CNN reports 20-year record low debate viewership

Doesn't matter whats said. I have the choice between a guy who stutters. A condition that doesn't affect intelligence or mental faculties in any way. Or I have the choice of a convicted felon who has clearly only cares about himself the the point of mental instability.

I'm voting for Biden. Not because he is the best person for the job but because the alternative is a complete fascist shit show with all of his ignorant bigoted sycophant regressives willing the destroy the country. Not to return it to what it was in the past. Instead they seek to create some fantasy dictatorship that never was.

a guy who stutters

Nobody came away from the debate concerned about his stutter. This is like someone on the right calling Trump “a guy who speaks his mind”. I’m voting Biden too, but do you honestly think that’s why many of us will be holding our noses while doing so?

With zero moderation and one candidate spewing nothing but lies, they can expect lower future viewership too.

What was even the point, CNN?

Apparently the only way the candidates will agree to do it is if the format is so stilted that there's no chance of anyone learning anything or seeing the candidates get challenged on anything. It's basically just a taking-in-turns version of a campaign commercial.

What, indeed, is the point. Like a lot of American politics, the whole "debate" survives as a pointless vestige of a thing (now long forgotten) that was useful and productive in its original form, but now is mutated to a useless and unrecognizable monstrosity, which you have to pretend is super serious and important if you want to be able to be on TV.
To bring sexy back.

(But seriously, what a terrible television program, one old man spouting nonsense and the other looking confused and lost. There was absolutely zero reason for anyone to watch it.)
- It's a great program if you like watching people laugh at old people for being old. Basically what I'm saying is this program was elderly abuse.
The point is fox news.

I didn't watch because fuck those two people. I will still vote Biden. But you all should know, my GE refrigerator is running!

Wow. You better go catch it!

You want to know the problem?

Obviously both candidates suck, but The questions the moderators ask, can just be ignored by the candidates. There hasn't been a good moderator in years, if ever. No one insists that the questions be answered and they continually ignore them.

Hold the candidates' feet to the fire. Don't let them go off tangent. Slap them down and insist on an answer to the question. They don't want to answer? Cut their mic and move to the other candidate who might actually answer it.

Too many times during the debate were questions like abortion and climate asked, they were just ignored.

One of Trump's debates, Anderson Cooper kept grilling him on something he refused to answer about. At one point he declared that Trump is refusing to answer that question, explicitly. It was probably the best moderation I've ever seen.

Then in one of the primaries, one of the moderators called Pete Buttigieg a liar after he said their information was false and corrected them (he in fact was not lying). That was possibly the worst moderation I've ever seen.

At least in this one they would say "the question was..." when they didn't actually answer.
A proper debate for Trump and Biden is like setting up a mixer for you and two exes that you despise. What are you going to learn that you don't already know?

People don't want to watch reruns

I'm a politics wonk and this is the first one in decades I haven't watched. I just don't think my liver can take it.

Which is one of the reason why I don't think this debate will change many people's minds.

It gave some sound bites for people to hold up as examples of why Biden is old which I'm sure we will be seeing on certain news networks from now until forever going forward

And gave a bunch of "objective" news outlets a good excuse to write a bunch of "DEMS IN PANIC AFTER BIDEN'S UNFORGIVABLE SHIT SHOW" articles they are for some reason eager to write

Other than that significant amount of fodder, I think nothing of value occurred
- And gave a bunch of "objective" news outlets a good excuse to write a bunch of "DEMS IN PANIC AFTER BIDEN'S UNFORGIVABLE SHIT SHOW" articles they are for some reason eager to write
  
  Corpo media want Trump, simple as. Not only do they get the tax breaks and regulation abatement for their parent companies, but the last Trump term was cocaine for news media consumption, as we were all bombarded with new disaster scenarios every week. News companies do not care about the people or "the good of the nation." They care about line go up.
- The news is constantly trying to appear unbiased. And the only way to do that is by making both sides appear just as chaotic as each other.
  
  That's the only reason why the news talks about how dems are in a panic instead of going line by line and talking about every damn thing each candidate said. They can't just go and say Trump lied 37 times and Biden really has accomplished everything he said he did. Because then they would be "biased".

Thank fuck.

This is the best news I've heard since the debate.

And the Dems have tons of footage of Trump spouting crazy nonsense.

Everyone thought Biden was too old anyway but some undecided voters think Trump is "smart".

Also, if you immigratted or your parents did, he just called you or your parents rapists, escaped convicts, mental patients, and terrorists.

It made me sick to my stomach after 15 minutes and I turned it off.

/rant

I know both candidates and their positions. Don’t particularly like either candidate. Really dislike one of them. And I haven’t seen anyone host an actual, honest to god political debate in my life, and no, the final season of West Wing doesn’t count.

All that being true, why the blazes would I have watched this one? My entire life, debates have only ever been excuses to put the candidates up on a stage see which one looks prettier, and shout sound bites into a microphone. That’s not a debate, that’s a campaign ad. And I’m tired of them.

I would really like our nation to get back to a point where I can feel comfortable voting for the candidate whose policies I actually think are the best instead of having to vote against the candidate that I think will actually destroy the country.

/end-rant

Well that’s a relief.

I got the time-zone wrong and missed the first hour. Biden seemed fine to me - what the heck did I miss in the first hour?

People only remember the first hour. All the good shit happened in the second half anyways, lol.

Yeah, it doesn't matter, at least for me. One candidate is old while the other is a 34 times convicted felon. The latter has made it clear he intends to dismantle the democratic institutions of our country and turn it into another fascist regime. At this point the DNC could platform a watermelon in a wig and I'd still vote for them over the convicted felon.

They are both old; only one is a convicted felon.
- True. My comment was addressing the perception of Biden as portrayed by the major media outlets (they rarely ever mention that Trump is nearly the same age), but I concede that my comment could have been clearer in that regard.

I haven't had a reason to watch that nonsense in at least 2 decades.