Wednesday, September 30, 2020

Regrettably, I mostly agree with this

Power Line: "A long night":
If President Trump entered the debate trailing in most battleground states, as I believe he did, his performance served him poorly. I can’t believe he won over a single persuadable voter.

Trump’s performance must also have cemented the negative perceptions held by voters who have turned against him. He carried his do not go gentle into that good night mode to wild excess. Perhaps it was President Trump who needed pharmaceutical assistance to dial it back. As it happened, I thought Trump interrupted Biden on a few occasions when a Biden brain freeze was in progress.
It's fair to say that what appeals to a lot of conservatives like me is that Trump is not a wishy-washy McCain or a milquetoast Romney; he gets out there and fights.  But four years of this is exhausting and I can see how the persona that worked so well as an outsider can turn against him as President.  Trump didn't do himself a lot of favors, including interrupting Biden when he was in the midst of bad response.

Also: you'd think by now Trump would amply understand that the press is solidly aligned against him.  This was his opportunity to cut through the bias and directly contradict Biden's many lies.  But he didn't counter the phony Atlantic story until a couple minutes later when he raised Biden's "stupid bastards" comment.  He failed to push back at the moment and gave repetitive replies when he would have been better served by strategic jabs. 

Make no mistake, I thought Biden was terrible as Andrew Sullivan noted: "I’ve never seen Biden seem so old or so weak. He can’t land a strong blow. He’s being successfully heckled."  But if you're a voter looking to move past the high drama and return to some normality, Trump added fuel to your fatigue.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Reimagining government as solely being a dopamine provider to splenetic conservatives.

Who could have anticipated that that would be an ineffective system?

Anonymous said...

"I paid millions of dollars in taxes, and also I paid nothing because of you, Joe."

Brilliant. $750 scandal squashed.

Roy Lofquist said...

Perhaps the President thinks that antagonizing the media, in the person of Wallace, was more effective than debating Biden.

David said...

Yeah Trump is not a normal squishy republican. Trump is the third party so many voters have wanted for years. He holds to a lot of normal conservative issues, and a few liberal ones. But unlike both the democrats and republicans that we are used to, he doesn't fawn on or cater to the media. He stands up to them. Maybe we should call his new party the "Antimedia Party." Unfortunately he went into that debate in the same attack mode that he uses with the media. Not willing to let Joe use any of the normal democrat/media tropes against him, and ready to counter, or call out every lie.

I too think there were several moments where instead of countering Biden's lies, he might have been better served to let slo-joe bury himself.

Hmm said...

Or maybe Trump has only one trick, being a 24/7 troll asshole. Which was new and audacious and steamroller-y in 2016 but is tiresome now.

Roger Bournival said...

Also: you'd think by now Trump would amply understand that the press is solidly aligned against him.

Um - I'm pretty sure he knew that from Day One. In this instance, though, it's difficult to debate two people at once.

Anonymous said...

It's even more difficult to hear two people speaking at once.

As for today's laughable "two against one" meme: When you're whining, you're losing.

Roger Bournival said...

The double team is not a minority opinion, bottom boy. Might want to get your boyfriend's brother over so you can enjoy a double team yourself!

Anonymous said...

Roger thinks rightwing cartoons are the same as widespread public opinion. No wonder the polls send him into a gay panic.

Whine, whine, whine. Lose, lose, lose. Gay, gay, gay. Man, these next five (or seven... or ten) weeks are going to be SO MUCH FUN.

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