UPDATE: Sunday, Jun 30, 2024 · 12:14:35 AM +00:00
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The event on Thursday night, whatever it was, showed some of the same traits we have seen in other public appearances, especially those in which there are questions and answers. We have heard his soft voice before. This isn't the first time that we heard a soft voice. This isn't the first that he has lost his train of thought. We have seen that he doesn't fill time as well as Donald Trump, coming up with something to say while trying to formulate an answer to a question. This was not the first time that we have seen these traits and it is natural and normal that time pressure on an 81 year old would exacerbate these traits and create new problems. You don't need a crystal ball to predict that what you normally see is what you will see again.
This diary faces the reality that many people are afraid to admit, but should have expected. This reality of an 81 year old Joe Biden as presidential candidate is no excuse for what we saw here on Daily Kos Thursday night. The response to the debate here was far, far worse than President Biden's performance in the debate, however one evaluated it. Almost any format for a debate is intrinsically unfavorable for President Biden. He will lose his train of thought occasionally. He isn't good at filling time. He has a soft voice. He will struggle at times to come up with answers to random questions off the top of his head. None of this affects how well he can fulfill his duties as president because a "debate" doesn't reflect how a president performs his duties. These are some of the things that we saw in President Biden. These are the realities of an 81 year old President Biden. He can still be a very effective president. He is, as many people here know, a much better president than he is a presidential candidate.
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People here evaluated the debate as if voters are looking at two candidates whom they have never seen before and know nothing about either of them. Then they said that lies are irrelevant in any assessment of the debate because normal voters aren't as smart as Kossacks are and they can't look up facts. Finally they assessed the debate on who is more vigorous. When you decide that this is going to govern how you evaluate the debate, then Donald Trump is going to win the debate in your assessment every single time.
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At age 81, Joe Biden is not going to be the kind of debater that activists, especially younger male activists, want to see. His brain is aging normally and in this kind of format, he is not going to produce what you want to see. He can govern well. Donald Trump confuses people whom he knows relatively well, (Former President George W Bush and Former Governor Jeb Bush, Former President Barack Obama and Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Former President Obama and President Biden, Former Governor Nikki Haley and Former Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, are four pairs of examples of people whom Donald Trump confused but knows relatively well). Donald Trump has phonemic paraphasia. The kind of pressure, especially time pressure, without resources isn't optimal for President Biden and doesn't replicate a president doing his job. President Biden is going to attempt to answer questions honestly as well as he can. He is going to try to follow the rules and address the questions asked. Donald Trump is going to break the rules whenever he feels like it, he is going to lie constantly, and he will only address the questions that he wants to be asked. If you rule all of this irrelevant to how you assess the debate, then you might as well have just said you decided to say ahead of time that Donald Trump was going to win the debate.
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Again, a debate does not model how a president governs or show us who can govern best. The president does NOT go into the Oval Office, get asked a surprise question that he has to answer without resources or people in his administration.
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If they at least forced Donald Trump to stay on topic and give answers that are both relevant and truthful, then we would at least get something meaningful out of it, their policy perspectives. However, as it is this sort of "debate " is completely irrelevant to who is the better president.
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If Republicans and conservatives have no trouble backing Donald Trump with whatever assets he has and all his liabilities, then how is it that people here have trouble backing President Biden with his assets and liabilities? As I have written before, the asymmetry is killing us.
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The Democratic Party had a primary. People knew that he would have certain liabilities as an 81 year old candidate, but also certain virtues as a candidate and in office, governing. Consistently in polls of democrats and Democratic Party leaning voters, Vice President Harris and Former First Lady Michelle Obama were the potential candidates whom they would want to replace President Biden if President Biden were not running for reelection. They were consistently the only candidates in the poll who were around 20% or more. One poll I remember had Vice President Harris at 27% and nobody else in double digits. Former First Lady Michelle Obama is not running. It is incredibly unlikely that President Biden is going to leave the race. If he did, then how would the nominee be chosen? It wouldn't be democratically by democrats and Democratic Party leaning voters. Therefore, it is likely that many voters on this side of the aisle would resent an undemocratically chosen nominee. It would seem that it would have to be Vice President Harris since she is at least on the ticket. Still, this method of choosing a nominee would turn off many voters. Furthermore, her polling isn't better than President Biden's.
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This leads us to the reality that President Biden is going to be the nominee and that's not going to change except by something extraordinary and unforeseeable. President Biden is going to be just fine if he doesn't win. It's marginalized communities, women, and other people who will suffer if Donald Trump wins and it places our democracy at risk. So when we say that President Biden did such a terrible job in the debate and looked like an "old, doddering, confused 101 year old", we are hurting ourselves. In a normal way of judging a debate, I don't see how Donald Trump could have been assessed as winning, nor do I believe that he won over a lot of voters. No matter how Donald Trump performed during the debate, we know that Republicans and conservatives would say that Donald Trump won the debate convincingly. When we mercilessly drag President Biden's debate performance, we are telling other voters not to vote for him. If we believe the debate was important, then we need to be making the case for President Biden even after a debate that we think he performed poorly.
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Donald Trump did not fix his problems with voters. The Democratic National Convention is going to expose Donald Trump and his enormous liabilities. There will be no way to paper over those liabilities. The country knows he badly mismanaged COVID. He ran his business so corruptly that he has to pay disgorgement fees of $455 million including interest. He was found liable for committing sexual assault. His university was shut down. His charity was shut down and he is not allowed to ever run a charity in New York state again. He was found guilty of 34 felonies. He still faces three more Indictments with 54 felonies charged. He attempted a coup by various methods including inciting an armed insurrection. He ended Roe. He had incredibly high turnover in his administration. There are more members of his administration or close allies who were found guilty of crimes than in any other modern administration: George Popadopolous, Rick Gates, Paul Manafort, Allen Weisselberg, Steve Bannon, Michael Flynn, Michael Cohen, among others and others have been indicted. Many members of the administration are not endorsing him, far more than usual. His own previous vice president is not endorsing him. He is an unrepentant blatant bigot. Any of these things would have doomed any previous presidential campaign. Donald Trump didn't solve any of these problems.
And that's why the debate did not fundamentally change the race. The polls are likely to look significantly worse because fewer Democrats will pick up pollsters calls and the bed-wetting will continue and the media will do everything they can to hurt President Biden. However, eventually we will return to this same problem that Donald Trump cannot escape. President Biden doesn't need to do great in a debate. He does need to be very visible. If he is visible enough so that enough Americans see that he is mentally healthy, then that's enough.