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TEAM HD
Each day is what you make of it so make it the best day possible.

I asked my hubby, and he said:

1) The debate didn’t move him at all;
2) He could only watch about 5 minutes because it was so unpalatable. He disliked Trump’s interruptions and attention-seeking behavior. He said Biden looked just as bad because Biden kept talking.

He says he is 50/50 right now. He says he will vote for Biden if Barrett gets confirmed; Trump if she doesn’t. I told him about the question put to Trump to condemn white supremacy and Trump’s response. He was doubtful that I was accurately describing it to him. (I read the quotes from the thread here.) I asked him to read about it on Fox or CNN. He said he doesn’t have time to do a lot of research.

To be clear in my understanding, I asked him if he would vote for Trump even after seeing the 5 minutes of the debate. He said “yes.”

I asked him if he knows about Trump’s lawsuit to eliminate the ACA and coverage for pre-existing conditions. This should be a big deal for my hubby because he has cancer and saw a dentist on Monday who told him that his cancer will impact a lot of his future medical and dental care (as a pre-existing condition). I told him that an executive order by Trump purporting to continue coverage for pre-existing conditions has no teeth. There’s no mechanism for enforcement. He was noncommittal in his response to me.

My husband has b.s. in political science from CU, a masters in systems engineering from the naval college in Monterey, and an MBA from USC. I think he may have skipped a lot of classes or something.

People who want to vote for Trump will ignore reasons to not vote for Trump.

Thank you for that response. I think it’s going to be the best take we get on having insight into a Trump supporter’s mindset at this point in time.

Essentially, stick your head in the sand (turn off the TV, don’t have time to research, stay ignorant of actual facts...).

Thank you for your post.

A couple of years ago if you had posted this, there would have been 20 or so posters running to defend trump.

I think it’s at least good news that so few people are willing to muster a defense.

I guess I'll chime in here. Even though I decided not to vote Trump long before this debate... does that count?

Anyway..

1) Even though I am not voting Trump, Biden didn't exactly sway me to vote for him either. He wouldn't answer the court packing question. I want to know how and who is going to pay for his climate change plan. Biden would have been better off letting Trump hang himself when he started ranting. From what I saw last night my only thought was... this is the best candidates the country has to offer??

2) As per usual, Trump came off looking like the petulant child bully. It also raised mine and a lot of eyebrows in his response to the proud boys.

Im going to add a 3 if thats ok.

3) The one response that I thought Trump did a good job on was his response to the transition of power. Stating how he didn't have a transition with all the investigations etc. from the get go.

Anyway those are my main take aways from last night. Over all the whole debate wasnt much of a debate at all in my opinion..

Im going to be lazy here and limit my response to just this one post. I dont have the time or energy to debate what I wrote. It's my opinion and nothing anyone says on here will change it. :o)

oh - and just for Kay.. a stupid gif..

I don’t understand what your gif means or why you would insult Kay with it. Maybe it’s funny, but I don’t see the humor. I got no laughs.

It wasn't a great debate for Trump. Really wasn't great for either, but I think the bar is lower for Joe. To be fair, Romney smoked Obama in the first debate in 2012 and I doubt that moved many needles for people either. I think there's a history of the incumbent losing the first debate. The theory is they're too busy running the country and too cocky to think they'd lose. A little dose of reality usually does the trick.

Also, I'd like to see Trump call Joe out as a liar, because he certainly did lie. He flatly denounced the Green New Deal, which is featured prominently on his website.

https://joebiden.com/climate-plan/

In the 2012 VP debate, he went on this little rant about standing up on the Senate floor and saying that we couldn't afford to invade (Afghanistan or Iraq, can't remember which he said) and that it was a bad idea and he voted no. Ryan didn't call him on it, but Biden voted yes for Afganistan and Iraq. I'm not sure how you forget voting to declare war. These aren't little lies.

I think Trump needs to stick to accomplishments. There were definitely times where he should have talked about what he's done instead of attacking, specifically during the race and law enforcement sections. I feel he missed easy wins there. Every president has accomplishments, and I do think Joe is low on them, especially given his time in office. Or at least that the view of some of his accomplishments have done 180s, ie the crime bill and school busing.

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--Chris

It doesn't mean anything. Kay can feel free to chime in but I am quite sure Kay knows I am not insulting him, nor trying to. Kay would expect nothing less than some corny gif from me...

See if he is not to busy to watch this one and half minutes of video.

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Just Triing
Triathlete since 9:56:39 AM EST Aug 20, 2006.
Be kind English is my 2nd language. My primary language is Dave it's a unique evolution of English.

But you said you would only post once in this thread, which makes you now a liar, and so how can we believe anything you say?! 😜

Can you explain this one? The Obama administration did everything expected of an outgoing administration to ensure a smooth transition to the incoming transition. That the people in the incoming administration chose to ignore or not even engage in the transition is another story entirely.

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----------------------------------
"Go yell at an M&M"

I can comment for my spouse and I. We are both ex-republicans. My wife was the President of the College Republicans and I was the Editor in Chief of the campus conservative newspaper. We both voted for Bush (well I did, she was too young), McCain, Romney. We actually invited George and Laura to our wedding, they sent a nice letter declining.

We were the picture of young compassionate conservatives who valued a steady hand at the helm and supported gradual, positive, change.

Then Trump happened. Both of us were really happy that Ted Cruz didn't get the nomination. We had both switch from being registered Republicans to registered Democrats around 2013 because we had moved to the city and we really didn't like the direction the Tea Party and Evangelicals were taking the Republican Party. We wanted to see John Kasich or Marco Rubio get the nomination. If that would have happened we would have probably given the Republicans another chance to redeem themselves and voted for their nominee. But again, Trump happened.

We could sense from the beginning that he was not compassionate, he wasn't a steady guiding hand, he didn't respect women (and we have two little girls), etc. He was everything we didn't want. Neither of us had a fondness for Hillary Clinton, but she was certainly qualified for the job and we had confidence that she didn't want to burn the system down, eat the rich, send them back or drain the swap. So we pulled the lever for Hillary. The first time we had ever voted for a Democratic candidate for POTUS in the general election.

Then the last 4 years happened...

Then last night happened...

Trump couldn't control himself. He couldn't stop his anger. I want to say that he is a racist -- but I do not feel that is an accurate description. To have hatred for another requires you to care about others in general. I have come to the conclusion that Trump is an opportunist, a narcissist, and basically a real honest-to-god sociopath/psychopath. I do not believe he has any feelings towards others and by virtue of that he can't be a racist. Trump is something worse.

My wife and I are still young. She is early 30's and I am mid 30's. The Republicans have turned us into activist moderate Democrats out of necessity. The Republican party feels so far gone that there is nothing left to fight for. We are now left bickering with the left-most wing of the Democratic party in battle to preserve the middle of American politics. I believe Biden's original platform is as close to the middle that we had on offer this election cycle. However, we are not lost, Republicans can win us back if they start putting forward better moderate candidates. A lot of better moderate candidates. It will take time, but they can win us back.

At the end of the day we want a steady guiding hand, someone who is compassionate, someone who can be respected by the rest of the world. Right now, that person is Joe Biden.

Exactly if there was a large group of black or hispanic militants going around causing problems and were pro-Trump he wouldn't have a bad word to say about them either.

1) No - I still prefer his policies to Biden's
2) Most of it.

You didn't ask,

Was there anything I liked about Biden's performance - No.

As a Trump hater -

1) was there anything you liked about his performance?
2) was there anything you didn't like about Biden's performance?

Policies? Are you fucking kidding? Choosing to support trump at this point because of his policies is like refusing to treat AIDS because you needed to lose a few pounds anyway.

just curious which of trump's policies do you like?

Your heads in the sand and you refuse to acknowledge the clusterfuck which is Trump.

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TEAM HD
Each day is what you make of it so make it the best day possible.

His policies like ignoring global warming, screwing up trade so badly that he's turned into a socialist doling out billions to farmers, cutting taxes for the rich (maybe this worked for you) despite a growing fiscal deficit, failing to adequately deal with Covid such that we have by far the most deaths (and counting), reducing environmental regulations to serve mineral resource companies, suing to have ACA repealed without any publicized replacement, ruining our relationships with our allies, withholding congressionally approved funding for our allies for his personal political gain, intentionally stoking racial divisions in our country, cozying up to Putin despite Russia's meddling in our elections and paying bounties for US soldiers...? Those policies?

Have you not recognized yet that Trump cares about one person only? He's even willing to have is supporters risk their lives at his rallies while himself staying socially distant.

Honestly, I don't know how you look yourself in the mirror.

Did I like anything about Trump's performance last night? Honestly no. There was nothing but insults and lies. Mostly lies he's told before, but so many lies. How can you be blind to that, or if not blind, then ok with it?

As for Biden's performance, if you look at the start of the Debate thread you'll see there was a lot I didn't like about Biden's performance. He missed great opportunities to hammer Trump, he fell into Trump's gutter a couple of times and he didn't command his time well enough. But he improved during the debate and ended strongly, which means he performed well above the very low bar Trump had set for him.

A good start on a could be a much longer list of policy failures. However, we have moved way past any actual concern for policy. The implosion of the GOP platform has been replaced by something more effective - tribal animosity.

Regarding the debate, there was almost nothing about Trump's performance that was acceptable. His few good answers were buried under an avalanche of pettiness. Biden critiques - He started slowly, and missed several opportunities to jab Trump. He was strongest when trying to speak to the American people. I am not sure that Biden's exasperation played poorly. If he had just rolled over, he would have been portrayed as weak.

I did notice on my Facebook feed (which I rarely peruse) that the staunch Trump supporters were acknowledging that Trump performed poorly in the debate and they were disappointed. They’re still voting Trump.

I'll answer for him because it's obvious:

• Discouraging oversight by attacking whistleblowers.
• Spending wildly even during a time of economic boom.
• Denying pandemics as a "Democrat hoax".
• Ignoring Russian bounties on the heads of American soldiers.

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How does Danny Hart sit down with balls that big?

The ones on my feed said Wallace favored Biden and did not acknowledge Trump did anything wrong. In most cases he was given a pass and then the "both sides" comments were made.

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TEAM HD
Each day is what you make of it so make it the best day possible.

Romney smoked Obama in the first debate in 2012 and I doubt that moved many needles for people either.


It moved the needle quite a bit.

https://www.pewresearch.org/...-erases-obamas-lead/

I’m seeing the opposite. I’m literally mouth agape stunned. I have been using the mute button on these people as I can’t read their drivel right now. I don’t know what planet they are on or what debate they watched. Holy F!

That's true. I guess I meant more that Obama still won. My opinion is that the final debate is the most important, because that's the one that leaves the lasting impression.

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--Chris

Minimizing head trauma of U.S. soldiers from Iranian attack so that you don't have to respond to Iran's response to the U.S. assassination of their general. Tough guy Trump.

Attacking democracy by claiming that elections are rigged... every day.

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How does Danny Hart sit down with balls that big?

I'm with you on everything you said except this one point:



Racism can be as simple as thinking, "People like me are awesome. Other people... whatever." You don't need hatred for racism. Not caring about certain people in your care is enough.

I don't want to derail the post too much, but... I saw a lot of similarities in our political backgrounds when you described your background and voting history (even though, at this point, I've swung much further to the left than you have). Thanks for contributing to this thread.

I actually got worried after the first response Trump gave on the Supreme Court as he was relatively eloquent and made a good argument. I knew it would just be a question of time before he exploded...but didn’t know when. Then he interrupted Biden with a Pocahontas reference on the Dem primaries and that was it - game over for him.

I was worried as joe started out weakly, bumbling a bit and just “looking frail” but then Trump exploded and took all the attention away from any of that.

I wish Biden hadn’t called him a clown but it was a bit of a lose/lose. Say nothing and look “weak”. Say something and look like you’re going to Trump’s level.

I’d be interested to hear Chris Wallace’s assessment.

What I'm seeing is the Trump supporters on my FB feed have gone mostly quiet. I assume they are waiting for Fox News to develop their talking points. There has been some talk of the Hillary/Russia information that was released yesterday.

Yeah pretty quiet. I would assume a gratuitous insult of Biden would have shown up by now, at the minimum. Lefties are out in force bashing Trump for the same stuff people are talking about here.

Edit: first post on FB criticizing Wallace for unfair treatment of Trump. He is so put upon.

I'm detecting radio silence (not that I see much of this on my feed, although I see some in the comments of others' posts).

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"Go yell at an M&M"

In general in the past when I have asked people what policies they like of trump. I get something along the lines of:

1) the tax cuts - (trump is not running on the tax cuts. The fact that this is his only major legislation should tell people something),
2) healthcare (this is obviously a literal joke at this point),
3) immigration/the wall (once again a joke at this point. There has been zero policy discussion regarding immigration reform).
4) prison reform. (i think this was a good thing),
5) foreign diplomacy (seems like a kinda joke due to trump moving us further from our allies. Sure people like that other countries in Nato are "paying more", they are glad we got out of the paris accord, and they are glad we got out of the Iran deal - None of these should be enough to state your policies align more with trump),
6) abortion issues,
7) gun rights.

Fox is taking two tracks:
1) Both candidates were slinging mud
2) Trump won on style because he “dominated” Biden and Wallace. This made me absolutely crack up that he dominated the moderator.

In public they won’t but there are still about 45% of the country that will vote for him even after the debate.

Tax cuts now, with. Huuuuge deficits. Tax increases in the not too distant future.

I just read one of the tragically stupid people I went high school with post on FB that trump interrupts because he never gets his full two minutes to speak. Wallace was biased against trump.

Sure. That’s it. These people absolutely delusional.

This. Simply calling him racist implies that he cares about certain groups of people more than others based on a set of guiding principles, beliefs, etc. But he has none of those. There is nothing that anchors him or animates him other than pure selfishness, self-promotion, and preservation of power. It's 100% sociopathic and narcissistic. He literally doesn't care about anyone other than himself. If tomorrow he felt that declaring support for BLM would give him a better chance of staying in power, I believe he'd do it in a heartbeat without a modicum of guilt or any sense of hypocrisy.

But if we have big deficits doesn't that mean we should cut taxes on the rich to bring in more tax revenue? (Lucy yanks the ball away again).

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-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
-----------------------------RunTraining articles here:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...runtraining;#1612485

while I agree with you both.

I dont think people who in the past have been defending trump for "not being racists" have been also saying "Trump isnt racist he is just a sociopath"

However, with trump there has also been a REALLY long history of his targeting the black community. So I am not sure what the difference would be from being racist vs learning to amplify racisms for his own persona gain. You cant really ignore trump not wanting to lease to black tenants, the central park 5, "they dont look indian to me", blacks vs. whites apprentice, birtherism, good people on both sides,

So we would be left with "Trump is a sociopath who uses racism for his own personal gain."

People not voting for Trump, hate Trump. Let me tell you a story...

About 10 years ago, I had a customer who was my contact at a bank. We serviced 21 properties for them. I needed the account. It was too much money to ignore. My contact was an asshole. He made Trump look like a Boy Scout. I avoided him and spoke to him as least as possible. He often insulted me for no reason and always seemed to scream at me like an animal. He died. First person I honestly don’t care that he is gone. I would miss a stranger more than this jerk.

My new contact and I spoke. We talked about this man who died. We talked about how he was “difficult” as I didn’t use words that would jeopardize my relationship with the customer. She, my new contact, didn’t seem to care. She said she liked how he got things done. He always got things done. She shrugged off that he was a bully.

I don’t like to use the term Trump supporter. That’s like calling a Left-wing Democrat a communist. I will say Trump voter. Most Trump voters don’t like his flaws and don’t condone or support them. It’s embarrassing. However, Trump voters like how he gets things done.

Biden has zero plan an any plan he has is a mix of everyone around him. He isn’t a leader. That’s scary. I’ll take the asshole who gets things done.

Google Trumps accomplishments as President. The list is long. Amazing he could get anything done with the media and Democrat impeachment attempts gunning at him.

I’m a Trump voter. I don’t “like” Trump. He isn’t my friend. He isn’t coming to my house for dinner. I’m not a Trump “supporter”. But, Biden? Why, cuz he cares about you? That’s been the persona that I could care less about.

To answer the 2 questions I initially- I’m not changing my vote, but the debate was a shit show.

I just read one of the tragically stupid people I went high school with post on FB that trump interrupts because he never gets his full two minutes to speak. Wallace was biased against trump.


I read one person who wrote that Wallace is biased against Trump and that she believes Wallace gave the debate questions to Biden in advance to help him.

And she is serious.

I've often said that he isn't really racist because he isn't actually committed to the cause. But I have wavered in that opinion. He seems more dedicated all the time.

There is little doubt that he is more than willing to benefit from the association.

And it is telling that the racists think he is racist.

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I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.

Of this long list, what would you say are your top 10?

Fair points. I go back and forth as well. I can't decide if racism and narcissism are complimentary to each other or mutually exclusive ideas.

I really can't tell why people keep saying that he has no plan:

https://joebiden.com/joes-vision

I googled “Trump’s accomplishments as president” as you suggested and there is a White House sourced list. You’re right, it’s quite long.

The NY Times fact-checked it here.

Many are trends or initiatives begun prior to his administration (yes, many under Obama), and many are legislative successes where really congress should take primary credit. Trump just signs them into law. Oh, and some are, as you can guess, false, or have been since overturned by a court.

I'm just happy to be here and able to tell the story.

Also, a few are bona-fide bi-partisan successes. Many of them are "successes" only from a very partisan lens, yet are major successes for for them.

All presidents have these lists. The list that you won't find on the white house website is the extremely long list of failures. The question is whether a person is willing to even acknowledge that list, and at what point the failures become too overwhelming to continue supporting re-election. Most folks are so stuck in bias and false equivalence and propaganda that they really can't switch. For many folks the relentless cycle of failure and rationalization has effectively vaccinated them against any feeling of outrage at anything that Trump does. For some, snide condemnation from people like you has engendered a cycle of tribal animosity distinct from any policy.

Most conservatives that I know fall into four general camps. The largest, for many of the reasons listed above, are trapped in a binary world where they must always vote against Dems and will knowingly stick with a flawed candidate like Trump (and are at some level reluctant). The next largest are full-throated supporters of Trumpism (not much to do but shake one's head). The third group have left whatever the GOP has become, and easily align with moderate Democrats (RINO's, and that includes a lot of folks that live in my area). The smallest group are usually educated "Never Trumpers", who believe that the first painful step in repairing the GOP is ensuring the defeat of Trumpism. There is a lot of gray between these groups. A bunch of reluctant Trumpers could be convinced 1.) That the world is not incessantly binary and 2.) that the best path forward for the GOP is to reject Trumpism. (cue "Lincoln Project")

Of course, with your incessant attacks on all Trump supporters, you are uniquely terrible at making a convincing case ;).

I am honestly just trying to figure out what trump supporters say are his accomplishments.

There was one poster a while ago who would link to some list that was like “talked about setting up a task force”.

4 years ago the trump ran on a populist agenda to fight 1) inequality, 2) corruption, 3) bringing the nation together through bi-parisianship.

Is that acting tough while waving a white flag, chain smoking while complaining about the smell, or dressed to impress in manpri’s and a beret?

Picking this up in this thread but it's sort of a continuation of the other one. I'm not trying to shout you down and am truly interested to hear your views on some of this stuff. To be honest I don't consider myself especially liberal, but I am firmly in the camp of voting for Biden explicitly because he's not Trump.

Rather than me googling and tring to parse out what are Trump's true accomplishments and which of those might be important to his voters, can you list a few that are important to you? Typically when I engage Trump supporters on issues I get a few cookie-cutter tidbits of misinformation like "he won't give Iran $150 billion in cash" and "better border security".

In the bigger picture, I'm curious how you can neatly separate who Trump is as a person from his ability to think critically, make informed decisions, and create policy for reasons that are aligned with American values and interests. I've heard the same from lots of Trump voters, many of whom I otherwise respect - my parents, my wife's parents, the CEO of the company I work for. But I've always been taught - usually by those same people - that character and integrity matter, that treating people with respect and telling the truth matter, and that doing things the right way and for the right reasons matters. Assuming you believe those things too, why is it OK to dismiss them when it comes to the president? Are the handful of policy wins worth selling out otherwise life-guiding principles?

Lastly on the topic of leadership, you say that Biden isn't a leader because his platform is a mix of other people's ideas. I believe the best leaders surround themselves with experts and smart people and listen to their advice. They seek to unite people behind their ideas rather than divide and ridicule those who disagree. They lead by example and practice what they preach. Sure they aren't afraid to hold unpopular opinions or make difficult decisions but they don't do it in a vacuum. I don't see any true leadership qualities in Trump - can you elaborate on what you think makes him a good leader?

In one of your posts (maybe in another thread) you commented that Pres Trump has gotten done a lot of what he said he would during his campaign.

I’m interested in this viewpoint, because it doesn’t seem to me that he’s kept very many of his campaign promises at all, but honestly, I paid little attention to his long list of promises, so I thought maybe I was missing something.

Here’s what Politifact has to say about what promises he’s kept and broken. They’ve got him at 50% broken promises, and only 24% kept, with the rest either stalled or compromised in some way.

I’m interested in your thoughts on this list.

https://www.politifact.com/...romises/trumpometer/

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

This is pretty much it. Sociopaths don't have plans because they're lazy, impulsive, lack of empathy, aggressive, boundary pushing, peripheral, predatory, and opportunistic without regards to care. They have targets. The way it should be looked at with his way of disavowing Proud Boys isn't because he was racists in that sense, but because he didn't want to lose their vote unless it will cost him other votes. He most likely didn't know or cared. Just like claiming to be a christian that reads the bible and goes to church. He claims it because he needed their vote without a conscience.