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this post was submitted on 05 Feb 2024
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"I don't debate insurrectionists, jack"
Debates aren't part of the election process, they're part of the entertainment process. And if Biden doesn't agree to do the age-old Three Debate monkey dance, the Undecided Voter will grow angry and support the Fun Candidate instead.
Or, at least, that's a theory. There's another theory that debates are dumb nerd shit that nobody who hasn't already made up their minds watch anymore. And - much as a bunch of Senators and Governors have refused to debate during safe election years - Biden's refusal to meet Trump on national TV will actually make him Cool and Based.
It's not even "dumb nerd shit" these days. Current "debates" are little more than ways of generating soundbites. The moderators don't do moderation and they refuse to cut mics for those who aren't up. It's entertainment and propaganda/campaign marketing, not debating.
You don't really need to cut mics when you control the cameras and get to edit this shit in post during the Sunday Morning Talk Shows.
The vast majority of people don't watch the debates live. They just get the reactions after the fact.
The future of politics is a new generation of celebrity candidates. And I don't even know if that's a bad thing, considering how many of our last generation's candidates came out of a vat in the basement of some East Coast Ivy League boarding school.
I gave up on any of em after getting annoyed at the complete lack of debate in the "debates".
New boss, same as the old boss. Hard to say that there will be any difference as, since the embrace of neoliberalism, there's been virtually zero politicians doing anything more than attempting to look like they're trying to do anything for the populace but are somehow completely powerless to do anything but help their bribers-erm..."lobbyists" squeeze more out of those that can barely afford anything.
One of the big appeals of Trump is that he grasps at every lever of power he can find and pulls it.
Nine times out of ten, it isn't connected to anything. But if you pull on enough shit, maybe a big border wall or a Muslim ban or a repeal of Roe v Wade or a giant bucket of cash falls out and your voters love you for it.
America has had playboy celebrity politicians since Jefferson.
And by that I mean politicians who attain celebrity, not the other way round. There’s nothing really “wrong”, per se, with having some celebrity in your politician. It’s when you get politician in your celebrity that we’ve learned bad things happen.
Celebrity scientists like NdGT and Hawking are considered net positives for STEM, yes?
you can't beat trump in a debate really. he will shit everywhere and his supports will guzzle residues. what's the point.
You can. He's a B-list stand up so you bring your A-game.
But Biden isn't a professional comedian. He's not going to roast Trump in a game of The Dozens.
When you've got a friendly press corps, you do a debate and let the media stunt on the opposition for you.
There's going to be a 5 second clip of one of them stumbling or mispronouncing a word, and then the next week long news cycle becomes "Does Candidate Have Alzheimer's? Here's a dozen Dr. Oz tier talking heads to tell you he might!"
But when conservatives have their own big, invasive, and professionalized hatchet men teams, there's a legit fear among Democrats that they will be more likely on the receiving end.
You can’t beat Trump in a debate because thats like beating a chimp in a hotdog eating contest. End of the day he’s just gonna throw shit at you and you’re just gonna gobble down a bunch of wieners. You won, but at what cost?
Which is why the Democrats should have put someone else up for re-election, someone who can defend themself well.
Definitely. But this is a government by the elderly, of the elderly, for the elderly.
LBJ dropped out of his party's primary, and although it was far too soon to say if he would have lost, he faced strong opposition in New-Politic anti-war candidates Kennedy and McCarthy. He is on record as worrying about the primary and it doubtless played a big part of his dropping out
Kennedy of course got shot, and the more conservative Humphrey ended up with the nomination over McCarthy (or late entry McGovern), sparking riots at the DNC. The situations and systems were quite different, but i think there's some parallels with Biden/Clinton vs Bernie there
I think Truman also dropped out rather than fight a tough primary, but i don't know so much about that
These days do not seem like normal times to do comparisons with past election successes. Politics seems very different these days, versus how it was in the past.
It's one hell of a risk play the Democratic party is doing, not just to their own power as a party, but to the country overall with electing someone elderly that can handle four more years of leadership. There's a very real chance he could lose as well as win.
I have to disagree. You can't reasonably debate someone whose arguments aren't based in reality. Trump's tactic since 2016 has been to use whatever platform that he's been given to smear and denigrate his opponents at every opportunity and to lie about how all of the problems we face can be easily solved if only he were allowed to do it. When questioned on actual policy matters, he spouts complete nonsense that doesn't hold up to scrutiny, but since it's a fast paced debate he can make up bullshit and nobody will fact check him. Even if by some miracle the moderators do fact check him, he will turn to attack them and say they are politically biased against Trump, etc. etc.
It's a zero-win situation. Trump will never lose points for bad behavior among his base, and he only stands to benefit from the increased exposure. Biden meanwhile can't score a goal when the goalpoasts are motorized to move backwards at this point and only invites unnecessary risk of flubbing or tripping up, which will be played back on repeat on political talk shows to harm him.
I don't disagree that he could totally beat him, but when the opposition is always playing a game of Texas Sharpshooter, Trump only stands to earn bullseyes while Biden is just wasting ammo.
The point of a televised political debate isn't to win your opponent to your side. The point is to establish to the outside viewer that your position and your personage is more fit to the task of governing than your opponent.
For a candidate who is divorced from reality, this is typically pretty easy. You point out a few things that the opponent disagrees with and that your audience knows to be true. Then you provoke the opponent into saying something outlandish, attack the absurd allegation, and put up a far more attractive countervailing position/policy that people are more likely to believe practical.
The problem Biden has is that he's also immersed himself in propaganda. He isn't willing to accept the rising poverty or the failing liberal institutions at home. He's backed an ugly unpopular war in Ukraine and a fucking outright genocide in Palestine. His fixation on bipartisanship has left him once again getting Lucy-with-the-football'd on immigration. His slavish loyalty to the banks means he's back to harping about a balanced budget and gutting popular public services. He's constantly saying how he can't do anything as President, while insisting that a future Trump Presidency would be totally unchecked, which didn't make sense when Obama claimed it in the wake of Bush and now has completely run itself through.
And he's OLD. Really fucking old. He's even more prone to gaffs and flubs than he was sixteen years ago.
Trump's base isn't enough to win a general election. But "bad behavior" is its own reward when its directed at someone the crowd doesn't like. That's what really makes Trump dangerous. If he were to try and tussle with Biden on the debate stage in 2020, an enormous number of people would be disgusted. But now that so many of those people have soured on Biden, I suspect you'd see quite a few of those same voters applaud.
Even then, the thing Biden really has to worry about isn't the Obama-Trump-Biden swing voter nearly so much as it is the Ohio or Virginia or Arizona or Georgia voter who refuses to vote for either one of these assholes. He needs to rally his base, regardless of who his opponent is. Trump being an asshole on stage matters far less than Biden advertising a future four years in this country that isn't just four more years of shit.
I agree, my political theories of what is popular in the general public is based on sigma edits. Say something dumb but put phonk or synth wave music in the background and I will agree with you.
Edit: I now support Serbian war criminals
The important thing is that you're supporting some group of War Criminals.
Moderate Rebels. Based Chads. Antifa Supersoldiers. Guys firing rockets from Yemen into the Red Sea. Guys firing rockets from Israel into Gaza. Guys driving fertilizer bombs up to the FBI building on Oklahoma. Guys dropping surplus munitions on the MOVE community center in Philly. Guys flinging pipe bombs into abortion clinics. Guys blowing up pipelines in Texas or under the Baltic Sea or anywhere that lets me fist-pump and shout "You fuckin' gottem, mate!"
Literally just anything that involves hard looking motherfuckers doing John Wick / Jason Statham shit with the highest body count imaginable.
Please just promise me that There Will Be Blood.
Exactly, doesn't everyone know casually killing people makes you cool. Especially if you're in plain clothes and the footage looks like it's from the 80s or 90s. I don't know who shot first in Waco, but I do know who looked cooler, and it's not the nerds wearing body armor.
In a war of swag, David Koresh had it and Janet Reno did not.
Unfortunately, this was a war that involved tanks. And Janet Reno was undeniably a bigger tankie.
Guys this, guys that. That's why I'm a lesbian
But what of the coming Subaru Wars?