Harris may have been light on policy, but she was able to bait an ‘unhinged’ Trump into a number of traps
As long as Harris: Has at least an iota of empathy Hasn’t raped anybody Committed treason or other serious crimes
I don’t see how the question is even an issue.
That it’s even a question is what’s wrong with us politics these days.
Trump was flailing. Under pressure, he took no responsibility for his past actions and instead threw invective and invented facts as he went along.
I wish Harris would have doubled down on this. After he tried to shift the Jan 6 blame to Pelosi, she could have directly pointed out that Donald Trump’s idea of leadership is to shift the blame for all failures to other people. And that’s why he’s so afraid of people holding him accountable at trial.
But generally, she did rather well IMO. These debates haven’t been about policy for a while, but she still took the time to outline hers. They’re about presenting who you are to the American People. But only nerds watched the thing live, the rest will only see 5-second sound bites. I think Harris did a good job presenting herself to the nerds as Presidential and capable of the job, while baiting Trump into saying more stupid stuff to feed the Social Media beast.
His base won’t care, because it believes that cat-eating illegals are forcibly making all of our kids trans. But it could make a difference to that sliver of the electorate who has not paid attention until now, and can see how weird it all is.
I agree with you, except it was smart not to spend too much time talking about what he just said. He said it, and the soundbite is out there. If she attacks him in the moment, he can respond and try to walk it back. Her aim was to get him to say as many deranged things as possible so that he can be memed to death.
The biggest knock against her, and you’ll see it in every article as a way to appear unbiased, was that she didn’t share a lot of details on her plans. But that’s by design. She doesn’t want to describe exactly what restrictions on abortions she would support, because that would become the talking point for the right. She gave him nothing, so Trump had to make shit up about post-birth baby murder. It was a good strategy that worked.
So now we can talk about the bigotry of immigrants eating pets, the nonsense about baby murder, who pays for tariffs, and what constitutes the concept of a plan. Her biggest mistake was looking at him like he’s crazy all night, and saying “this… former president…” Because those are going to become the memes people remember about the night. She did very well overall, but the best thing she could have done was be entirely forgettable.
She doesn’t want to describe exactly what restrictions on abortions she would support, because that would become the talking point for the right.
She said she would codify Roe V Wade into law. We know that is because it was in place for five decades and it doesn’t need to be explained during a debate.
Right, that was the talking point, and that was smart to stick to that. Because it sounds like an answer to the question, but it doesn’t nail down specifics that can be used in attack ads from the right or the left.
Roe V Wade was a court decision that was interpreted and modified through a long history of court decisions. It’s not one set of rights and restrictions.
Here’s an excellent, in-depth summary of all of the relevant court cases that led to the Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Org ruling:
To codify Roe V Wade into law would require a constitutional amendment protecting the right to abortion. Anything less will be challenged in court, and unless we can impeach some illegitimate Justices, the SCOTUS is going to continue to push their radical agenda against women.
Or we could hit a double whammy of strengthining your right to privacy such that any anti abortion or anti trans care law becomes impossible to impose.
A man can dream 😭
But it could make a difference to that sliver of the electorate who has not paid attention until now,
This is exactly what has me irritated with her performance though. If these people weren’t paying attention then they won’t know what Trump was saying are all lies. He seemed more “knowledgeable” to someone who doesn’t know hes lying. She just kept trying to hit talking points instead of refuting his bullshit, or even explaining it for the most part.
I mentioned in another thread that she could have used the opportunity he presented to show how dangerous the heritage foundation is. His comments on all his cases being dismissed are because of corrupt judges (Cannon) which get chosen during Republican administrations, but instead she jumped on more talking points and completely ignored it… I can’t imagine what it must be like to be up there so I’m sure it hard to think on your feet in that position, but I just felt annoyed that I seemed to know more about the day to day political bullshit that has happened than her. I’m sure she knows it all, but she never showed that.
She did ok, but it definitely wasn’t the slam dunk a lot of people are making it out to be. :/
Politics shouldn’t be a sport. Critical thinking and data driven analysis are much better methods for determining the best policies than an arbitrary contest of who had the best quips or who totally owned their opponent more. Our future as a country shouldn’t be determined by the political equivalent of a rap battle.
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In a system where a single person gets full executive authority,
Well, that’s the problem, isn’t it. No single person should have that much authority. But, regardless, does this debate platform really tell us all that much about how a person is likely to perform as chief executive? I’m not so sure. I think a person can do relatively well in a debate performance and still end up being a poor president.
I can’t vote for policies.
But you can vote for a representative (two, actually) who can vote for policies. That’s where our focus should be, I think. I’m not really sure why we need a president, to be honest. A single individual with that much power, who isn’t even elected by popular vote, seems undemocratic to me.
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What system would that be?
Yeah, ideally it shouldn’t, but IMO were in this state where we’re kinda trying to play chess with a toddler that just wants juice and thinks the pieces are neat.
Taking a step back, I don’t truly understand why the option is between someone who might be reasonable, and a convicted predator con artist who, at every turn, keeps demonstrating how they’re more racist and incoherent than your great grandpa, but here we are.
Tldr: I agree with you, but this isn’t that.
I don’t truly understand why the option is between someone who might be reasonable, and a convicted predator con artist who, at every turn, keeps demonstrating how they’re more racist and incoherent than your great grandpa
I think our system of politics as day time talk show style entertainment is part of the reason why the convicted predator continues to be a seemingly viable candidate.
True, and I mean, a lot of that seems to come from how we’ve handled politics in the past affecting the now. Media companies are incentivised by controversy, and everyone’s opinion needs to be heard just to generate content.
It’ll be interesting to see how this and other worldly things change as cable news continues to die.
As an aside, it’s also funny how everyone apparently forgot all the BS Trump was doing or involved in over the four years he was in office. I remember it always being something, you know? Scandal or stupid decisions every week. I mean even know, they’re calling for a door to door military search of American households like we did in Iraq and Afghanistan. Police can barely pull over Tyreek Hill without yanking him out of his car and screaming. People can’t see the writing on the wall on how much violence would happen from something so massively invasive? Doesn’t sound like freedom to me.
OK I’ll get off my box lol.
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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/sep/11/who-won-harris-trump-debate
But her policy positions were also clearly leaning to the right of the Democratic agenda. She called for many more agents patrolling the border (rather than real and comprehensive immigration reform), defended the right to abortion by extreme examples of injury (such as incest) rather than an ordinary woman’s right to choose, and offered no policy change for Palestinians beyond “working round the clock” for a ceasefire. In other words, more of the same.
does not matter who wins the election now because a right leaning party is going to win no matter what
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