1st Presidential Debate Megathread

[It’s so Joever]

does anyone else think Trump is going to have a mini nervous breakdown tonight?  between his sagging poll numbers, the tax release, and looming jail time if he loses the election, I think he will...

He’s going to sound unhinged. He’s going to be lashing out at everyone and everything.

You guys really need to go back and watch some of Trump's debates with Clinton.

He is not unhinged.  He's not lashing out.  There are a few things that really stick out:

1) Trump relentlessly, relentlessly, harps on his talking points.  He only really has two or three things he can say about each particular issue, but he says them in 5 or 6 different ways and often has an illustrative story or two.

2) Trump has prepared talking points to undermine Clinton on every single issue, and he's pretty good at directing the dialogue to a point where he can smack her with them.  A lot of the time they are lies.  But Clinton failed here because she kept saying things like "I hope the fact checkers are covering this" or "people, go to my website, get the facts."

3) Trump would also frequently use the gish gallop technique.  He'd rattle off ten lies in a row, and Clinton could only respond to 1 or 2 of them at most, so the other 8-9 would stand.

4) Trump would frequently interrupt Clinton when she was responding to him, particularly when she was trying to refute his lies.  He would either interrupt her with the well-known "WRONG" or some sort of digression, or he would interrupt her to harp on some minor point and try to redirect the whole conversation to that minor point, as though if he got that one win he would win the entire argument.  And to a lot of the audience, that's what it probably looked like.

5) Trump completely abused the debate moderator in all three debates.  He would constantly talk over his time.  He would interrupt the moderators and yell over them.  If they tried to fact check them, he would yell into his microphone and interrupt their fact-checks, either to belabor some minor point where he was right, or just flat out tell them their facts were wrong.  He would interrupt Clinton non-stop in much the same fashion.

While he's undoubtedly rude and boorish, he never comes off as unhinged or desperate or manic.  On the contrary, he's very in control the entire debate.  Clinton never succeeded in knocking him off his game because he would just ignore everything she said that he couldn't respond to, and shift the conversation to either some minor point where he could fight to a draw or some attack he had on her as a whataboutism.

Republicans here on Atlas follow much the same pattern.  They learn from their king.  Just ignore 99% of the devastating post you're replying to and focus in on some minor point where you think you can stand your ground, or shift the topic to some other attack line and pretend like you didn't just get owned.

Absolutely.
Watching the 2016 debates after knowing everything is like watching a train wreck in slow motion.

Imho, Biden’s best strategy is to be really careful to avoid these traps and to stay on message.
If Trump needs to go off on a tangent, let him, and just ignore his ramblings. Don’t get bogged down in the little details, just focus on the actual topic.

Biden should always be emphasizing the question (but not directly asking it) Are you/is this better off than it was four years ago?

It’s easier said than done, but I hope Biden has prepared for this rhetorical style.
While debates are overrated, it’s never good to lose one.

[Splash]

I honestly think Biden's best strategy would just be to dismiss Trump's responses as "all lies, as expected" or something similar.  Don't engage at all.  If Trump responds, say something like "folks, who are you gonna believe, me or him?  This guy has lied over 20,000 times in his presidency.  He lied about X, he lied about Y, he lied about Z.  If you still trust him after all the lies he's told, God help ya."

Yeah, agreed. Biden will spend the entire time fact-checking Trump if he goes down that road and, even then, he will only be able to get through 20% of the lies Trump will tell anyway.

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://twitter.com/JenniferJJacobs/status/1311068232976080896

The campaign is mind-bogglingly inept.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Absolutely.
Watching the 2016 debates after knowing everything is like watching a train wreck in slow motion.

Yeah I completely agree.  I remembered the 2016 debates as a set of three solid wins for Hillary.  Going back and watching, it's clear that Trump won.  And I cringe at some of Hillary's lines.

And this isn't a knock on Hillary.  She did a great job at beating him in a traditional debate according to the traditional rules.  It's just that, even then, we didn't understand what we understand now about the Trump administration, how his cult works, how the media ecosphere around him works, and how he convinces people to stick with him.

Now we understand that there is no "winning" with the people who support them.  It's an endless rabbit hole of contradictory or trivial arguments.  And if you let him sit there and make those arguments, if you play his game, he'll always win just by being louder and stickier in people's minds.  People don't want to believe that there's something wrong with him.  They want to support Trump.  The default position of 45% of America is die-hard support for Trump.  They can be lured away from it momentarily by a sufficiently persuasive argument, but they're just looking for a reason to snap back.

Hillary shouldn't have bothered trying to defeat him on that turf because there's simply no point.  What she should have done was present herself as simply better, solid, strong.  She should have focused on defending herself from his attacks and presenting a solid and compelling case for her presidency.  By wrestling in the mud with him, she just came away losing and losing and losing and not even realizing that she was losing.  It's only with hindsight of four years that we understand that she lost those fights.

If she had locked down the other 55% of the country, she would have won in a landslide.  Instead, she just kept losing fights with Trump, and 10% of the country voted third party or stayed home, letting Trump's 45% rule the day.

I'm looking for Biden to not make the same mistake.  He should get in the big hits, but only to highlight the contrast between himself and Trump.  Just saying "200,000 people have died on Trump's watch" is not effective because it starts a fight with Trump that he will always win.  But saying "200,000 people have died on Trump's watch, under my plan, most of those lives could have been saved, here is what I would do differently"  would work.

And Clinton did try this approach sometimes.  It's just that her talking points came off so rehearsed and clinical that people tuned them out.  There are a few she has like "experts say that Trump's plan would add $10 trillion to the national debt while my plan would cut $2 trillion" but they just aren't delivered effectively.  There's no passion in the numbers, she just says them very matter-of-fact.  Biden should deliver that kind of thing like "Every expert, every expert says that Trump's plan would add ten trillion dollars to the national debt.  Ten trillion dollars!  Just think about that folks!  That's more money than we spent on all our wars combined.  All our wars combined, all that money, going straight into the pockets of Trump and his rich friends.  What a con!  My plan, on the other hand, would save, save, save 2 trillion dollars.  Just think about that."

[Former Crackhead Mike Lindell]

lol why does it say EST? daylight savings doesn't end until november

Eastern Savings Time

No, it's Eastern Standard Time (EST) vs Eastern Daylight Time (EDT)

Eastern Savings Time

[ηєω ƒяσηтιєя]

https://twitter.com/USANewsAgency/status/1311072785956065282

[Ferguson97]

https://twitter.com/USANewsAgency/status/1311072785956065282

How did they snag that account? I'm always wondering about how companies/groups can do that.

[MikeIrvine]

lol why does it say EST? daylight savings doesn't end until november

Eastern Savings Time

No, it's Eastern Standard Time (EST) vs Eastern Daylight Time (EDT)

Eastern Savings Time

Rabbit Season

[CellarDoor]

Biden confirms reports from earlier today.

https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1311084592338735104

[It’s so Joever]

Biden confirms reports from earlier today.

https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1311084592338735104

At least Biden has a better sense of humor than Hillary did when it came to these things.

[Rand]

Will the rafters be searched for puppet strings prior to the debate? And will the shadows be searched for people—the same people Biden sent on a plane to burn down Boise?

[roxas11]

Biden confirms reports from earlier today.

https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1311084592338735104

At least Biden has a better sense of humor than Hillary did when it came to these things.

Well this is the same guy who spent the entire 2012 debate laughing at everything that came out of Paul Ryan mouth

[ηєω ƒяσηтιєя]

Biden confirms reports from earlier today.

https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1311084592338735104

Stuff like this is what makes Joe so endearing. Hillary just doesn't have the same level of charisma.

[SInNYC]

Tonights drinking game courtesy of the Washingtonian

Take a sip when Trump:
Says “yuge”
Says “Jina” (China)
Talks about his admiration for any totalitarian world leader
Makes any false claims related to coronavirus and our pandemic response
Complains about mysterious voter fraud
Accuses Biden of wanting to defund the police


Take a sip when Biden:
Uses a malapropism
Says “folks”
References the middle class
Starts a sentence with “look”
Tells a story about some “average Joe” worker he met on the campaign trail that could easily be fabricated
Claims he’s going to end systemic racism and fails to explain how


Chug when:
Biden uses Obama’s record as evidence of his own capabilities as a leader.
You can no longer follow what Trump is arguing.

I cant believe they didnt include a chug for every time Trump says "disgrace".

And if you chugged every time you cant follow what Trump is arguing, there are going to be lots of hangovers tomorrow.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Trump-Biden has nothing on Karpov-Korchnoi 1978:

Karpov suspected Korchnoi of hiring a hypnotist to sit in the audience and hypnotize him during a previous match, so he brought a counter-hypnotist to the Philippines.

Dr. Zukhar fixed an unbroken stare upon Korchnoi during the entire 39 minutes which Karpov devoted to [his 15th] move; Korchnoi seemed not to notice.

In retaliation, Korchnoi befriended two local murderers, out on bail after stabbing an Indian diplomat. They had come to visit the match in hopes of getting on television to promote their cult, Ananda Marga. Korchnoi was angry that Karpov's hypnotist was allowed to sit in the audience, so he demanded that the cult members be allowed in as well. They moved into his hotel and also reportedly taught him yoga. There was quite a large drama about getting them out of the playing hall but after multiple days they were ejected over Korchoi's protests.

In the meantime, Korchnoi defended himself from the hypnotist's attacks by wearing mirrored sunglasses. This led him to discover that he could use the mirror to reflect light into Karpov's eyes, which he did immediately. Karpov complained to the arbiters but they allowed Korchnoi to continue to wear them.

Both players suspected that the other was cheating by receiving outside assistance, and voiced this opinion frequently. Karpov demanded that Korchnoi's chair be x-rayed to look for a communication device, and it was duly taken to the local hospital and x-rayed.

Yet out of all the nonsense that happened in this match, the most famous is this: Karpov received a blueberry yogurt from a waiter during the second game and Korchnoi's team immediately complained to the arbiter that it was a coded signal telling him what move to play. The two sides compromised that Karpov would only receive food at a predetermined time, and that Korchnoi's camp would receive advanced notice of the color of the yogurt.

The chess? For whatever reason, this match is not very well remembered for its chess. Karpov was a stronger player and 20 years younger and won without ever being behind in the match, though Korchnoi caught up at a few points.

[Penn_Quaker_Girl]

Biden confirms reports from earlier today.

SNIPPY-SNIP

Stuff like this is what makes Joe so endearing. Hillary just doesn't have the same level of charisma.

What? You didn't find "POKEMON GO to the polls" endearing?

[Buzz]

Biden confirms reports from earlier today.

https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1311084592338735104

lol that’s good stuff

[Ferguson97]

Biden confirms reports from earlier today.

SNIPPY-SNIP

Stuff like this is what makes Joe so endearing. Hillary just doesn't have the same level of charisma.

What? You didn't find "POKEMON GO to the polls" endearing?

I still maintain that was hilarious

[Penn_Quaker_Girl]

Biden confirms reports from earlier today.

SNIPPY-SNIP

Stuff like this is what makes Joe so endearing. Hillary just doesn't have the same level of charisma.

What? You didn't find "POKEMON GO to the polls" endearing?

I still maintain that was hilarious

Ugh.  The cringe. 

[Never Made it to Graceland]

I'm just cHiLLinG iN ceDAr RaPIdS

[Obama-Biden Democrat]

Scranton Joe is going to deliver a beatdown on demented Don tonight. Joe is tougher than Pennsylvania steel.


temporary image hosting

[Splash]

I'm just cHiLLinG iN ceDAr RaPIdS

lol "Chillary Clinton." Good times.

[wbrocks67]

The punditry happening on CNN is just.... ugh. They want the horse race so bad.

[Badger]

Tonight, 60 million people will see how old and frail Biden looks . That will make a difference. People don’t watch debate for substance, to get actual insight. They don’t listen to what the candidates say. They go by impression, and the way a candidate looks is often critical. It shouldn’t be this way, but it is.

Yeah but he looks fine. So......

The dude looks like he is halfway in the grave

And Trump continuously acts like the Alzheimer's senior who screams about  Jewish plots and insist the Jamaican home health care worker is stealing from him.

Course he was like that when he was 50, so....

[W]

Oh boy! This cycle has gone by mind-blowingly quick. Guess they always do.