Sociopath Community

People were really tuning in to see how Kamala would handle herself. Trump is a known element—he's been in this sphere for nearly 10 years at this point. Everyone who is undecided was already expecting Trump to be Trump. That is, they expected someone who shoots from the hip and doesn't prepare for these things much. I think the worst moment of this was when Trump couldn't articulate what he would do to replace Obamacare—a particularly painful moment since he also got grilled over this same thing by Republicans in the 2016 primaries. But on pure instinct he's able to break framing, and from this were a few clippable moments from the night. And good rhetoric about Kamala's inefficacy thus far as a figurehead of the current regime...she says she's not Biden, but she was the VP...

The decision Kamala made to provoke Trump over the crowd sizes (alongside some other aggressive gestures) was obviously a calculated move to try and make Trump look unhinged. And I think that was a mixed bag, because Trump is actually in his best form in an adversarial setting. Some are coming away from that thinking he went too far, others are praising that performance.

As far as the actual "substance" of the debate goes, there are a lot of complexities involved in the issues that were brought up. And that renders them unable to be properly scrutinized in that debate format. The migrants eating cats and dogs thing is a culmination of unrelated (yet conflated) news stories which are circulating in social media. And Trump was incorrectly "fact checked" about late term abortions if you consider what VA governor Ralph Northam has said. Kamala's insistence that Trump was fighting border security by being against what she is calling a bi-partisan bill...which is specifically The Emergency National Security Supplemental Appropriations Act from earlier this year...was DoA for a number of reasons that have very little to do with Trump. And Trump claiming Kamala met with Putin was an obvious blunder. There's a lot more I could bring up, but this suffices to show that these are nuanced issues which could not get proper treatment.

Both sides played dirty...so people coming away from this feeling one side was lying/obfuscating—are really just not paying close attention, or not doing their own research. But that is probably why most people who are undecided...are undecided. And these debates are really more like perception checks than a forum for ideas. So who "won" in that sense? I don't think it's very clear yet which way the undecided voters have been swayed. I think both sides were hoping for a knockout moment in this, but there just wasn't any. Kamala's camp is wanting a second debate; we'll see what happens next. I think Trump will agree, he's just dragging this out to make the other side look desperate.

 Guess?

Turncoat said:

Oh, kawaii! My lawyer is a knight in shining armor. She played Trump like a fiddle. No doubt Kamala's lawyering experience gave her the razor sharp edge.

ButteredToast said:

 according to polls.. blablabla

SpatialMind said:

 The debate was rigged by the left.

Tryptamine and FoxNews said:

 Trump needs us all to go on our knees now and do some sucking. He actually won the debate because all the undecided voters are realising Kamala has no policies.

Legga said:

I changed my mind over Kamala as a course of this debate because I'm going to pretend my whole world view is dictated through logic and axioms. 100 thousand Polish Americans in Pennsylvania, Ukraine war etcetera etcetera.

Jada said: 

Turncoat said:

Oh, kawaii! My lawyer is a knight in shining armor. She played Trump like a fiddle. No doubt Kamala's lawyering experience gave her the razor sharp edge.

Nope. 

For fun I'll give you two more guesses. 

Tryptamine said: 

Trump is a known element

To the point that he just did a best hits of his last few weeks of rallies. 

Everyone who is undecided was already expecting Trump to be Trump.

Check footage from four years ago, Trump isn't what he once was. It's actually jarring to see old footage sometimes, like what "Jada" posted, over how that's not who he is anymore. 

The decision Kamala made to provoke Trump over the crowd sizes (alongside some other aggressive gestures) was obviously a calculated move to try and make Trump look unhinged.

She spent last night quoting leftist youtube while Trump spent the time quoting himself across the last few weeks. 

Between the two of them, one of them seems more prepared. 

And I think that was a mixed bag, because Trump is actually in his best form in an adversarial setting

As we saw last night, it's because sticking to the issues hurts his position. He doesn't even believe half the shit his own party wants to push forth. 

He began nearly half of his responses with denying both the premise of the question and his opponent's position. The guy believes in nothing and is sitting on his classic position of delegation. 

As far as the actual "substance" of the debate goes, there are a lot of complexities involved in the issues that were brought up.

I disagree, I see this notion of "complexity" as the desire to see more going on than there is. When confronted with a basic narrative of what's going on, a loser will always aim to reinvent it to preserve their ego if they have not been conditioned towards loss. 

The debate last night was very bare bones and basic, they both hit the absolute baseline of both parties and changed nothing. 

And that renders them unable to be properly scrutinized in that debate format.

Bullshit, these people are meant to be the next candidates for president. 

If he's too stupid to be more than a mascot that fears other "strongmen", than that's what we're stuck expecting. 

I think the worst moment of this was when Trump couldn't articulate what he would do to replace Obamacare—a particularly painful moment since he also got grilled over this same thing by Republicans in the 2016 primaries.

To thematically quote his complaints over Kamala as VP back at him, he had four years to fix the problem and he didn't. 

Even further, he proposes it can't be done and that he'd push his half of the supreme court to deny anything she'd try to do to show her as ineffective, just like the case with fixing immigration in a bipartisan light. If it's not him doing it, he doesn't want it done. If it's not him doing it he'd rather it fail entirely, and he last night used that as a position to argue from. 

Both sides played dirty...

Which of course excuses The Right doing it, which is their entire premise for why they did it first. It's the "Whatabout-ism" position, the notion that claiming the other side does it and did it first justifies their own position via projection. 

If things were working out, there'd be nothing to complain about. It's why Trump didn't want policy to pass that'd fix the immigration issue while he's not president. 

Tryptamine said:

The migrants eating cats and dogs thing is a culmination of unrelated (yet conflated) news stories which are circulating in social media. And Trump was incorrectly "fact checked" about late term abortions if you consider what VA governor Ralph Northam has said.

I would actually appreciate being educated in this area with articles and resources. 

As much as saying one man's opinion is enough to sway an entire vote, the premise even within those constraints seems absurd to me. There'd need to be a good deal of contingencies in place I feel for Trump's statements about late term post-birth abortions over how I assume nowhere in the US goes full Sparta via 300 that way. 

His entire argument was over the 7 to 10 month range, even when it was unrelated to the question. He seriously seems to believe we're going to go old-world Japan on newborns, which is absurd. 

This is Ralph Northam discussing the third trimester thing: https://x.com/beinlibertarian/status/1833678806952927285

Some news coverage: https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2019/01/31/politics/ralph-northam-third-trimester-abortion

I might come back and address some of the other stuff later.

Turncoat said: 

And that renders them unable to be properly scrutinized in that debate format.

Bullshit, these people are meant to be the next candidates for president. 

If he's too stupid to be more than a mascot that fears other "strongmen", than that's what we're stuck expecting. 

Do you think Kamala wasn't supportive of the police defunding movement? Or did she laugh that off in the debate, because it would have been suicide for her to own that position then and there? Do you believe she was under the impression that Trump was talking about his base committing a "bloodbath"? And do you think Democrats really believe Trump is running on Project 2025, even after he's disavowed it 7, 8, 9 times? Or do they know that's something which is optically damaging to him, so they push the narrative regardless?

If you don't notice these things, then you have your bullshit radar fully locked on Trump, and you're missing all the pings from Kamala. Both sides make specious arguments; this is how politics has operated in this country as long as we've been alive.

Both sides played dirty...

Which of course excuses The Right doing it, which is their entire premise for why they did it first. It's the "Whatabout-ism" position, the notion that claiming the other side does it and did it first justifies their own position via projection. 

If things were working out, there'd be nothing to complain about. It's why Trump didn't want policy to pass that'd fix the immigration issue while he's not president. 

We're talking about what Dems are saying was a "bipartisan bill" that went 49-50.

The context of this bill was that there had been a longstanding, rolling appropriations battle where Congress faced deadlines to fund the federal government, and the hangups each time had been over funding for Ukraine which the Democrats wanted, and commitments for the border which Republicans wanted. Specifically what the Republicans wanted going months back to the previous year was an e-verify system, which would render illegals unable exist in the shadow labor market, and thus would drive them to return home.

Democrats didn't want the e-verify system and didn't like the other ideas the Republicans had for border security, so the Republicans began refusing to fund either the government—or the war in Ukraine—unless concessions were made to secure the border. Essential funding was maintained through stop gap measures, and then ultimately this bill came about as a resolution to these months of fighting. But then when this bill was revealed, it had practically nothing for the border.

The bill had $60 billion for Ukraine, $14.1 billion for Israel, $10 billion for Gaza, and $20 billion for the border. By this time under Biden, about 8 million migrants had crossed over the border. This $20 billion for things such as more border agents and processing infrastructure, is practically useless when the protocol for illegals is to not deport, not to keep them on the other side of the border, not to turn them away at the border...so it doesn't matter how many agents you have at the border. That's actually more people who would process migrants and end up sending them to Michigan or wherever else.

A strange threshold for Biden to close the border that was specified in the bill was that there had to be 8,500 migrants trying to cross in a single day, or 5,000 trying to cross per day over a week. Yet under The Constitution and federal law, Biden already has a broad range of options to maintain the border, including Trump's Title 42 system which Biden ended, that had detained illegals returned to Mexico. So these concessions were not only insubstantial, but they also imposed new limitations on executive options to manage the border by having these quotas. But the headline from Chuck Schumer is that Trump killed it on purpose to make the Dems look bad.

Turncoat said: 

Jada said: 

Turncoat said:

Oh, kawaii! My lawyer is a knight in shining armor. She played Trump like a fiddle. No doubt Kamala's lawyering experience gave her the razor sharp edge.

Nope.

Not anymore it's not. What proof do you have it wasn't your position before I plastered it in front of your eyes? Your position is that you can't be certain of anything. How are you so sure your take was truly different a moment ago as opposed to your brain faking memories of your past positions, which are shifting?

For fun I'll give you two more guesses.

Now it's something about how Kamala is more substantive than Trump since your latest philosophy is about how we're supposed to be scientific and objective and some stuff like that, no doubt because of my influence and compelling arguments that I've grinded into you on infinite loop over the years. You're practically a pawn of science now.

Jada said: 

 Guess?

Turncoat said:

Oh, kawaii! My lawyer is a knight in shining armor. She played Trump like a fiddle. No doubt Kamala's lawyering experience gave her the razor sharp edge.

Pretty accurate.  Don't let TC sway you with snark.

ButteredToast said:

 according to polls.. blablabla

SpatialMind said:

 The debate was rigged by the left.

Tryptamine and FoxNews said:

 Trump needs us all to go on our knees now and do some sucking. He actually won the debate because all the undecided voters are realising Kamala has no policies.

Legga said:

I changed my mind over Kamala as a course of this debate because I'm going to pretend my whole world view is dictated through logic and axioms. 100 thousand Polish Americans in Pennsylvania, Ukraine war etcetera etcetera.

 Why would you guess for yourself?

Trump's tweets/X posts have been all about "Comrade" Harris and about the border.  It is interesting how she laughed when he called her and her parents Marxists.  What do we think about that?

I can't wait to see how the campaigning changes, along with the slogans and issues they present.  Stewart was right: going back to the default of "avoiding the question" is kind of funny, but familiar.