Trump / Harris Debate

[Spider-Dan]

I am absolutely floored at this point that anyone could look at anything Trump is saying and select him over Harris.

You shouldn't be.  Trump's appeal is very straightforward:

America is being invaded by foreigners, who don't share our values.  They will take over and our very way of life will disappear.  Your grandchildren will speak Spanish or some other strange language; you won't understand what people around you are saying.  Trump is the only one who can stop it.  He will round up all the invaders and send them away, without any worrying about political correctness.  He will simply Get It Done.

Have you noticed that they are no longer even pretending it's about "illegal" immigrants?  It's just about migrants now; "legality" is an excuse invented by Democrats to facilitate the invasion.

[Phishfan]

Spider is correct. Trump's appeal is straight forward and in your face. It has absolutely nothing to do with policy. It's about Merica.

[Pappy13]

We are talking about someone who thought he could redirect the path of a hurricane with a sharpie, and people are just now wondering about his mental health. 

Before he was just crazy. I think he's starting to lean into senile.

[MyGodWearsAHoodie]

I feel bad for the reporter at the Onion who tasked with writing a story about the debate. 

[Dave Gray]

I think I'm starting to understand his madness.  If Trump doesn't want to talk about abortion and wants to talk about the economy because that polls better for him, he'll say demonstrably false things about the economy -- everyone puts him on blast for being an idiot and a liar and a gaslighter, which is true, but then we're talking about the economy.   Or he wants to talk about the border, so he says that legal Haitians are eating cats in Ohio, which is also false and racist, but has nothing to do with the border, yet it shifts the conversation to that.

It's been his playbook the whole time.  I don't know if it's smart and calculated, but that's the result.

[Downunder Dolphan]

At some stage, in a real democracy (while they still exist) you have to ask yourself, what exactly do you want from a politician?

Do we really want and value honesty? Even if we don't like it or agree with it? Can we believe they will say anything they say with any kind of real vision beyond what gets their asses re-elected next time?

This is the challenge for politicians to remain relevant, to communicate a vision to benefit everyone, and not just the ones they expect to vote them back in. A real vision with real results to back it up - everything else is just snake oil. When that stops, democracy dies.