A post-debate reaction…
…from someone who didn’t watch the debate.
That’s me. Debates make me too nervous, although sometimes I do watch, although not last night.
However, here’s my takeway, from reading about it and seeing a few clips:
–Trump’s a quick learner. He improved his performance significantly compared to the first debate.
–The moderator was better than the others, which isn’t saying all that much but at least it’s something.
–Biden did not deny the truth and authenticity of Hunter’s emails.
–It’s telling that the moderators scrapped the idea of talking about foreign policy. That because foreign policy has been Trump’s strong suit – contrary to my fears about Trump during the 2016 campaign. And in fact, today we have the news that Sudan has come onboard the Abraham Accords. It’s a large accomplishment of Trump’s that, in the highly unlikely event that Obama had engineered it, would have elicited near-worshipful praise from the MSM and Democrats.
–Biden is a shameless liar, in part because he doesn’t think that the MSM will ever call him on it. Another reason at this point might be that he actually doesn’t remember what he said previously about a given issue. But he’s always been a liar, even back when he was young.
–Biden does most poorly when he talks for anything more than a few seconds. He seems tired, old, and foggy, and the weird smile/grimace that’s often on his face doesn’t help. How anyone can even think of voting for a corrupt, mendacious, cognitively challenged, low energy old man who was mediocre even in his prime is something I can only explain by saying that Biden voters are motivated by two things: hatred of Trump, and loyalty to the Democrats/left.
They’re probably also motivated by their assessment, which they will only admit in hushed tones to fellow partisans, that Biden will be President Potemkin.
I find it difficult to believe that anyone believes Biden will be wearing the pants in the relationship between the left and the American people. His insistence on his own independence from said left – “I beat them” – while proudly adopting the leftiest of them all as his running mate rings hollower than his proverbial foghorn.
Every Biden voter I know is only motivated by the goal of getting Trump out. That’s it. Harris and Biden’s qualifications, what they will do etc. NEVER enters into their thoughts. They want Trump GONE! In some very strange way that I can’t fathom, Trump represents an existential threat to their psyche.
C’mon man!!!
What Biden was saying all night was a bunch of malarkey
Physics guy is correct Biden voters are just anti Trump or habitual democrats just because….oh never mind.
“In some very strange way that I can’t fathom, Trump represents an existential threat to their psyche.”
It’s the elite adjacent thing. Those people may not actually be elites themselves. They may not be rich, important, or on TV all the time. But they really, really, REALLY like to imagine they’re the same as those elites. Then Trump comes along and demonstrates that all the political and social mores the elite adjacent value are just fluff and nonsense.
Mike
I keep thinking that the Legacy media will get tired of Biden hanging them out to dry. Alas.
I didn’t watch much. I have read a lot of reactions. My take is that it probably does not matter. It is hard to believe that many are uncommitted at this point.
The Left would vote Democrat if the candidate’s name was Stalin. The Republicans are divided between those who are more or less rational, and the Never Trumpers.
Many in the middle cannot stand Trump; and as one Dear family member told her Mother; I can’t believe that you are voting for that awful person. My response would be, “well don’t; vote Libertarian, Green, or whatever signals your virtue. Just don’t vote for Biden.”
Brit Hume summed up most of our fears last night before the debate. FNC has several pro-Trump hosts and panel members. Unfortunately, even though it is a big voice in the world of cable news; it is a very small voice compared to a combination of the legacy media and Social media. I do miss Brit.
Biden is campaigning in Delaware today. I wonder. Does that mean that he doesn’t have the energy to go on the road? Or does it mean that he is so confident that he thinks he can coast in from here? (Hey Joe. That’s what Hillary thought.)
Trump is going to Florida. I hope that does not mean that he is really worried about Florida; a state with a popular Republican Governor, and a huge Cuban immigrant population.
It’s the elite adjacent thing. Those people may not actually be elites themselves. They may not be rich, important, or on TV all the time. But they really, really, REALLY like to imagine they’re the same as those elites. –MBunge
Conservatives might consider their own dismissive arrogance towards liberals.
Sure, there are liberals in it for the status, caught in the bubble, immature, ill-informed, not very smart, lazy, looking for handouts, etc.
But to write them all off in such a way is to miss the beating heart which drives the people on the left who do the work, make the strategy, show up politically and, in case you have missed it, are steadily pushing conservatives towards the cliff and close to over it.
The left has passion for the righteousness of their cause. In their minds and hearts they are marching with the labor unions in the 30s, marching with the civil rights movement in the 60s, standing for women’s rights and gay rights in the 70s/80s, marching against nuclear war from the 50s on, standing against (most) horrific dictatorships in Latin America. And so forth.
When you are a leftist with other leftists, you feel at home. You feel like you are making a difference in the world. You are part of a larger wave of transformation that is saving the planet. And you are willing to work for that.
Yes, I know that’s not how conservatives see the left and in a lot of ways I agree leftists are fooling themselves.
But conservatives are fooling themselves in imagining leftists are as shallow, selfish and stupid as conservatives seem to believe.
Conservatives are not only mistaken, they are paying a price for it.
I don’t know if conservatives can get that passionate positive aspect of the left. Here’s Judy Collins singing a civil rights anthem in 1963. Try to hear it from the left.
_________________________________________________
Hey, Nelly, Nelly, come to the window
Hey, Nelly, Nelly, look at what I see
He’s ridin’ into town on a sway-back mule
Got a tall, black hat and he looks like a fool
He sure is talkin’ like he’s been to school
And it’s 1853
Hey, Nelly, Nelly, listen what he’s sayin’
Hey, Nelly, Nelly, says it’s gettin’ late
And he says them black folk should all be free
To walk around the same as you and me
He’s talkin’ about a thing he calls democracy
And it’s 1858
Hey, Nelly, Nelly, hear the band a-playin’
Hey, Nelly, Nelly, hand me down my gun
‘Cause the men are cheerin’ and the boys are too
They’re all puttin’ on their coats of blue
I can’t sit around here and talk to you
‘Cause it’s 1861
Hey, Nelly, Nelly, come to the window
Hey, Nelly, Nelly, I’ve come home alive
My coat of blue is stained with red
And the man in the tall, black hat is dead
We sure will remember all the things he said
In 1865
Hey, Nelly, Nelly, come to the window
Hey, Nelly, Nelly, look at what I see
I see white folks and colored walkin’ side by side
They’re walkin’ in a column that’s a century wide
It’s still a long and a hard and a bloody ride
In 1963
–Judy Collins, “Hey Nelly Nelly” (written by Shel Silverstein & James Friedman)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3ujW5ev7Rk
huxley:
I think that Neo has a better grasp on the motivations and drives of other people. She after all was once a Democrat, but not a leftist. Something about it being difficult to truly understand another person; the recognition of one’s own limitations? Humility maybe.
“Elite adjacent?” Whatever.
In my younger years I was a naïve fool to think we had an unbiased press that would at the attempt fairness in their coverage until the Crowely stunt with Obama. I really didn’t care for Romney but when that happened I voted for Romney out of spite. I used to post on an Oman forum and would defend our media. Now feel the need to apologize to them all and say … you were right! US MSM is no more than Pravda or worse. They will do anything to protect their candidate from omission of stories to flat out lies.
On another note I have blog website and beat up on the Dems and media mostly. I used to get a little traffic and a few comments but for the last year the Spam bots can’t even find me!
huxley:
I’m not sure why you say conservatives can’t understand that.
Lincoln was a Republican, not a Democrat. And the vision expressed in that song – “I see white folks and colored walkin’ side by side” – is the MLK vision now present almost solely on the Republican and conservative side, because the Democrats have rejected it for BLM, “anti-racism,” and Critical Race Theory.
This is not 1963 Huxley, even though many on the Left would have us believe that it is. A lot has happened in 57 years that they seem to have missed if they are sincere; or ignore if they are not.
If the Left wants to be taken seriously, they should act serious. I do not mean to say that they are not serious in their intent. Rather, in their perspective.
As for Liberals, they have lost control of their chosen party. They are wandering in the wilderness. Biden is their hope? He is a Trojan Horse of sorts, or a walking “Potemkin Village” with dark forces hiding behind the facade. I doubt that he knows it.
Off topic. I read a summary of an interview that Biden did in 1974; I can’t remember where I saw it. I believe that it captured a significant difference between the candidates. Biden is running because he has desperately wanted to be President for a very long time. I believe that Trump is running because he wants to do things.
“Trump’s a quick learner. He improved his performance significantly compared to the first debate.” [Neo]
An alternate observation, especially in light of those who believe that Trump can’t control himself, is that Trump CAN control himself when he wants to and that his performance in the first debate was intentional. If so, one might argue that it was a poor choice, but that’s another discusiion entirely.
Oldflyer:
That creepy Biden interview from 1974 can be found here.
Also, in April of 2020, before I’d ever seen that article, I wrote this post about Joe’s narcissistic, early, ardent desire to be president.
huxley
I don’t know if conservatives can get that passionate positive aspect of the left. Here’s Judy Collins singing a civil rights anthem in 1963. Try to hear it from the left.
Bit naive there, Huxley. A lot of us here are former libs. I know the song quite well. Back in the day I knew by heart the lyrics on Judy Collins’s In Concert and #3 (‘dem BLUE eyes!) albums. From memory: (Here’s to you, my ramblin’ boy, may all your rambles bring you joy… late one night in a jungle camp, the weather it was cold and damp, he got the chills and he got ’em bad, I lost the only friend I had.)
But I wasn’t a conservative back then. I grew up in bluest lib-land, in New England. Regarding the “passionate positive aspect of the left,” by the time I was out of high school, I had begun to turn cynical about that.
As one of my classmates from elementary school on was black, I knew that the South had no monopoly on racism. From various social conflicts I observed and experienced in school, I realized that all of us have in-groups and out-groups. In addition, race is but one of the ways that people define in-groups and out-groups. Even those who consider themselves 100% “tolerant” and “inclusive” when it comes to race relations have in-groups and out-groups. Such as deplorables.
Speaking of songs, this song illustrates rather well my attitude towards the “passionate positive left.” The Folk Song Army by Tom Lehrer.
When I first heard the song, I didn’t like it, as it was obvious that I was among those whom Tom Lehrer was mocking. Over the years, the song made more and more sense to me.
Say no more.
huxley
But conservatives are fooling themselves in imagining leftists are as shallow, selfish and stupid as conservatives seem to believe.
What scares me about leftists is their lack of self-awareness. For example, many leftists view bigotry/racism/intolerance/in-versus-out-group as something that is separated by groups. From the lefty point of view, deplorable conservatives possess bigotry/racism/intolerance/in-versus-out-group in abundance, while they on the left are pure as the driven snow. By contrast, I view bigotry/racism/intolerance/in-versus-out-group as something that we all have within us. While lefties believe that bigotry/racism/intolerance/in-versus-out-group can be eliminated, I believe that we can reduce or mange it, but bigotry/racism/intolerance/in-versus-out-group will always be within us. ALL of us.
Another example of lack of self-awareness is that of virtue signalling- adjusting one’s views to align with a group. This is a big part of leftism these days. The first example I saw of this came from a Merit Finalist in my high school years, so he was no dummy. That also points out that intelligence is no impediment to falling for virtue signalling or group-think.
“But conservatives are fooling themselves in imagining leftists are as shallow, selfish and stupid as conservatives seem to believe.“
The problem, huxley, is that your own description IS of shallow, selfish, and stupid people. They want to FEEL like they’re marching with 60s civil rights protesters…but they’re not. Or am I the only one who noticed how the #metoo movement was flushed down the toilet the moment it became inconvenient for the Democratic Party?
If these people really want to be part of a transformational wave, why didn’t they vote for Andrew Yang? Or Tulsi Gabbard? Why did they allow themselves to be stampeded into voting for cognitively declining Joe Biden over Bernie Sanders, the guy who actually represented all the things you are claiming these Leftists care about?
Are there some real Lefties out there that fit your description? Sure. But those are people like Glenn Greenwald, Matt Taibbi, and Krystal Ball who, you may notice, are NOT entirely consumed with hating Trump as the only thing that matters in the world.
When I talk about the elite adjacent, I mean exactly the sort of person Neo has mentioned previously. The kind who when an actual friend, a human being they know and have a relationship with, tells them something contrary to liberal orthodoxy, they storm off in a huff. But if they see the exact same information in the New York Times, they meekly accept it. Those are not people who want to make the world better. Those are people who want to think of themselves as people who want to make the world better.
Mike
Mr Bunge:
Have you considered that you actually may know very little about Neo’s friend?
Humility and hubris. Look them up.
Save the juvenile insults if you choose to reply.
neo,
You understate the case, had Obama engineered what Trump has in the M.E. it would NOT have elicited near-worshipful praise from the MSM and Democrats.
No, it would have elevated Obama to nothing less than godhood or at least to demigod status.
huxley,
Re: “The left has passion for the righteousness of their cause. In their minds and hearts they are marching with the labor unions in the 30s, marching with the civil rights movement in the 60s, standing for women’s rights and gay rights in the 70s/80s, marching against nuclear war from the 50s on, standing against (most) horrific dictatorships in Latin America. And so forth.”
“I believe that human beings are desperate, always, to belong to something larger than themselves.” David Whyte
“If we ever forget that we are One Nation Under God, then we will be a nation gone under.” Ronald Reagan
“Humility and hubris. Look them up.”
Dude, I’m still not going to have sex with you. I’m just using neo’s friend and the behavior neo has described as an example. I could use someone else, but then I’d have to go to the trouble of explaining it when there’s already an example most of the folks reading her are familiar with.
The next time you feel the need to argumentatively chime in on something I post, just Toobin yourself. You’ll feel a lot better.
Mike
MBunge@ 7:35 p.m.
om@ 7:50 p.m.
MBunge@ 9:53
Here is Neo’s previous comment. October 22, 2020 at 9:31 pm Joe Biden: The Manchurian Candidate.
om; MBunge:
Let’s calm it down.
No need to say “Toobin yourself.” Poor Toobin; it’s not a good thing to have your name turned into a verb.
om did describe what I was describing about my friend’s reaction. The NY Times was trustworthy; not me.
She should only know how she’s been lied to by the Times.
Bunge:
A set of juvenile and twisted insults, again. I’ve worked construction and in the oil-patch boy. These are water off a duck.
You took an example from Neo of a liberal friend and shoehorned the anecdote into your model “adjacent elite” or “elite adjacent” because you have no examples from personal experience. Consider that there is more to the lady than your assumptions based on Neo’s thumbnail sketch? Oh, you have the grand theory.
The “White Fragility” grifter uses “white-adjacent” jargon. Is she your inspiration for “elite adjacent?”
om:
Did you see my comment right above yours? Please cease and desist from the personal insults, both you and MBunge.
Neo:
Saw it after I replied.
om:
Okay.
I drove through the residential part of downtown Denver today.
Saw a couple of campaign-produced Biden signs (there were 2 more, but on the same lawn so I didn’t count them).
Saw one handwritten sign: Stop the hate. DUMP TRUMP.
I wanted to graffiti it with the suggestion that the only way to stop hate was to stop hating other people because they have different political views from yourself.
The bubble effect is that they will never see the hate on their own side, or will justify it as necessary, because, how else can you get rid of hateful people?
But that is both unChristian** and ineffective: if you succeed in dumping Trump, it will be because you have also dumped (suppressed) all (or a lot) of his supporters*, and you might look like you have ended the hate, but all you will have done is remove the current objects of your hatred — more will appear, because there will always be people who don’t agree 100% with your point of view and agenda.
*Close to half of all voters in 2016; Hillary’s popular win was very slim percentage wise.
**Matthew 5:44 “But I say to you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which spitefully use you, and persecute you;..”
The sign also ignores the fact that the Republicans in general, and Mr. Trump in particular, have not actually expressed any hatred of the Democrats in general, or even Mr. Biden.
Disagreement, disgust, and disappointment abound, but very few expressions of hate from any mainstream or authoritative source, and also most individuals.
The hate only seems to flow one direction.
“The left has passion for the righteousness of their cause. In their minds and hearts they are marching with the labor unions in the 30s, marching with the civil rights movement in the 60s, standing for women’s rights and gay rights in the 70s/80s, marching against nuclear war from the 50s on, standing against (most) horrific dictatorships in Latin America. And so forth.” – huxley
I get where you are coming from, but it’s sad that now the marching is for causes so far removed from those of the past, and they refuse to see the unrighteousness of what they now support.
Someone said a few years ago that the problem with the leftists (as distinct from the Left’s leadership) is that our ancestors solved most of the problems they were marching for, and now the younger folks have no equivalent cause, so they fall as easy prey to demagogues and liars who will give them a feeling of that “belonging” that you identified, while using them as “useful idiots” to advance an agenda that will not be good for anyone in the long run.
They are not selfish, and many are not shallow, but all of them seem to be rather stupid.
Which doesn’t mean they are not dangerous, or that conservatives should be dismissive of their impact.
“The Left would vote Democrat if the candidate’s name was Stalin.” – Oldflyer.
https://babylonbee.com/news/new-york-times-stands-by-recent-editorial-board-hire-joseph-stalin-despite-criticism-of-mass-murder
But then –
https://babylonbee.com/news/joseph-stalin-warns-dems-may-be-going-too-far-left
Neo avers:
Actually, the facts are rather different, I think. First, if you watch Scott Adams debate commentary, from 10 to 25 minutes, he states that these two performances demonstrate how different and self-controlled he is: he can be reasoned, suggestive, and sarcastic, or he can be The Hulk!
Furthermore, which kind of international leader do you want? A follower, as Biden showed himself to be? Or the Courtier Gentleman to dictators on the world stage who can be cagey, forceful, and independent defenders of your nation when it comes to international treaties? Of course you want the Alpha leader, not the simp.
And Trunp has risen in polls of job approval with Latinosand black men accordingly, already!
Indeed, FoxNews carried Trump’s Sudan-Israel agreement live, where he negotiated some $350 million in US citizens claims in order to broker the deal — the Man has our back!
And on live TV, confirmed Adams independent claim: Trump said that a lot of people preferred his first debate performance, others like his second direct one with Biden, the night before. “I can do it either way….” he declared!
QED. This Man is awesome.
Trump is an outsider. IMO that explains his defeat of all the GOP stars in the 2016 Primary and his 2016 win. He has visualized, organized, implemented, and rendered operational numerous very complex projects and seen them turn a profit. He is a unique human being. He believes problems should be solved.
The Elites live to manage problems, not solve them. Government is supposed to provide them high paying jobs ruling over others. To resurrect a phrase from a long ago campaign, they have never made a payroll. Most have never had real jobs where they actually had to get things done and satisfy customers.
Martin Gurri has a short summary of his The Revolt of The Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhSaPi_zAyY&feature=emb_logo
The pathological human impulse that drove the Chinese Cultural Revolution is manifesting in the Woke of today. They are mostly White, college educated, heavily (often hopelessly) in debt from student loans, not making much money, unable to start families and buy their first houses, and looking for something that will allow them to feel like they are doing something with their lives.
Trump is an outsider. IMO that explains his defeat of all the GOP stars in the 2016 Primary and his 2016 win.
It should be noted that the candidates to whom the Capitol Hill – K Street nexus were partial – Kasich, Rubio, Jeb!, and Christie – won just 25% of the ballots cast. North of 70% went to Trump and Cruz and another 3% went to candidates who did not have bad blood with the GOP establishment but were eccentric in some way.
Rebecca West, in The New Meaning of Treason, speculated that all the noble fights had been won–old age pensions, nationalized coal business, so forth–and so they had to go further left to…in effect, have anything to do about which to feel noble. After all, the heroes of the Struggle were still heroes, right?
I think virtue signaling is part of the left’s appeal to the foot soldiers, but there’s this feeling I get that the folks are virtue signaling to themselves. Self-satisfaction, smug version.
What do they need that this is how they operate?
What is interesting is their response to facts; puts one in mind of brandishing a Crucifix in the face of Dracula. It’s a response to fear, seems like.
Oh, yeah. My sister in law, reading White Fragility with her church group, has proclaimed that if you vote for Trump, you’re not a Christian
Neo:
I have come to the realization that several of your commenters are right, if in superficially “contradictory” ways, about leftists and progressives.
It’s been tough to figure out because I apparently do lack any of that Circle Dance impulse whatsoever; and as a result I had to go the long way around and crank the hell out of the old adding machine.
In addition. a natural lack of – or its thinness and conditionality upon the Patria’s elevation and maintenance of liberty above all other values – even much patriotic feeling myself, makes what probably looks, or better “feels” like transparent motivations to others, seem pretty obscure to me as well. Which is not to say I am not sentimental for example, myself. I am. But apparently sentimentality regarding the old ranch and grandma’s fried chicken dinners on the one hand, and an emotional need to join the circle dance [or rope everyone else into it] on the other, are two distinct, if nonetheless emotionally rooted, phenomena.
But no matter how obtuse you naturally are … when these church ladies of the left really let it all hang out, and start yapping about effen “cruelty” of all damn things, then an unmistakable line connects some heretofore obscure points. And then you cannot help but realize that the constitutional project which we have known for years and which I see as an (at least in theory) inviolable legal bulwark against their trespasses, means little to nothing to them. Much less is it seen by them as I see it: as the predicate of our non-violent association. In which case they really really need to rethink their assumptions about the value of rules and principles: because it sure ain’t “love” or need that is keeping them cossetted and safe.
They seem then, as part of their blindness, to assume that their lives [in terms of reciprocal obligation or interpersonal significance do, or should] count for something outside of this formal enabling-framework of a constitutional agreement. [Now I know that Civic Republicans and Communitarians wail that this view of our project is analogous to a treaty, and not a community, but tough. It is what it is.]
“Tolerance is not enough” as “The Pestiferous One” himself stated. Constitutionalism, i.e. traditional “negative liberty” is also seen by his type, as “not enough”; and in the best case as they frame it, as an annoying limitation on their ability to luxuriate in an emotional and social world made “safe” for them. Made safe, through the agency of a boundless politics forcibly brought to bear on sacrificed others who do not in fact dream the kumbayish dreams they dream, nor feel the feelz they feel, but who have life paths of their own to chart.
How then, is one to live with people who just cannot back the hell off and get out of your business; but, who insist on turning all existence into a Facebook Tempest? What is one to do about people whose emotional nature makes them oblivious to all the real, as opposed to imaginary, structural props and efforts of others which really keep them alive?
So, sorry, ladies of both sexes. I really and truly don’t – if you insist on becoming as great enemies of liberty as are the jihadists – care if those selfsame jihadists then drag you by your hair through the streets.
Is this what modernity, and comfort, and systematized pity for the obnoxious inevitably brings us? : An oppressive life, in a hothouse society that inexorably slides into the termite heap, because of the unbridled narcissism, entitlement, and moral autism of neurotic, emotional, sensitives?
If this is so, then let “the bloody comet” hit so we can start over. They of that kind who survive it, can then drag themselves through empty fields and eat stones on the way.
It is just too bad that they have no idea of how alienating their emotionalism is. If they, when in pleading before one, noticed that one responded by looking upon them as dead, they would probably be quite surprised, possibly indignant even; though they have been treating the “deplorables” in this way for many many years. As I just said: “moral autism”, entitlement, and narcissism.
Not good, but appropriate.
Toobin
Lewinsky
Weiner
Clinton
They should start a club.They certainly all deserve whatever opprobrium attaches to them, forevermore.
Of course the depth of humiliation Toobin deserves to experience is greater than his structural indifference to being a self-consoling, behaviorally incontinent little appetite entity with no sense of honor or dignity, can allow.
He’s so defectively indifferent, in other words, that he’s “safe”.
In his deconstructed state of abandoned manhood [ jettisoned apparently as inconveniently restrictive baggage] honor and dignity are simply invisible to that residuum to which he has self-reduced.
You know, there is a reason – if it now seems obscure – that in old movies, the term “jerk” as an expression of utterly dismissive contempt for a morally inferior male with a defective character was [according to Bob Hope] prohibited by censors. People of that time remembered it was just the first half of a term that applied in less than polite company to the Toobin kind and his behavior, .