No real answers or policy proposals, blaming every problem on migrants (while Biden’s policy on the border is largely a continuation of Trump’s), just a bunch of bullshit “everything was great, now everything sucks, but I will make it great again”. I honestly cringed at Trump more, Biden’s ramblings at least were funny.

I can’t imagine anyone who’s undecided at this point listen to this and say “This guy will make things right”. Trump’s entire objective is to let Biden stumble and fall and then cruise to presidency, but he makes every effort imaginable to prevent himself from it. No zingers or clever retorts against a literal corpse (aside from maybe one “I don’t know what he said and he isn’t either”), just and abysmal performance. Honestly, even someone like Ramaswami would’ve dogwalked Biden.

If anyone is capable of losing to Biden at this point, it’s Trump.

  • emizeko [they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    81·
    5 months ago

    No zingers

    c’mon responding to Biden saying “We finally beat Medicare” with “Yeah, you beat it to death.” was pretty funny

  • aaro [they/them, she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
    68·
    5 months ago

    If anyone is capable of losing to Biden at this point, it’s Trump.

    ah yes, but - if anyone is capable of losing to Trump at this point, it’s Biden.

  • dead [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    58·
    5 months ago

    The worst thing that Trump said during the debate was in the brief period when they were talking about Israel. Trump says that Biden should let Israel “finish the job” in Gaza. Trump said that Biden is a Palestinian. Trump uses the label Palestinian as a derogatory word.

    • ClimateChangeAnxiety [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      43·
      5 months ago

      Biden says Hamas is the only group preventing peace after describing a deal Hamas agreed to and Israel rejected

      Trump calls out that actually Israel is the one preventing peace

      “And they’re right to do so and should finish the job”

      what-the-hell

    • aaro [they/them, she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
      16·
      5 months ago

      We knew this, right? There’s a reason that Bibi has back stabbed Biden and is now begging for Trump - it’s because Trump wants Palestinian children bombed more than Biden does, and he’ll make more of it happen.

      • dead [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
        6·
        5 months ago

        Also during Trump’s presidency he did many things which hurt Palestinians and helped Israel, such as the Abraham Accords and moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. He also cut funding to Palestinian aid groups, stopped funding to UNRWA. There’s also speculation that his assassination of Qassem Soleimani was on behalf of Israel.

  • Doubledee [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    56·
    5 months ago

    Well he’s in a bind honestly, going by the people I know that profess to like Trump. They want imaginary stupid things that can’t be said out loud without being obviously stupid or contradictory.

    Like, he wants to run as anti-war, and also oppose a cease fire in Gaza? He wants credit for Afghanistan but not to accept that losing a war means an embarrassing retreat. He wants to support the Jan 6th people but also not get yelled at for being supportive of overthrowing the government. He’s gonna end the war in Ukraine before he even comes in, but the terms Putin is asking for are unacceptable?

    You have to keep banging on about immigrants because if you get concrete about anything else someone might notice that it makes no fucking sense.

    • jonne@infosec.pubEnglish
      35·
      5 months ago

      The Trumpy anti-war stance basically means ‘don’t send US troops anywhere’, they’re usually fine with enabling Israel or other ‘allies’ to prosecute their wars/genocides. Opposition to the Ukraine wars is also more due to them liking Putin’s anti-woke stuff instead of some kind of anti-imperialist principle.

      • CarmineCatboy2 [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
        26·
        5 months ago

        The Afghanistan contradiction is also easily solved: Trump started to end that war (which he didn’t begin), but 'Biden fumbled the withdrawal of troops making it a shitshow (and he was also there when the war began and intensified).

        • jonne@infosec.pubEnglish
          6·
          5 months ago

          I mean, those are actual facts. Probably one of the few good things he’s done, unironically (probably not for the right reasons, but still).

          • CarmineCatboy2 [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
            2·
            5 months ago

            The spin there is twofold. First, while Trump himself likes to point out that the war on terror and the destruction of half the middle east was all dumb decisions, the media doesn’t. Right wing media will emphasize that Biden was there with during the Iraq War, but won’t necessarily condemn the war itself. The second spin is the idea that anybody could have done it better. It’s a Saigon moment. The rapid collapse of the potemkin american client is the point.

      • porcupine@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
        13·
        5 months ago

        In other words, Trump’s “anti-war stance” is identical to Obama’s when he ran against Bush: a calculated lie.

  • alvvayson@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    41·
    5 months ago

    Trump v Clinton

    Trump v Biden

    Trump v Biden (again)

    Is the USA really not capable of getting some actually capable candidates on the ballot?

    The last time it was actually two normal people was 2012 with Obama v Romney. That’s 12 years ago.

    There are voters this election that were in kindergarten back then.

  • space_comrade [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    41·
    5 months ago

    This debate wasn’t about winning over voters, it was about not losing them. Biden’s performance will make a lot of people stay at home while Trump was neither here nor there. Overall it’s a win for Trump.

  • FactuallyUnscrupulou [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    36·
    5 months ago

    The thing about this country is that most of us are a bunch of settlers who need to be humbled on the international stage. We are the bad guys and I feel it’s advantageous to the good people of the world that we have an incompetent bumbling idiot as our leader. The sooner Xi fires the nukes the sooner we are to turning the corner on this very sad point in history. As John Brown put it, “the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away, but with blood”.

  • JayTwo [any]@hexbear.netEnglish
    35·
    5 months ago

    lol no Trump was doing Trump shit which is taking potshots at the competition while selling his sympathizers a fascist fantasy. During the 2016 debates all the libs thought he was losing dismally while he was effectively bodying Clinton because he was following a different playbook. This is why he avoided the questions to veer into culture war shit. His base eats that up. Trump doesn’t try to meet the liberal image of a qualified candidate but that’s because he’s a fascist and doesn’t need to.
    *Fake French accent* He knows the ridiculousness of his answers but he’s amusing himself for it’s his adversaries who are obliged to use words responsibly.
    Trump did what he needed to do to appeal to his base whereas Biden uh I don’t know what the fuck Biden was doing, mostly sundowning I think, but appealing to his base wasn’t part of it.

  • EllenKelly [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    341·
    5 months ago

    Trump was so civil and together, I think libs are going to eat that shit up, people dont care about policies, these debates are the literal theatre of bourgeois political theatre

    Im out here in the peanut gallery, trying to get closer to the SPLASH ZONE 💦

  • AssortedBiscuits [they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    30·
    5 months ago

    Trump didn’t even bother answering a lot of the questions, showing contempt for the whole process. He even at one point said how the whole debate was a waste of time lol

    Trump is nowhere close to how he was in 2016, and he reminds me of a aging band just playing the same hits that made them famous 20 years ago. I think if Trump had shown restraint, Biden would’ve looked even more of a complete trainwreck since I’ve noticed Biden’s senility becomes less noticeable when he’s insulting Trump.

    But Biden’s performance was a fucking trainwreck. Dude can’t even stand still without making a memeable face. Trump at least still looks like Trump.

  • Egon [they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    28·
    5 months ago

    I dunno I saw one clip which was Biden rambling about Trump calling his dead son a useless soldier or something and Trumps rebuttal is just “First off that’s a lie, that’s not true, I didnt do that, I have 19 witnesses saying I didn’t. How crazy would it be if I did that at a cemetery?” And I burst out laughing. Peak posting behaviour.

    This is prime stuff https://x.com/fraudhaired/status/1806507775444361686

  • blobjim [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    27·
    5 months ago

    The whole thing was so fake, like some kind of dream. It’s just amazing how it’s fake but about real, evil things that the ruling class is actively doing.