So at the start, let me confess that I have not watched even a second of this week's presidential debate. Not live, nor a video clip of the highlights (probably because there really weren't any other than maybe the "alley cat” remark).
And that is because, like any other debate over the past 8 years involving the 34x Felon, the whole idea of even doing that is an exercise in stupidity. How can you even attempt that with anyone that just lies incessantly and/or hovers around you like a huge creep, as he did with Hillary? This time, I just avoided it and waited for the reactions afterward. Eventually I came to this site to understand how our side saw it. A lot of what I saw here grossed me out and were very discouraging for me as a supporter of the president I usually refer to as "ass-kickn Joe Biden" (especially after his latest State of The Union addresses.)
BUT, on the day after, there was one barometer of the impact of this debate I went to right away: the stock price of TMTG, aka McSnuffles Media & Technology Group, the parent of the Former Monster's failed social media platform, Truth Social. Since that scam went public a couple months back, it has bounced up and down massively, but the day after the debate it tanked by 10.84% at the closing.
Now, doesn't it follow that if the world perceived that the debate meltdown really had some major electoral impact, the TMTG share price would have gone the other way? Right or wrong, financial markets have some of the most immediate and accurate perceptions of an informed sector of the population, because money is involved. If the leader of Cult45 really did have a lock on the election after this debate mess, it should have skyrocketed.
(Disclosure: I'm personally invested in TMTG via put options. Meaning, I plan to profit from declines in the stock price. Trading options is a risky proposition, but in a past life I traded futures and currency forwards via a Series 3 certification, so I know what I'm getting into.)
Let me drop a historical precedent for sucky first debates: Obama vs Romney 2012. I didn't watch the first, just heard elsewhere that it was a scary megaflop on O's part. But I did tune in for the next one, and what had to be the most classic self-own in the history of presidential debates. Our site's fearless leader named it "My favorite moment of 2012."
Obama’s devastating line, one that should go down in history, was “please proceed, governor.” As if to say, “I’ve given you enough rope to hang yourself, so have at it.” I'd love to describe exactly how it played out, but you need all the context. So I'll just let you all follow that link for the details. Kos summarized it pretty well:
In that moment, the GOP fantasy that Benghazi would bring down Obama evaporated amidst mocking crowd laughter and applause, and Obama had decisively won the second (very critical) debate.
In fact, Romney was so thoroughly defeated on this issue, that he refused to use it as an attack line during the third debate, supposedly focused on foreign policy.
And to think, the now-incompetent debate moderator CNN hosted that one! My, how the mighty media outlets have fallen. In any event if another debate happens, with decent rules and a competent media outlet, and if Biden is on his game this time, I 100% expect he can and will rope the GOP’s Current Idiot every bit as tightly.
Look if you're personally fretting about the future of our country over this, I understand that. I am too. But please don't drag the rest of us down. If you think we should be worried ok, but then maybe tell us what you are going to do about it? Worry alone does nothing. But worry that leads to action, especially when amped up across an organized base, can be a magnificent thing.
And as for all of you potential expatriates that want to leave our country if things go wrong this fall? If you're at that stage of grief, please spare the rest of us. There is a rule on this site forbidding "goodbye cruel world" diaries, and there should be the same for goodbye cruel country. I've already been an expat twice: once as an embassy kid in a then-dangerous country in South America, more recently in Spain. I don't want to do that again; I'm still in the stay-and-fight mode for my beloved rock'n'rolled USA. Regardless of how precarious our position is now.
Along those lines, I just signed up for recurring donations to Biden-Harris via ActBlue (hint: NEVER give them your main email address and DEFINITELY not your phone number). And even though I'm somewhat of an oldster now, I'm more motivated than ever to stick with the get-out-the-vote action I've done in every presidential since 2004, when I joined this site. My home state is New Mexico and even though we have a low delegate count, we had to be the swingiest state that year. I lived in NYC at the time, but came back to help give it a shot. Kerry didn't win, but we held GWB down to 49.84% of our vote, which gave me some nice some personal satisfaction. Sometimes moral victories feel great.
Believe me, I absolutely hate the fact that the future of our country rests on the health of one individual incumbent, as the media ignores the massively bigger decline of his challenger. But that's the way it is, and we have to play the cards we've been dealt.
P.S. I'm now putting myself on a diet of absorbing the socials and news. I'll do all my GOTV action as needed but when Election Day comes I'll probably be off the grid and wait a couple a days to see if we still have a country. But I'll hang around now for your responses : )