It didn’t matter what the question was, Trump kept turning it back to immigration. He’s only got one talking point, and it’s based on fear of the other.
His fans will say he won and looked powerful. He didn’t, but they won’t care.
Wish he’d been pressed more about killing the immigration bill. Every time he complained about it, remind him that he killed the immigration bill.
Wish Orban wasn’t a diplomatic conflict. Trump saying Orban endorsed him should have been a liability but you probably can’t outright call him a wannabe dictator.
I doubt it changes the mind of too many people who already had a preference, but maybe a few hopefully. Somehow there are undecided people, I hope they saw it plainly. I don’t think there was much that will hurt Harris from it. She performed very well.
Trump looked more incoherent this time than in the previous debates, what with the "immigrants are coming to eat your pets" line and other zingers like post-birth abortion nonsense. There were also some weird moments where he said stuff like "Kamala hates Israel," prompting her to go off on her undying loyalty to Israel.
Harris was overall more presentable, but had some horrible policy moments, such as repeating debunked claims about sexual assault on October 7th as she restated her undying loyalty to Israel (which could materially cost her Michigan as Muslim voters are turning to Stein and Cornel West over Harris), or stating that Climate Change is an existential threat in one breath and promising to never ban fracking in the next, along with bragging about gas production.
Overall it's a clear "win" for Harris over Trump if we are purely measuring debate performance, Harris looked far better and answered more coherently, though her environmental positions, immigration positions, and foreign policy are far to the right of where they should be, especially concerning swing state polling.
That is, of course, ignoring my personal disdain for liberalism and both candidates in general for being far-right, this is purely an analysis of the debate within the context of the election.
Mexican here. Can confirm that we have plenty of stray dogs and cats here to eat. We have plenty of pet dogs and cats to eat too, but it's troublesome to deal with their owners/masters. Don't worry about us, we won't go there to eat your pets. I wish my fellow countrymen wouldn't have to go there and expose themselves to be treated this unfairly.
I thought it was funny how Trump was just nodding along while Harris was saying that people often leave his rallies due to boredom. Also, him basically outright saying that immigration has never happened in the history of the country, along with the other nonsensical things he's said.
I streamed it while I was working on other things but I thought it was pretty hilarious. Kamala seemed to be intentionally pushing Trumps buttons to derail him and he just could not accept that he is not universally loved.
Honestly though, given how Trump lies and Kamala was putting on a show the whole thing seemed so cynical and pointless. I've watched every presidential and vice presidential debate since Bush Jr.'s second term even in the "good ol' days" when it wasn't just a sound bite circus very rarely was a president even able to achieve the lofty goals they pitched the American people on.
The whole thing is farcical in 2024. The lack of shared reality the Trump era has ushered in makes it next to impossible to trust anything a politician says. Kamala had spunk and moxy and was very down to earth and likeable, but policy wise she made a lot of statements the presidency doesn't have the power to deliver on. Even with the insane power the supreme court gave the executive branch a few months ago.
Trump was Trump. It's pretty clear how much his brain has rotted when you compare this debate with the one he had with Clinton. But otherwise you can't trust a single word he says. His position on any matter is irrelevant because he'll retcon it later if it's inconvenient. Meanwhile Kamala vowed to continue helping our frenemies do some ethnic cleansing and spent most of the debate posturing for the idiots to stupid to already have an opinion.
They should do another debate next week between two people who are not running and can actually answer questions and talk about policy. Just to show us what we could have. Elizabeth Warren vs Mitt Romney.
The LWV (League of Woman Voters) sponsored the United States presidential debates in 1976, 1980 and 1984.[60][61] On October 2, 1988, the LWV's 14 trustees voted unanimously to pull out of the debates, and on October 3 they issued a press release condemning the demands of the major candidates' campaigns. LWV President Nancy Neuman said that the debate format would "perpetrate a fraud on the American voter" and that the organization did not intend to "become an accessory to the hoodwinking of the American public."[62][63] All presidential debates since 1988 have been sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates,[64] a bipartisan organization run by the two major parties that some argue has established rules with the intent to exclude airing candidates associated with other parties.[65]
Didn't watch it, but the headlines, posts and memes are prime choice so far!
But one thing I haven't seen mentiones yet is something I only stumbled upon when a browser was showing headline snippets. Harris outright said that both she and Walz are gun owners, they're not "taking anyone's guns" and outright told that orange turd to stop with his blatant lies. As a blue gun owner...then fills me with joy.
Kamala is the best version of a normal politician fighting against Trump. It remains to be seen if that's enough, because he's just so goddamn weird that it's difficult to even compare Tool A to Problem B.
I think she's incorporated virtually all of the strengths of any of her comparable peers, and almost none of their weaknesses. I think that, given the nature of the opponent and his total lack of seriousness, she said everything I would reasonably hope she would have said during this debate.
I also think that I don't properly understand the collective psyche of the American electorate. I don't understand how the election could be this close, when it is a choice between a serious, competent, passionate, talented professional, and a man who is literally a collection of all of the worst possible traits a person could have. That it could come down to such a narrow choice is a mystery for the ages.
Trump started off coherent, but ~30% in he went of the rails.
Kamala on the other hand looks like she has no strong values, she doesn't seem like a Dem candidate. What kind of Dem candidate is pro fracking? Kamala honestly seems disingenuous.
Trump on the other hand didn't form more than 20 complete sentences, so I can't really call him disingenuous because he doesn't seem to stand for anything
Predictably, it was a shit show. Trump was doing his normal routine of batshit crazy stupidity. Harris was level headed and sensible, minus the bit about the "most lethal army" and pro fracking stuff. It's mind boggling to me that to think that it will sway votes. How could you possible look at these options and change your mind only after the debate? But at the same time I know it doesn't matter, I know that there are still people who will somehow be swayed.
Completely and utterly masturbatory. The reality is that the US is extremely polarized politically because the living standards are collapsing. There are basically two competing narratives for why that's happening, and people subscribe to one or the other. The democrats and republicans have fundamentally different world views, so nobody is going to be swayed by the debate. People subscribing to each respective view will hear what they want to hear.
People who will vote for Harris are the ones who think that the dems have been doing a good job for the past three and a half years, meanwhile people who aren't happy with the way things are going will vote against them or stay home. It's that simple.
Watched it for the lolz.
Lots of rhetoric aimed at their bases, with very little in the name of actual policy, outside short slogans that got repeated 3 or 4 times over with next to no detail. Each trying to 'gotcha' the other and each tried to miscategorize the other a few times. Each echo chamber will claim their person won, yet as an outsider and non-American with no skin in the game, I would say they both did pretty poorly with both stating a couple of valid comments, but few and far between. A couple of ABC commentators later said the same.
Looking forward to the headlines cheerleading their pre-selected person on Wednesday. Each camp trying to out meme the other.
Lastly, weren't the microphones at the debate supposed to be muted when the other was talking? 'Cause they weren't at times.
This made the thing funnier.
Would have been better with an actual audience. Otherwise, it looked so fake and performative.
The interesting thing is how people find ways around my politics filter all the time by using abbreviations. Is there no way to keep politics to the politics channels folks?
I watched Top Secret! for like the third time. It's so funny! They don't make 'em like that any more. Unless they do: in which case, please tell me the title!
two hitler-particle-emitting politicians sitting on a mountain of corpses, arguing over who can make the pile grow faster. so, par for the course as far as american elections go.
Your racist grandpa vs an ivy leaguer who brags about having a small business owner in her life during the debate (she grew up with a nanny)
Also jesus both of them trying to outracist eachother. Kamala might be beat on the home front but she makes up for it on the world stage with the israel comments.
Kamala says 'Trump is gonna pull us out of Nato' and Trump says 'Kamala will make the US Venezuela on steroids'. I dont know why each candidate is trying to convince me to vote for the other