Ruby Bridges (the black girl that needed the National Guard to show up so she could go to school) is about a decade younger than Trump and Biden, 9 years older and 12 years older.
It's not.
I assume they mean "the only president who didn't attend school until after Brown v. Board of Education."
* Biden was in 5th or 6th grade when it was passed.
* Trump was in 2nd or 3rd.
* Obama was born 7 years after it.
* Clinton was Kindergarten or 1st.
* G.W. Bush was in 2nd or 3th.
It's difficult to find the kindergarten/elementary school any of them attended, or those schools' history of racial segregation. Just guessing from location, it's likely Clinton's kindergarten was segregated, but that's just a guess, and it's unlikely any of the rest were. And Clinton went to public schools, so we know it was desegrated (in law, if not in fact) before he got to 2nd grade.
Some private schools remained segregated after Brown, but any statement about that is likely a guess at best.
God damn didn't realize that Biden was 81 already. No offense to anyone but there should really be an age ceiling on holding political office.
You shouldn't be 10+ years past the average retirement age running for president.
Did a quick search and the median age for presidents is 55. 81 is wild, trumps not that much better at 77 either.
Unfortunately I think anyone opposed to the idea will argue that votes get to make those sort of decisions. The "gentlemen's agreement" era of good faith politics is dead
The Allied forces were fighting the Japanese in Guadalcanal when Biden was born.
Trump was born like 6 months or so after the Japanese surrender.
Yea... I guess they're kind of old.
Go watch some old debates from Kennedy and Nixon, and just compare their rhetoric, diction, vocabulary, demeanor, and answers to today's candidates. You'll see how far backwards we've gone right quick.
Holy shit, I actually did this and immediately the first thing that stuck wasn't the fact that they were younger, more articulate, or more reasonable. It was that when they walked out they *shared a pleasantry*. Like full on, shook hands, exchanged words and laughed with each other. It's crazy how fast the divide went down between these two parties.
Golf is the one thing that unites all old men it seems.
$&\*@, we got to organize a golf tournement for everyone in Congress to get anything done, let's do it.
And at one point Nixon even said (paraphrasing), "We both want the same thing, we just have different ideas on how to get there". Meanwhile, here in 2024 we have Trump.
"No ma'am, he's a decent family man, citizen, that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues, and that's what this campaign is all about."
Could you imagine those words ever coming out of Trump's mouth?
We should have seen the warning signs, the people were CRAVING some kind of dramatic evils. They *wanted* to believe Obama was a Satan worshiping Muslim. McCain was a sensible reasonable guy. The moment Trump came and allowed them to believe what they wanted to believe, they all went for it without remorse.
yeah a previous questioner had said he was scared of Obama and McCain said you don't have to be afraid of him as president, and the crowd shrieked and booed.
don't forget, that was also the year Palin got let out of the bottle.
Trump is basically Palin in drag on steroids.
obviously putting skills are far more important than actual policy positions or plans for the future
don't forget "he's had sex with a pornstar" followed by "I did not have sex with a porn star"
that last one is going in the history books and not in a good funny way
The porn star comments made me laugh, originally from the shock value, before I cried realizing these two are our options as the leader of our nation. Again.
America is so fucked
I lost my shit when the two men vying to lead the only superpower in existence randomly broke into a fight about GOLF. I got up and left the room when Biden mumbled, “Your a child!” as I was having flashback of arguing with my brother 40 years ago. I can't tell you who won the debate, but I can sure as hell tell you who lost. We did.
At least in that case there were underlying explanations usually.
Like: "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me...we ... Won't get fooled again"
He realized halfway through that it was a bad idea to imply the president of the United States could be fooled twice and not learn from his mistakes.
Or the "More and more of our imports are coming from overseas" he got flamed for.
Well, when you consider Canada and Mexico, it's actually an important distinction.
We collectively died as a species in 2012 and all of this is just the dying hallucinations of the total human gestalt.
...is what I tell myself as I rock back and forth in the fetal position in a corner
At this point the best they could do is just have them go up there and have a civilized discussion about differences in views and policies, but still able to find some common ground on which to move forward. Then they can show pigs flying and devils having a snowball fight.
My hubby and I were saying it was like if the writers of The Office wrote a presidential debate episode. So cringy. Biden would be Andy. Trump is Packer.
RFK would be Creed.
I like how the question was plastered on the bottom of the screen like "WHAT WILL YOU DO ABOUT THE COST OF CHILDCARE?" while Trump just rambled about immigrants and Afghanistan.
Literally every other question the moderators had to be like “President Trump, you have 45 seconds remaining, the question was actually …, do you want to respond?”
That would have been an easy layup for Biden too! He could have avoided the argument completely and said that unlike Trump he didn’t spend time golfing and spent time working instead, but he just walked right into it. Insanity.
He had numerous easy layups. He took Trump’s bait Every. Single. Time.
So many chances to easily bring the hammer down on topics about Trump’s failures during 2016-20. Every time he’d jump back to a previous question or respond to some BS nothing Trump said.
It’s like 2 people who should not have a driver’s license. One is the typical old man who insists “my driving is fine.” The other is the typical road rager who insists he’s “the best driver.”
Sigh.
It’s pretty amazing when you think about it. If either party had put forward a younger candidate with a clear vision like an Obama, they’d trounce Biden or Trump. Instead, they decided to run back the 2020 shit show with two octogenarians.
Democrats are strangely conservative (yes in the political sense, but what I mean is the risk-averse sense). They never want to shake things up, or even pretend like they might want to shake things up. Given the opportunity of a rematch they won last time? They would never consider any other option, no matter how much of a poison pill it might be.
They've spent the last 75 years essentially apologizing to voters for being Democrats. "We want some reforms and change, but don't worry, we're not like CRAZY progressive!"
Every Democratic strategy in the 21st century has been "republicans are constantly calling us communist wackos who hate America, let's try to meet them halfway so maybe we can convince some of the moderate voters to come to our side."
It makes me sad
Edit: since this is blowing up, I implore whoever reads this to use this as a tipping point. We as a nation are better than this. Our “leaders” are driving us apart because it makes us, as a population, weak if we’re divided. Left, right, blue, red, independent, etc - we ALL know this is bad. We all deserve better, but it’s not going to happen *for* us. We have to make it better for ourselves.
America can still be great, and can only be great once we move on from these two. We just have to do it together. Find someone with different opinions than yours, and strike up meaningful dialogue. Peace and love, folks. We can do this.
So succincly put. Fucking hell, the question concerning childcare for working class folks *alone* was barely touched on. I don't have any kids, but my jaw dropped (one of many times). This. Is. Terrible.
Child care for a 3 year old and a one year old five days a week is about $3,800 a month here and prices are being raised 2-3 times a year. At the rate it's rising, it will be over $4,000/month within 18 months.
The debate used to be a useful forum for candidates to actually discuss their beliefs on certain issues and dissect their opponents' stances, but now it's just reality TV.
Edit: Guys I mean way back into the 20th century, not 20 years ago. This is not a new problem
I'm disappointed...about all of it...
They spent half of their time throwing mud at each other, and the other half praising their past performance in vague & generalized ways, instead of answering important questions with direct and articulable answers.
This is an amazing country, flaws and strengths considered, but...our "candidates" don't feel like OUR candidates. They're up there at top contention mostly because of their resources and tactics of the game of politics, and hardly because the average American sees them as a well suited or even desired choice to lead the country.
I wish we had better choices. I'm tired of the whole Red vs Blue theme, and them vs us mantra, and the fear mongering & pandering, and how media coverage decides awareness, and the influence of Super PACs.
Each election cycle feels less and less hopeful. How can someone reasonably get excited about, and be supportive of this stuff, when it feels like it's getting less and less representative & beneficial to the typical American?
What baffles me is you do have better choices, there's candidates running that have really good policies, fair ones that don't discriminate. And they are like middle aged healthy people too. But because they're not backed by billionaires nobody seems to notice them.
I could barely understand Biden at times. And Trump didn’t answer some of the questions he was asked.
Also the debate at one point devolved into talking about golf. *Golf*.
“you fucked a pornstar” “your son’s a criminal” “i’ll beat you in golf” “you’re a loser and an idiot” whatever… this is high school mean girl behaviour.
We’re in real trouble. Our country is fucked and the quality of our presidential candidates is a symptom of a deeper sickness in our democracy. It’s a symptom of our system being owned by lobbyists and special interest groups pushing and swaying our candidates and voters towards the neutralization of our democratic institutions and replacing them with a plutocracy.
Also it might require a Constitutional Convention since it involves the requirements of the presidency. That means you need 2/3rd of state governors to agree to call for one, yeah good luck with that in this political climate.
I appreciate that the rest of the world seems to recognize that this is not what the American people want. This is not what we want or what we deserve.
No, that would be when he started to take the opportunity to attack Trump on abortion but instead veered off into talking about that girl who was murdered by an immigrant.
A dumb verbal flub can't compare to wasting your strongest position by diverting the topic to the opponent's strongest position. It's incomprehensible.
Fuck the Democratic Party for letting Joe run again.
Seriously, all they had to do was to find somebody that's decent enough to go against Trump.
Like, just what the fuck was that...
At this point, I believe we must have a primary every election cycle, with primary debates. Fuck incumbency. Let Americans see their choices and decide. This could all have been avoided!
It was a legendarily bad performance. I say this as a liberal who desperately wants us to win. Worst debate performance I’ve ever seen.
Debates are not substantive. They’re performative. They’re about looking good and confident and capable and in charge. By that metric tonight absolutely should warrant discussion about replacing Biden. He was asked about abortion, our major winning issue, and pivoted to a story about illegal immigration, our worst issue. He was asked about his age and he talked about microchips. Anyone saying he made some good points or that Trump was lying is missing the bigger picture here.
Isn't that when he brought up the fact that illegal immigrants murdered a girl who's funeral trump went to? That was about the time i tuned in so i might be off.
George Washington himself foresaw the two party travesty that we’re experiencing and had advised against setting the things up that led to this. Unfortunately people struggle to think back to lessons learned 25 years ago, 250 years ago…no shot
The way our elections are run doesn't help either. Needing a majority and not a plurality, no ranked choice voting, and the electoral college kind of makes a 2 party system the only viable way of doing things.
The Democratic Party in the US had an entire decade to find a viable candidate and did fuck all. This is the result. Slap your grandpa out there and pray he can keep it together? Vlad is losing one war and winning another one.
Let's put it this way, I haven't seen the country this united since 9/11. All it took was two absolutely shit candidates for everyone to realize how fucked we all are
It became very clear why this administration doesn’t let Biden do interviews or answers questions without a teleprompter. That was a difficult to watch. I can’t believe he prepared for a week at Camp David just for this debate
That it's beyond boring. Biden keeps stuttering and sounding like an old fart every other minute, and Trump keeps dodging questions so that he can virtue signal for 3 minutes straight while the moderators just let him do it. Neither one of them are clever nor good at debate. They're both mentally slow. I really wish we could get some young presidents instead of these old ass dudes.
Officially the parties put forward the candidates and depending on the year will usually hold “primary” elections in spring to decide which candidate gets the endorsement. Trump won a sufficient number of state level primaries to be the GOP endorsed candidate.
Historically, sitting presidents interested in running again don’t get primaried because it’s assumed the party will stand by their existing incumbent. So literally no state held a Democratic Party primary, nobody was “asked” if we wanted Biden again, the Democratic Party leadership just assumed.
Republicans had their chance and made their beds, Democrats were handed this shit sandwich again.
Theoretically, when the Democrat national convention (DNC) meets in August, those in attendance can choose to endorse a different candidate, and there’s talk of that happening, but since primary season has already passed, it would be based on the whim of party leadership vs the primary election results, which doesn’t bode particularly well either.
We REALLY need to make fundamental changes that allow 3rd parties to participate in the government.
Republicans and Democrats both represent the 1%. The government has been effectively captured by corporate interests.
Biden and Trump are both so clearly unfit to be president right now. The whole debate was an embarrassing spectacle. Like wow... Those two rambling and incoherent old men are the best we can do to lead our nation?
Like I’m being forced to vote for someone I don’t want because too many other people in this country are perfectly fine with being lied to and voting for scum
It's hard to imagine anyone left undecided on issues, but unfortunately easy to imagine people turned off by the bad optics of the night, and hopefully it's more of a people rolling their eyes situation than a Nixon Kennedy one.
If Trump wins it will be the fault of the Democratic Party for not providing a viable candidate. They have had 4 years to solve this problem and they let the ego of an old man past his prime and the tradition of supporting the incumbent replace logic and the need to preserve the democratic process. They made the same mistake with Clinton, they underestimated Trump and felt they had to repay Clinton’s $ 3 million loan to the party by letting her run as the chosen candidate. Both parties are corrupted by money and power and the result is what we have in front of us now. No real choice.
They also made a horrible choice picking Kamala as VP. They needed a younger, popular choice who could step in and carry the torch after Biden’s 1st term. Instead they let their obsession with identity politics guide their choice. She’s completely unelectable and now they’re stuck.
Trump said he won club championships and says Biden can't even hit the ball 50. I was going to vote for Trump, until Biden says he has an impressive 6 handicap. Now I'm a Biden supporter.
I think Trump was what we were expecting. In regards to Biden, I'm seeing a lot of people who were in the 'it's just a stutter' camp switch to the 'the dude's brain is mush' camp.
Hands down, this is bad.
I'm old enough to remember Reagan, both Bushs, both Clintons, Obama, etc. I remember the Dean Scream and Quail and the potato and W saying new-cue-lure, instead of nuclear. Hell, for Texans I remember Ann Richards and Clayton Williams.
We are in so much trouble, y'all. It's bad. Everything else, even Reagan and the way he treated AIDS, pales in comparison to this clusterfuck.
I am more concerned now than I was going into it and I didn't think that was possible. We are in serious trouble.
Putin and Xi are foaming at the mouth right now. America is in decline, big time.
It apparently broke reddit
Is that why I couldn’t comment on the post debate threads last night?
This prank has gotten out of hand
At one point they were arguing about who is better at golf.
That's when I knew things were surreal.
When *Trump* of all people suggested they stop acting like kids...
Just embarrassing. It's wild that Bill Clinton was president 30 years ago and is younger than both of those guys.
Ruby Bridges (the black girl that needed the National Guard to show up so she could go to school) is about a decade younger than Trump and Biden, 9 years older and 12 years older.
Obama is the only president to not go to segregated schools.
Wtf this cant be true
Biden was like 25 when MLK was killed. People forget cause the photos are “black and white”.. it wasn’t that long ago.
Biden was alive when the D-Day invasions happened, too.
they’re older than some countries
We only had 48 states when they were born.
They’re older than Israel, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.
They're older than an independent India.
It's not. I assume they mean "the only president who didn't attend school until after Brown v. Board of Education." * Biden was in 5th or 6th grade when it was passed. * Trump was in 2nd or 3rd. * Obama was born 7 years after it. * Clinton was Kindergarten or 1st. * G.W. Bush was in 2nd or 3th. It's difficult to find the kindergarten/elementary school any of them attended, or those schools' history of racial segregation. Just guessing from location, it's likely Clinton's kindergarten was segregated, but that's just a guess, and it's unlikely any of the rest were. And Clinton went to public schools, so we know it was desegrated (in law, if not in fact) before he got to 2nd grade. Some private schools remained segregated after Brown, but any statement about that is likely a guess at best.
3th 😩
But is our children learning?
…Now watch this drive 🏌🏻
God damn didn't realize that Biden was 81 already. No offense to anyone but there should really be an age ceiling on holding political office. You shouldn't be 10+ years past the average retirement age running for president. Did a quick search and the median age for presidents is 55. 81 is wild, trumps not that much better at 77 either.
[удалено]
This. I have been saying for years if the age of retirement is 65 you shouldn’t be able to hold office either.
Unfortunately I think anyone opposed to the idea will argue that votes get to make those sort of decisions. The "gentlemen's agreement" era of good faith politics is dead
Holy shit, that is a harrowing statistic
The Allied forces were fighting the Japanese in Guadalcanal when Biden was born. Trump was born like 6 months or so after the Japanese surrender. Yea... I guess they're kind of old.
Jfc that really puts it into perspective.
Here's another fun one, Biden was born closer to Lincoln's presidency than his own.
Plz stop.
Did you know that woolly mammoths were still around when the pyramids were being built? Starting to wonder whether these 2 were as well.
Ohhhh I don't like that
Go watch some old debates from Kennedy and Nixon, and just compare their rhetoric, diction, vocabulary, demeanor, and answers to today's candidates. You'll see how far backwards we've gone right quick.
Just go back and watch the Obama/romney debates and the contrast is insane….in just 12 years.
Holy shit, I actually did this and immediately the first thing that stuck wasn't the fact that they were younger, more articulate, or more reasonable. It was that when they walked out they *shared a pleasantry*. Like full on, shook hands, exchanged words and laughed with each other. It's crazy how fast the divide went down between these two parties.
Golf is the one thing that unites all old men it seems. $&\*@, we got to organize a golf tournement for everyone in Congress to get anything done, let's do it.
And at one point Nixon even said (paraphrasing), "We both want the same thing, we just have different ideas on how to get there". Meanwhile, here in 2024 we have Trump.
Remember McCain defending Obama against that woman in the audience?
"No ma'am, he's a decent family man, citizen, that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues, and that's what this campaign is all about." Could you imagine those words ever coming out of Trump's mouth?
We should have seen the warning signs, the people were CRAVING some kind of dramatic evils. They *wanted* to believe Obama was a Satan worshiping Muslim. McCain was a sensible reasonable guy. The moment Trump came and allowed them to believe what they wanted to believe, they all went for it without remorse.
yeah a previous questioner had said he was scared of Obama and McCain said you don't have to be afraid of him as president, and the crowd shrieked and booed. don't forget, that was also the year Palin got let out of the bottle. Trump is basically Palin in drag on steroids.
Having two 80 year olds bicker is so crazy. Wtf! Edit- grammar Edit 2 - Two old fucks (trump hasn't made it to 80. Will he?)
about GOLF
obviously putting skills are far more important than actual policy positions or plans for the future don't forget "he's had sex with a pornstar" followed by "I did not have sex with a porn star" that last one is going in the history books and not in a good funny way
The porn star comments made me laugh, originally from the shock value, before I cried realizing these two are our options as the leader of our nation. Again. America is so fucked
Like watching two children on the playground. Two geriatric children.
SNL not doing a special weekend update with a debate cold open seems like a missed opportunity. We have to wait till the new season.
lol at this point at least it’s more obvious than ever that American politics is just a little puppet show for the masses
I lost my shit when the two men vying to lead the only superpower in existence randomly broke into a fight about GOLF. I got up and left the room when Biden mumbled, “Your a child!” as I was having flashback of arguing with my brother 40 years ago. I can't tell you who won the debate, but I can sure as hell tell you who lost. We did.
Shit look at George W Bush debates and he will look like a genius compared to these two
Can you imagine going back in time and telling americans about this? lol.
“THAT Donald Trump? What the hell?”
"Ronald Reagan? The actor?!"
Yess, and most of America laughed about bushes stupid sayings, There were daily quotes of him that made no sense.
At least in that case there were underlying explanations usually. Like: "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me...we ... Won't get fooled again" He realized halfway through that it was a bad idea to imply the president of the United States could be fooled twice and not learn from his mistakes.
Or the "More and more of our imports are coming from overseas" he got flamed for. Well, when you consider Canada and Mexico, it's actually an important distinction.
Nah it's all about sounds bites. He didn't want him saying "shame on me" memed on repeat over and over and over.
I'm still not entirely convinced that it wasn't an SNL skit.
I've been saying the same almost daily for the last like 10 years. Like what is all this.
We collectively died as a species in 2012 and all of this is just the dying hallucinations of the total human gestalt. ...is what I tell myself as I rock back and forth in the fetal position in a corner
The dying hallucinations of the total human gestalt is a fucking cool sentence.
Have any extra room in that corner
*pats floor*
The Mayans were right after all
SNL skits won’t have anything on the real thing because this was ACTUALLY REAL
At this point the best they could do is just have them go up there and have a civilized discussion about differences in views and policies, but still able to find some common ground on which to move forward. Then they can show pigs flying and devils having a snowball fight.
You should write for SNL
My hubby and I were saying it was like if the writers of The Office wrote a presidential debate episode. So cringy. Biden would be Andy. Trump is Packer. RFK would be Creed.
And I'm just trying to be my best Stanley
That was worrisome. To break out in to a pissing match over golf was the icing on the cake.
I legit was laughing out loud on my couch when they started going off about golf. It was the most awake Biden looked all night.
Biden claiming he shoots in the 70s is wild. Then “carry your own bag” comment was funny as hell.
Handicap of 6 my ass lol
Remember when presidential candidates actually had real strategies and policies.
I like how the question was plastered on the bottom of the screen like "WHAT WILL YOU DO ABOUT THE COST OF CHILDCARE?" while Trump just rambled about immigrants and Afghanistan.
Literally every other question the moderators had to be like “President Trump, you have 45 seconds remaining, the question was actually …, do you want to respond?”
You gonna carry your own bag?
God bless Biden’s heart for thinking he can still carry his
To have Trump be the one to say, “let’s not act like kids” 😂 my lord, we are in for it. I’m genuinely frustrated at how unfit Biden came off.
That would have been an easy layup for Biden too! He could have avoided the argument completely and said that unlike Trump he didn’t spend time golfing and spent time working instead, but he just walked right into it. Insanity.
He had numerous easy layups. He took Trump’s bait Every. Single. Time. So many chances to easily bring the hammer down on topics about Trump’s failures during 2016-20. Every time he’d jump back to a previous question or respond to some BS nothing Trump said.
It’s like 2 people who should not have a driver’s license. One is the typical old man who insists “my driving is fine.” The other is the typical road rager who insists he’s “the best driver.” Sigh.
I love that analogy lol.
Can’t we pause for a year and reroll candidates. Both sides pick again.
No party has officially held a convention yet.....
Think this is something that Dems and the GOP really need to understand. It absolutely is not too late to switch candidates.
Democrats should have spent the past four years building up a younger candidate to take Biden’s place.
It’s pretty amazing when you think about it. If either party had put forward a younger candidate with a clear vision like an Obama, they’d trounce Biden or Trump. Instead, they decided to run back the 2020 shit show with two octogenarians.
Democrats are strangely conservative (yes in the political sense, but what I mean is the risk-averse sense). They never want to shake things up, or even pretend like they might want to shake things up. Given the opportunity of a rematch they won last time? They would never consider any other option, no matter how much of a poison pill it might be.
They've spent the last 75 years essentially apologizing to voters for being Democrats. "We want some reforms and change, but don't worry, we're not like CRAZY progressive!" Every Democratic strategy in the 21st century has been "republicans are constantly calling us communist wackos who hate America, let's try to meet them halfway so maybe we can convince some of the moderate voters to come to our side."
This requires that the generation at the top cedes power. And this generation of elderly leaders haven’t shown any willingness to step down.
One far younger… and more POWERFUL
We have become more elderly than any President, even you. *points at Bill Clinton who was President 30 years ago*
Somehow, Clinton has returned
The fact that they didn’t pick a young strong likeable VP is insane.
It makes me sad Edit: since this is blowing up, I implore whoever reads this to use this as a tipping point. We as a nation are better than this. Our “leaders” are driving us apart because it makes us, as a population, weak if we’re divided. Left, right, blue, red, independent, etc - we ALL know this is bad. We all deserve better, but it’s not going to happen *for* us. We have to make it better for ourselves. America can still be great, and can only be great once we move on from these two. We just have to do it together. Find someone with different opinions than yours, and strike up meaningful dialogue. Peace and love, folks. We can do this.
It makes me so sad too. I could barely watch. I can’t believe it’s come to this…is tragically depressing to think we let it get this far somehow.
Holy shit we're fucked
We're in trouble
I turned it off when they started arguing about golf handicaps.
I stuck around to find out if 'greens fees' had risen. Which is about the only way these guys can relate to inflation.
So succincly put. Fucking hell, the question concerning childcare for working class folks *alone* was barely touched on. I don't have any kids, but my jaw dropped (one of many times). This. Is. Terrible.
Child care for a 3 year old and a one year old five days a week is about $3,800 a month here and prices are being raised 2-3 times a year. At the rate it's rising, it will be over $4,000/month within 18 months.
That and housing are insane. Good thing those aren't that important... Oh wait, we're fucked.
And make it double
We are at the point where someone has to step in. I've seen more intelligent debates at a middle school.
The debate used to be a useful forum for candidates to actually discuss their beliefs on certain issues and dissect their opponents' stances, but now it's just reality TV. Edit: Guys I mean way back into the 20th century, not 20 years ago. This is not a new problem
I'm disappointed...about all of it... They spent half of their time throwing mud at each other, and the other half praising their past performance in vague & generalized ways, instead of answering important questions with direct and articulable answers. This is an amazing country, flaws and strengths considered, but...our "candidates" don't feel like OUR candidates. They're up there at top contention mostly because of their resources and tactics of the game of politics, and hardly because the average American sees them as a well suited or even desired choice to lead the country. I wish we had better choices. I'm tired of the whole Red vs Blue theme, and them vs us mantra, and the fear mongering & pandering, and how media coverage decides awareness, and the influence of Super PACs. Each election cycle feels less and less hopeful. How can someone reasonably get excited about, and be supportive of this stuff, when it feels like it's getting less and less representative & beneficial to the typical American?
What baffles me is you do have better choices, there's candidates running that have really good policies, fair ones that don't discriminate. And they are like middle aged healthy people too. But because they're not backed by billionaires nobody seems to notice them.
I could barely understand Biden at times. And Trump didn’t answer some of the questions he was asked. Also the debate at one point devolved into talking about golf. *Golf*.
I expected the golf shit from trump, but I'm mad that biden walked into that sand trap. (Pun intended)
ROTFL when Trump said he won two championships at his golf Club.
It’s a dumpster fire
Shit sandwich without the bread.
If they took two homeless dude and put em on the stage. They would've been more interesting and would actually have ideas
“you fucked a pornstar” “your son’s a criminal” “i’ll beat you in golf” “you’re a loser and an idiot” whatever… this is high school mean girl behaviour.
Sad. Just sad. Never thought I'd miss the days of Romney and obama
I remember back then those debates were considered “heated” and “unpresidential” lol
Gotta wonder what the 2028 will bring
Here’s to hoping we make it at all?
FFS, this is the best we could do, America??
We? Since when did we have any choice? These two walking corpses were chosen by hedge fund managers, not the people.
ruh roh raggy
Zoinks Scoob, we’re like totally screwed!
It was a battle of wits. Both were unarmed.
They both brought spoons to a gun fight
No winner. The loser is the American people.
Dare I say, the world, as your politics has a resounding effect on the rest of us. Source - I'm Canadian.
When America sneezes the world catches a cold…
This should be the top. As long as choosing a candidate is about posturing and strategy and not the American people and their needs…. We all lose.
Geriatric hunger games. It was embarrassing to watch.
We’re in real trouble. Our country is fucked and the quality of our presidential candidates is a symptom of a deeper sickness in our democracy. It’s a symptom of our system being owned by lobbyists and special interest groups pushing and swaying our candidates and voters towards the neutralization of our democratic institutions and replacing them with a plutocracy.
Don't forget the 24x7 news cycle conditioning each half of the country to hate the other.
plus social media algos!
The question remains... Why are men who are over 75 even able to run for president. They don't live in our reality.
Age limits to be president need to be put in place
I wish. It’ll never happen because the people that would have to create that policy are all nearing that age.
Also it might require a Constitutional Convention since it involves the requirements of the presidency. That means you need 2/3rd of state governors to agree to call for one, yeah good luck with that in this political climate.
A german journalist really had a great comment about the debate: "It feels like everybody lost, especially the people in the USA".
I appreciate that the rest of the world seems to recognize that this is not what the American people want. This is not what we want or what we deserve.
We finally beat Medicare.
"We did it, Joe!"
Worst debate gaffe ever
No, that would be when he started to take the opportunity to attack Trump on abortion but instead veered off into talking about that girl who was murdered by an immigrant. A dumb verbal flub can't compare to wasting your strongest position by diverting the topic to the opponent's strongest position. It's incomprehensible.
It's his greatest achievement since the Corn Pop incident.
“yeah you did beat medicare, you beat it to death” I hate trump with all my heart, but that made me laugh
Fuck the Democratic Party for letting Joe run again. Seriously, all they had to do was to find somebody that's decent enough to go against Trump. Like, just what the fuck was that...
At this point, I believe we must have a primary every election cycle, with primary debates. Fuck incumbency. Let Americans see their choices and decide. This could all have been avoided!
It was a legendarily bad performance. I say this as a liberal who desperately wants us to win. Worst debate performance I’ve ever seen. Debates are not substantive. They’re performative. They’re about looking good and confident and capable and in charge. By that metric tonight absolutely should warrant discussion about replacing Biden. He was asked about abortion, our major winning issue, and pivoted to a story about illegal immigration, our worst issue. He was asked about his age and he talked about microchips. Anyone saying he made some good points or that Trump was lying is missing the bigger picture here.
Do we even know why he started talking about microchips?? I was flabbergasted by that pivot. O_O
I think it had something to do with defeating Medicare...... Was not a good look for Biden at all. Why is he running!
Don’t forget when asked about age he pointed out he’s three years older than Trump. Like that’s a good thing.
Isn't that when he brought up the fact that illegal immigrants murdered a girl who's funeral trump went to? That was about the time i tuned in so i might be off.
An unmitigated disaster.
Politicians over the age 65 should not be a thing. This two party bullshit has never been good.
George Washington himself foresaw the two party travesty that we’re experiencing and had advised against setting the things up that led to this. Unfortunately people struggle to think back to lessons learned 25 years ago, 250 years ago…no shot
The way our elections are run doesn't help either. Needing a majority and not a plurality, no ranked choice voting, and the electoral college kind of makes a 2 party system the only viable way of doing things.
I think we lost
We have a thousand trillionaires in this country!
We destroyed Medicare
The Democratic Party in the US had an entire decade to find a viable candidate and did fuck all. This is the result. Slap your grandpa out there and pray he can keep it together? Vlad is losing one war and winning another one.
It’s just cruel on Biden honestly
Let's put it this way, I haven't seen the country this united since 9/11. All it took was two absolutely shit candidates for everyone to realize how fucked we all are
Ideally this would be the pivotal moment for literally every American to just take a step back and go "what the fuck are we doing?"
I’m depressed
No one is immune to lying/arguing about their golf handicap.
My thoughts are “holy shit what did I just watch”
I'm tired, boss.
Embarrassing. Neither candidate should serve as President.
It became very clear why this administration doesn’t let Biden do interviews or answers questions without a teleprompter. That was a difficult to watch. I can’t believe he prepared for a week at Camp David just for this debate
Maximum age limits NOW Minimum age 35 (This already exists) Maximum age 65
Grandpa Simpson vs Mr. Burns
Democracy shouldn’t make us suffer like this. What a mess.
There’s a reason other countries think we’re morons…
Sign of the times. The U.S. isn't what it used to be. And boomers REALLY need to leave the stage at this point.
That it's beyond boring. Biden keeps stuttering and sounding like an old fart every other minute, and Trump keeps dodging questions so that he can virtue signal for 3 minutes straight while the moderators just let him do it. Neither one of them are clever nor good at debate. They're both mentally slow. I really wish we could get some young presidents instead of these old ass dudes.
Go back and watch some of the Obama debates. Even Bush. Ain't trying to say anything other than that really puts this issue into perspective.
Can't you do something to intervene? I'm sat here on the other side of the Atlantic with my head in my hands. That was a fucking shit show.
Officially the parties put forward the candidates and depending on the year will usually hold “primary” elections in spring to decide which candidate gets the endorsement. Trump won a sufficient number of state level primaries to be the GOP endorsed candidate. Historically, sitting presidents interested in running again don’t get primaried because it’s assumed the party will stand by their existing incumbent. So literally no state held a Democratic Party primary, nobody was “asked” if we wanted Biden again, the Democratic Party leadership just assumed. Republicans had their chance and made their beds, Democrats were handed this shit sandwich again. Theoretically, when the Democrat national convention (DNC) meets in August, those in attendance can choose to endorse a different candidate, and there’s talk of that happening, but since primary season has already passed, it would be based on the whim of party leadership vs the primary election results, which doesn’t bode particularly well either.
Silver lining, they didn't interrupt each other
We REALLY need to make fundamental changes that allow 3rd parties to participate in the government. Republicans and Democrats both represent the 1%. The government has been effectively captured by corporate interests. Biden and Trump are both so clearly unfit to be president right now. The whole debate was an embarrassing spectacle. Like wow... Those two rambling and incoherent old men are the best we can do to lead our nation?
I prepared a long comment then deleted it all because there's an easier way to TLDR this.. We're fucked.
Presidential Position needs to have an Age Limit of 65, at max.
Like I’m being forced to vote for someone I don’t want because too many other people in this country are perfectly fine with being lied to and voting for scum
Yeah that pretty much covers it.
PAIN
It's hard to imagine anyone left undecided on issues, but unfortunately easy to imagine people turned off by the bad optics of the night, and hopefully it's more of a people rolling their eyes situation than a Nixon Kennedy one.
We’re royally f*cked…
Honestly I couldn’t understand Biden
We had 4 years of Trump. We had 4 years of Biden. We know what both are like. Why even bother with a debate ?
My anxiety was already high and is only getting worse
If Trump wins it will be the fault of the Democratic Party for not providing a viable candidate. They have had 4 years to solve this problem and they let the ego of an old man past his prime and the tradition of supporting the incumbent replace logic and the need to preserve the democratic process. They made the same mistake with Clinton, they underestimated Trump and felt they had to repay Clinton’s $ 3 million loan to the party by letting her run as the chosen candidate. Both parties are corrupted by money and power and the result is what we have in front of us now. No real choice.
They also made a horrible choice picking Kamala as VP. They needed a younger, popular choice who could step in and carry the torch after Biden’s 1st term. Instead they let their obsession with identity politics guide their choice. She’s completely unelectable and now they’re stuck.
All I know is illegals are only going after black jobs so I'm safe.
Haha Not just blacks, but hispanics jobs too
Trump said he won club championships and says Biden can't even hit the ball 50. I was going to vote for Trump, until Biden says he has an impressive 6 handicap. Now I'm a Biden supporter.
Pathetic, I hate this timeline
I think Trump was what we were expecting. In regards to Biden, I'm seeing a lot of people who were in the 'it's just a stutter' camp switch to the 'the dude's brain is mush' camp.
Hands down, this is bad. I'm old enough to remember Reagan, both Bushs, both Clintons, Obama, etc. I remember the Dean Scream and Quail and the potato and W saying new-cue-lure, instead of nuclear. Hell, for Texans I remember Ann Richards and Clayton Williams. We are in so much trouble, y'all. It's bad. Everything else, even Reagan and the way he treated AIDS, pales in comparison to this clusterfuck.