years (though I don't think this will be the last ever presidential election). Because that's what is about to happen unless Biden turns it around. This really sucks because I really like Biden personally and I've supported him strongly for 4 years but idk anymore - I expected much, much better from him tonight. 

I don't see the party moving rightward. On social issues perhaps - Maybe toning down the intersectional rhetoric - but not economically or socially in other ways. Abortion I don't feel will be tossed aside for instance, by the party I mean. I don't think issues like gay rights will be. But I do think on other social issues you may see a moderation. But one hopes that the Democratic Party will go back to being the party of (all) the working class.

I had hoped for this after 2016 or at least most of this. Boy was I wrong. Democrats just drifted left culturally in reaction to the reactionary and divisive Trump politics and the result was the absolute madness that were the 2020 primary candidates (with a few exceptions). Scranton Joe of all people tonight barely mentioned what he was planning to do in his second term. 

The 2020 primary field was incredibly weak, but that was also a byproduct of the entire Democratic bench being completely decimated over the Obama era. The new Democrats elected in 2018 obviously were too fresh to run. If you had an open primary right now, I do not think the woke DEI panderers (Gillibrand, Booker, Harris, Buttigieg) would win out. The Democratic bench is incredibly strong now that the Obama-era decimation is in the past. Certainly better than the Republican one. It’s just that Biden (and Harris by extension) are creating a bottleneck.

Buttigieg is not a woke DEI panderer at all.

[Alben Barkley]

Unless she declined skipping over Harris in favor of a White candidate would create a big problem with Democrats with Black voters and put off voters who would have preferred to have a say in the primary.

Yeah man, Biden might have lost South Carolina by 14.1 points instead of 14 and might have won Georgia by 0.7 instead of 0.67 points or whatever.

Everyone knows winning over staunchly partisan Democratic black women was the most important move Biden could make electorally in 2020.

[DrScholl]

Yeah, Atlas hates Newsom but he is very talented, looks the part, and would beat Trump.

The problem with Newsom is that he is overly confident and leaned heavily on the blue tilt of Caifornia to win. Not that he needed to worry about swing voters, but he has slept walk through all of his general election races. Plus he really would fit the whole coastal elite image because he pretty much owns it and will flaunt. The French Laundry incident would sink him in a minute.

[DaleCooper]

We might well see the craziest convention since 1968 folks. In Chicago again at that! It’s like poetry, it rhymes.

The hilarious thing, though, is that nobody seems to care who the candidate is, they just want somebody who will win. There's not a single pick that would cause riots or even protests really. All the talk about people getting their feelings hurt over Harris getting "snubbed" is complete fantasy. Nobody cares about her. They've made sure over the last four years to never give her a chance to prove herself or endear herself to any part of the public, so no one would even notice if she was off the ticket, lol. Everyone's long since stopped caring about Biden. It would be so easy to just nominate a new candidate. They wouldn't lose a single voter and would gain so many.

[South Dakota Democrat]

Harris is being interviewed on MSNBC, she said it was a slow start, no question about it, but it was a strong finish.

I'm surprised but glad she acknowledged that right off the back.

I’m watching. Harris is doing WAY better than Biden.

25th amendment now.

If only to protect the nuclear codes from a man who seems to be anticipating a strike from the Soviet Union.

Okay the debate was bad but you've jumped the shark.

[Obama24]

Who is excited for the Democratic Party to move right? And for left wing ideas to be associated with the supposed failures of the Biden administration moving forward? And for us to have to deal with Trump's authoritarian tendencies for 4 more years (though I don't think this will be the last ever presidential election). Because that's what is about to happen unless Biden turns it around. This really sucks because I really like Biden personally and I've supported him strongly for 4 years but idk anymore - I expected much, much better from him tonight. 

I don't see the party moving rightward. On social issues perhaps - Maybe toning down the intersectional rhetoric - but not economically or socially in other ways. Abortion I don't feel will be tossed aside for instance, by the party I mean. I don't think issues like gay rights will be. But I do think on other social issues you may see a moderation. But one hopes that the Democratic Party will go back to being the party of (all) the working class.

I had hoped for this after 2016 or at least most of this. Boy was I wrong. Democrats just drifted left culturally in reaction to the reactionary and divisive Trump politics and the result was the absolute madness that were the 2020 primary candidates (with a few exceptions). Scranton Joe of all people tonight barely mentioned what he was planning to do in his second term. 

What we, I feel, need is a Democratic Party that is strong on the working class - that rejects the division since 2016. That emphasizes we are one people and while we have sins in our past we are moving ahead together. A party that emphasizes labor and has a better salesman better than Joe Biden of today could be. Think Biden in terms of how he controlled the party, and Obama in terms of popularity, and Clinton in terms of salesmanship. We need a John Kennedy type figure. We need the party to moderate to a degree. I agree with you it's drifted very far left culturally, and I forgot who it was that once said it - but America is generally a centrist country.

Neither of these two gentlemen, to your last point, in my view has any vision for America in a second term. Both strike me as egoists who are in this race really more to oppose each other than to offer anything of great value to the American people. This doesn't feel like a battle for America's future, truly, but a battle of two old men's egos.