I feel obligated to note at the top that you can win...
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She set a tone at the very start when she walked right into his space to shake his hand and made him almost pull back into himself in response. She was in charge and never stopped being in charge.
Harris also managed what neither Joe Biden nor Hillary Clinton nor any of the 2016 Republicans managed to do which is successfully bait Donald Trump and get under his skin. Within a few minutes Trump was visibly angry and not in a way that empowered him but in a way that made him lose focus, go down rabbit holes and generally go off onto damaging tangents. Spittle anger, not righteous anger, shall we say.
As one who is 100% on the democratic side, I think Harris obviously won the debate.
But I'm very curious about what Republicans think? Do they think Trump made a good response saying he didn't need a plan because he isn't president?
I was a bit disappointed Harris didn't attack him on the fact that it's been more than 8 years now since Trump said he would come up with a better healthcare plan. Stressing the 8 years, and the result being still nothing. So a concept of a plan for Trump seems to mean he has NOTHING!
But still, do Republicans view this as Trump did OK?
From what I've been seeing around the internet, Republicans are convinced that the debate was rigged. Harris was given the questions in advance, the moderators were biased, etc. etc.
So they are making excuses for Trump, which can only mean they could see that he lost.
I also heard that Trump was alone against 3. I guess because they called out a couple of his lies, especially the insane bit about emigrants eating peoples pets in Ohio.
So apparently some Republicans are not happy with how he did in the debate.
Some Republicans, like all of the ones endorsing Harris, but Trump's MAGA core voting base is still shielded by their reality distortion field where Trump "won".
So I flipped over to Fox News right after to see how they would spin the debate. Everyone spins this stuff, it's normal, but after that debate, I wanted to see how bad it would be. Well, Hannity was on, and you can imagine how it went. They said Harris was weak, didn't have answers or dodged the questions, had weird faces, and then they just regurgitated his flat-out lies.
I couldn't even watch 10 minutes because it was so painfully obvious they were just lying through their teeth, and it was so desperate sounding that to a non-R voter, it came across as them not even watching the debate.
I couldn't even watch 10 minutes because it was so painfully obvious they were just lying through their teeth, and it was so desperate sounding that to a non-R voter, it came across as them not even watching the debate.
I think that may be their strategy. They assume a lot of their base doesn't want to watch the debate, instead they just tune in after the fact, and they get the bizarro universe account of what happened presented as fact and thus feel more validated in their beliefs.
It’s crazy how much things have changed in 8 years. Before Trump came on the scene, Fox was very biased, but their stories had a basis in fact. 4 years ago they had gone down the drain, but still prevented a coup by calling AZ for Biden. Now they tell lies about as frequently as Trump.
I think the change came with Obama, but that’s also around the time I moved out of the place where I heard it all the time, so it could just be that that’s when my normal meter was reset.
4 years ago? They kept repeating birtherism lies about Obama from day 1. The second Trump was a candidate, they flipped to unbased conspiracy theories. We are almost at 16 years of this bullshit.
For a minute I was wondering if the National Review was going the way of whatever the fuck that one Bee website is... something like a conservative take on The Onion. Can't remember the name and I'm out of fucks to give to look it up.
Edit: I had to look this up, she called herself this in the endorsement in her sign off message at the end in response to something JD Vance said about women earlier.
That 8 years thing for healthcare could easily backfire. The majority of Americans are very fed up with our healthcare, and Democrats haven't done much to fix it this administration either (not entirely their fault, we have a gridlocked Congress and Senate, after all). The concept of a plan quote is hilarious, though! My friends and I plan on using it at work from now on.
Anyway, even most Republican media outlets have conceded that Harris won last night. As for the MAGA cult itself, I honestly haven't bothered to go down that internet hole yet, nor am I likely to. I'm sure there's countless bots/trolls spinning the story and creating a fake reality already, with plenty of zealots lapping it up because their collective delusion requires it.
That 8 years thing for healthcare could easily backfire. The majority of Americans are very fed up with our healthcare,
Yes but Democrats and particularly Harris want to improve it further, it's the Republicans that have refused to play ball for 16 years now.
Harris did mention results on medicin prices, and ongoing work to improve that further. So isn't it still a very obvious advantage for Democrats and their political goals that people are fed up with the lack of progress?
My friends and I plan on using it at work from now on.
Oh for sure, they've made some progress and there are a lot of D reps and senators who want to do much more, I didn't mean to imply otherwise. But, the modern American public at large act like the president is some grand arbiter of getting laws passed single-handedly. Many ignore that it's Congress that's the most dysfunctional component when it comes to actually getting things done for the last two-some-odd decades. Hell, we have tons of people that chalk up the entire state of the economy on a single person every election cycle, it's craziness.
Anyway, my point is that anyone that's actually paying attention in good faith knows it's almost entirely the GOP blocking healthcare reform. But, as we've especially learned these last 10+ years, many Americans don't pay attention to reality.
“Your system is so bad, terrible! Anyone can do better!”
“And yet you couldn’t in your term and still don’t have an idea how to do it even now? So you admit you can’t fix what you believe to be an easy problem to solve? That’s a weird stance to take during a debate you’re trying to win but ok.”
I don't think the MAGA movement is able to have realistic responses at this point.
This thing normal people can still do -- "that was good, but we could do better", or even "wow, expected much more than that" -- would be impossible for MAGA. Any performance must be the best they have ever seen. Trump can do no wrong in the eyes of his supporters. Any room for improvement is seen as weakness.
The fact is, Trump could have gone out there and laid right down for a nap. MAGA would still say it was the best debate performance they ever saw in the history of the country.
I know a conservative mother who started the debate with Israel, abortion, and godly values being her main concerns. Godly values was the most important to her.
Before we even got to "concepts of a plan" she actually said she isn't sure who is the best choice for the country. We stopped giving the tv our full attention when she said it was depressing her - we ended up playing cards games the rest of the debate so I didn't react as much. But thankfully I got to chuckle live at the concepts of a plan.
I've been trying to avoid saying "weird" when talking about republicans. I don't want right leaning folk to think I'm trying to buzzword them. But it's really hard and sometimes I do say weird (was describing JD Vance's eyeliner) but that kinda makes it worse because I'll catch myself saying it and backpedal immediately and change the word (the eyeliner became 'unflattering' instead of 'weird') and they notice. And it feels like I have to protect them. Like... I'm not calling them snowflakes to their faces... But I'm loudly walking the proverbial egg shells.
This is why I had to say that "Concepts of a plan" was cute instead of weird. I ended up comparing it to my mother asking if I had cleaned my room, with me responding "I've thought about cleaning my room."
All that to say... It's hard for anyone with a good heart to enjoy Trump speaking. We made comments that Harris was obviously baiting him - but does that matter when he takes the bait? The immigration stories. The hate-filled eyes.
Trump is either a mean old man who is innocent. Or he's a terrible liar - and truly a bad person.
It was a good night. I don't know who she will vote for. But in 2020 I DID. When Harris addressed how you don't need to abandon your faith to know the trump ban laws are wrong, it felt like Kamala was speaking directly to people like her
No. They Republicans are thoroughly embarrassed and most of them are going to actually vote for Harris now. They are sick and tired of argregious lies and fabricated inconsistent stories and this really pushed them over the edge. They feel that racist fears of others as the sole platform for a presidency is tired and ridiculous.
If you are naive enough to wonder what their response is this far into the collapse of the GOP, you might as well go on believing this story; take advantage of whatever memory block you suffer from and at least replace your fantasy with something positive.