3mo ago

Republicans dismayed by Trump’s ‘bad’ and ‘unprepared’ debate performance

www.theguardian.com Republicans dismayed by Trump’s ‘bad’ and ‘unprepared’ debate performance

GOP lawmakers and analysts virtually unanimous that Trump was second best to Harris in first presidential debate

GOP lawmakers and analysts virtually unanimous that Trump was second best to Harris in first presidential debate

Donald Trump’s campaign was in damage control mode on Wednesday amid widespread dismay among supporters over a presidential debate performance that saw Kamala Harris, his Democratic opponent, repeatedly goad him into going wildly off-message and missing apparent opportunities to tackle her on policy.

Even with Trump insisting to have won the debate “by a lot”, Republicans were virtually unanimous that Trump had come off second best in a series of exchanges that saw the vice-president deliberately bait him on his weak points while he responded with visible anger.

The Republican nominee – who took the unusual step afterwards of visiting the media spin room, a venue normally frequented only by candidates’ surrogates – was non-committal on Wednesday to the Harris campaign’s proposal for a second debate. Despite widespread opinion to the contrary, Trump suggested she needed it because she had lost. “I’d be less inclined to because we had a great night. We won the debate,” he told Fox & Friends.

politics @lemmy.world

Republicans dismayed by Trump’s ‘bad’ and ‘unprepared’ debate performance

www.theguardian.com /us-news/2024/sep/11/trump-harris-debate-republican-reaction

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166 comments

Also, I forgot to ask about this last night...
“Where is he?” Trump asked. “They threw him out of the campaign like a dog.”
Does Trump think you just kick dogs out of your home and they go away?
- Does Trump think you just kick dogs out of your home and they go away?
  If you live near immigrants, yes.
  
  Hide yo dogs, hide yo cats. They eatin erybody around here.
- That’s one of his go-to turns of phrase, and like all his go-tos he grinds it into dust through overuse. Apparently, he is not a dog person.
  
  Probably would be if it was slathered in ketchup
  
  It’s also why he wasn’t allowed around the family pets as a kid.
- Where is he?
  Dunno, prolly running the country or smth. 🤷‍♂️
  
  At the same debate, Trump also claimed that he was thrown out of office, that he doesn't know whether or not he's alive and that Kamala Harris IS Joe Biden.
  So I don't think he actually knows that.
- Trump hates dogs.
  
  Because dogs hate Trump. They can smell the gross.
  
  Yes, but more to the point, he doesn't understand them or what people do to them. You can hate dogs to the point that you kick every dog you see, but you'll still likely understand that if you throw a dog out of the house, the dog won't usually leave and never come back.
- He just genuinely can not conceive of someone withdrawing voluntarily.

New headline: Republicans dismayed Trump literally did exactly what everyone knew Trump was going to do
- ... And They Will Still Vote For Him
  
  GOP lawmakers not the voter base.
- Right? I think the expectation of everyone else was what we got on display.

What kind of lame equivocation is "second best?" If he's "second best" in a debate with two people, then that means HE LOST.
Are these GOP lawmakers and analysts so spineless and beholden to Trump that they cannot discuss this as just one more - in a long list - of his failures?
- It wasn't that long ago when Republicans complained about participation trophies and how, at sporting events in schools, the ones who did not win still were acknowledged for their effort. They were complaining that it would make children weak, not want to compete, not give their best effort if they got recognition without being the top dog.
  Now they demand their participation trophy and it better come with tendies!
- Are these GOP lawmakers and analysts so spineless and beholden to Trump that they cannot discuss this as just one more - in a long list - of his failures?
  Yes :)
- They probably don't want their inboxes filled with bomb and rape threats from the very domestic terrorists they radicalized.
- I have hope that they will not learn from these mistakes and will therefore keep making them. I hope that hope is not misguided.
  
  I hope the crazies crash and burn and a reasonable, rationale alternative is made available to voters. Then Democrats will actually have to try instead of relying on "if you don't vote for us the Dictator wins."
- It's worse than that. They think that toeing the line and refusing to deviate is the strong position to take here. Always has been.

Kamala's campaign: we're going to bait him at the debate.
Trump's staff: she's going to try to bait you.
Everyone: Kamala is going to bait Trump.
Trump: LOOK! BAIT! NOM
They specifically tried to prepare him for this, they knew it was coming, and this was the result. How can he possibly be prepared to meet with world leaders?

R/conservative is in shambles right now, it’s kinda funny to watch
- It really is a cesspool, they're tripling down now stating immigrants are eating pets, kidnapping kids in pedophile rings and then cannibalizing their victims. Total nutcase stuff.
  
  I saw Sarah Good with the Devil! I saw Goody Osburn with the Devil! I saw Bridget Bishop with the Devil! You can't fact check me! I WATCHED IT ON TV!
  
  Their dear leader was literally named as someone that participated in a billionaire pedo ring!
  
  Is it wrong to poke the hornets nest? Probably. Is it funny, absolutely.
- It's just the_donald now.
  The whole party got taken over by crazies, and all the normal people are realising and getting out.
  Guess it's hard to argue about child starvation being a matter of personal responsibility when the person next to you is wearing a KKK hood with a swastika on it.
  
  I still pine the hornets nest, both becuse it's funny to see them get more and more angry, and on the very far off chance that it convices those of them left
  
  and all the normal people are realising and getting out.
  No. Unfortunately not. They are just shutting up about it because they're embarrassed.
  Though that was one of the first steps the country took to move past GWB (though unfortunately they moved to the right)... People becoming embarrassed to admit they voted for and/or supported him.
  I can speak from personal experience as the first presidential election I voted in was 2004 and at that time I had just begun my deconversion process from Evangelical Christianity, and I voted for Bush.
  I still cringe when I think about it. And it was within 4 years that I had become a progressive atheist. So maybe we're not entirely screwed (though these people don't seem to have the ability to think rationally that came to me naturally).
- What did they expect, he’s so old… why do they make him keep running?
  
  It's my turn to say it now:
  Doesn't he look tired?

OK so Biden had a bad debate, was visibly incoherent for a while beforeheand, and they took him out of the race.
Now Trump has had a bad debate and has been visibly incoherent for years. Is the GOP going to take him out of the race for a stronger candidate?
I don't want to make a false equivalency, these are different parties and different candidates; Trump supporters are more loyal than usual, and he would take them with him as he's not likely to accept his exclusion, so the GOP taking Trump out of the race is riskier than Dems taking Biden out of the race.
But, seen from the left, conservatives are the ones with a reputation for ruthless pragmatism when it comes to electoral politics. They're the ones who sacrifice their values by voting for candidates that do advance their goals.
A lot of leftists, out of idealism, wouldn't vote for Clinton in 2016 or Biden in 2020; meanwhile evangelicals made the pragmatic decision to vote for Trump, the least christian man in the whole GOP, because he furthers their anti-abortion agenda. I argue that conservatives are absolutely correct in this, voting for a candidate that you don't like just to advance your goals is the correct approach to representative democracy. My evidence for this is that evangelical voters were rewarded for their vote when of Roe v Wade was overruled thanks to judges from the Trump administration.
So i think, if the GOP replaces Trump but keeps an equally extremist agenda, there's a world where electoral pragmatism causes those voters to transfer over, leading to better odds of a GOP victory. And a conservative presidency other than Trump would push their agenda more efficiently than the first Trump presidency did or than a second Trump presidency would.
Uh... So DON'T do that. That should not happen. It would be the right thing for the GOP to do, which means it's the wrong thing and i hope it doesn't happen.
- The thing that allowed the Democrats to switch candidates was that the Democratic National Convention had not happened yet, which is when the candidate is officially locked in as the party's candidate on ballots for president.
  The Republican National Convention was mid July. Trump and Vance are locked in. To swap candidates now would be considerably more difficult for them (not to mention having to fight against a self centered toddler that will refuse to let anyone other than him run).
  Swapping out candidates would be good for the Republicans. The process of swapping out candidates would not be.
  
  I'm wondering if Biden withdrew after the rnc so he would be locked in. Not withstanding the pressure he faced.
  
  Oh right, it's obviously too late to swap. Small detail i forgot lol
- meanwhile evangelicals made the pragmatic decision to vote for Trump, the least christian man in the whole GOP, because he furthers their anti-abortion agenda. I
  Conservatives get abortions as soon as their own daughters get pregnant. They’re consummate hypocrites. Voting republican has always been about keeping workers deprived of rights and wage increases. No conservative gives a shit about the culture war stuff. The culture war is and has always been a distraction from creating welfare states like in EU.
  
  The culture war is an important piece of the conservative agenda- it isolates and eliminates the various groups that will group together to support non-conservatives.
- They cannot swap him out because he will not cooperate. Attempting to swap him out would do nothing but split the vote for them.
  Repubs have spent decades propagandizing their fear-addicted voters with racist delusions. Donald has taken over that mechanism.
  The sane but sociopathic Repub leadership is experiencing the classic trope of a monster they thought was tame (the racist voters they have been agitating) turning on them (a dementia patient they have no control over blathering about eating cats during the debate).
- He really can't drop out. He could be replaced but the legal maze of local and state deadlines and printed paper ballots that would have to be destroyed would abridge on early voting rights.
  Rfk is having that problem right now in a few states. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/09/north-carolina-robert-kennedy-early-voting-trump-sabotage.html

Unprepared my ass. I watched the whole debate. He prepared his lies and bullshit.

I'm surprised nobody is going after him for how low energy he was at the debate. He looked like he was gonna fall asleep. The only time his eyes opened wide was when she called out his crowd sizes
- I'm surprised nobody is going after him for how low energy he was at the debate.
  That was the least of his failings.
  The blatant lying about pretty much everything is (and has always been) a much more serious problem with him.
  
  Not amongst the crowd that supports him, as they're are all about how they feel about him, not about intellectually judging the quality of his arguments.
  The "He was a weak drained old man in that debate" path of attack should be far more effective on that crowd, specifically on the ones who look up to him as being (in their view) strong, assertive and confident, who are probably the majority.
  Like every other strongman "leader" out there, Donald's strength in impressing a certain kind of voter - the ability to project an image of being decisive and assured for the more "instinctive judgments" and less intellectual crowd - becomes a weakness with age in situations when they're publicly confronted with a younger and sharper opposing candidate.
  
  I think people are talking about that because it's one of the criticisms against Biden in the first debate. Now Trump is the old, tired, crazy man who shouldn't be in this race, never mind running the country.

He can't ever be prepared. He is stupid, narcissistic, impulsive and damn senile. Not the best combo.

"IS SHE TALKING ABOUT ME?!!!"
- Your stage whisper is perfect.

Republicans: "What a bad and unprepared debate that was! He didn't even get to the part about how life begins at conception and guns are more important than children!"

Hey now, let's be fair!
It's entirely possible he rigorously prepared and that was genuinely the best he could do.
- He did say that he watched the news. If he didn’t prepared, how else would he have known about people eating cats? Checkmate liberals.
  
  Didn't he say "television" and not specifically "news"? For all we know, he most likely saw that on some cartoon show.

Well it seems that Trump was a Biden 2.0 in this debate
- Nah. Biden was old and tired. Trump is a bumbling insane person who was easily led by the nose. A strong woman of color made trump look incredibly weak to a base made up of racist whites. Trump was obviously the worst performance.
- I mean the only reason he appeared ok first debate is Biden was so bad, he was never challenged, and able to run through he pre memorized shticks...

That's ok crazy orange grandfather, keep us informed about the people eating cats and dogs, and transgender operations on illegal aliens that are in prison.

Well, well, well, if it isn't the consequences of your own actions.

Business interests, evangelicals, and cops/white supremacists.
Oh yeah, and that 50+ year campaign of gerrymandering, voter suppression (e.g. vote on tuesday, in person, during business hours, no time off work), abstracting the election process away from the ballot, and designing the court system to favor conservative calls in disputed elections.
America has a rather anti-democratic voting system...

what is the term for "i will celebrate your death over your life", Thatcherism?

Wait until their secrets are threatened to be exposed and then see how they all change their tune in the next couple days.
- Who's secret? What did I miss?

I've heard a lot of removed from a conservative I know that "the debate was unfair because they didn't fact check Harris and thus it was a sham"
The thing that they were mad Harris wasn't checked for? Her comments on Trump's "it will be a bloodbath" comment during one of his rallies. Then they whined about Harris not being clear about her policies despite Trump not answering a single question.
If that's the best arguments they can come up with to defend Trump's dumpster fire of a debate performance, then they're really not having a good time.

First, im no trumpster, i dont like the guy. The MM is really pulling out all the stops on spinning this one. Trump did just fine, Republicans think he did just fine, and some even consider it a win. It's crazy how strong the MM is pushing it a major Harris win and that Trump did very badly, and that even Republicans think he lost, the headline "Republicans dismayed" is just bullshit, I know a lot of Republicans, and none have claimed to be "dismayed". That's the spin. I know everyone here thinks it was a big Harris win and no one denies it, so I'm just here to tell inform yall that those of us who live in reality don't consider it a big win for Harris or that Trump did badly. All the big news stations are helping to push that narrative of a MAJOR Harris win. As always, MSNBC, USAtoday, CNN, NBC, NYtimes, Washington Post etc. I know most of yall trust these news outlets and don't think they have bias, but they most certainly do.
Kamala pissed me off with all the stupid faces she was making, she also just sounded like a whinny B---- several times. My personal opinion is that it was more like a tie than anything, Harris had no content to what she said. But Trump did let her get under his skin. They both lied... and quite a bit.
Anyway, I know where I am, I know the responses I'm going to get in this liberal echo chamber. So come on.
- Interesting that Kamalas facial reactions bothered you that much, but apparently Trump's clown faces didn't even rate a mention. It's almost like your not nearly as impartial as your pretending.
  Trump looked and sounded like a sloppy bafoon.
  Concepts of a plan? Eating pets?
  Your huffing weapons grade copium my dude.
  
  Lol. Sounds like you've already ingested too much propaganda. You're parroting it perfectly. You've mixed stupid personal opinion with the main stream medias rhetoric.
  Concepts of a plan? Eating pets?
  Go look up the definition of "concept." Having a concept of a plan like nearly like saying, "I have a plan of a plan." Which would be redundant. Saying, "I have a concept of a plan," is like basically saying, "I have a plan." There is nothing weird or wrong about the phrase, "i have a concept of a plan." This is English anyway, always flexible. You parroting those talking points indicates to me you are probably incapable of an independent discerning perspective.
- Aw sweet. New copypasta just dropped.
  
  Lol. Why do you think that?
- Trump did just fine
  I'm curious at the metric that would put that "let's get you back to bed, Nana" performance as 'just fine'.
- First, im no trumpster
  Perhaps, but you are clearly thinking and writing like one.
  those of us who live in reality
  I'm not so sure you do. Trump said some of THE most inane things he's ever said, yet you are effectively equating that to what Harris had said, which had more substance in a few words than Trump had in the whole debate.
  she also just sounded like a whinny B----
  Right out of the Fox News talking-point playbook. And the proper spelling would be "whiny". Unless you're comparing her sound to a horse's neigh.
  in this liberal echo chamber
  Right out of the Fox News talking-point playbook.
  I wish you luck in your endeavors. This "both sides"-ing doesn't really work when they are most definitely not the same.
  
  It simple they're either stupid or lying
  
  I can play this game...
  Perhaps, but you are clearly thinking and writing like one.
  That's an opinion. You sound politically color blind. If praise isn't being solely given to the candidate you support, sutely, he must be for the opposition.
  "those of us who live in reality"
  I'm not so sure you do. Trump said some of THE most inane things he's ever said, yet you are effectively equating that to what Harris had said, which had more substance in a few words than Trump had in the whole debate.
  Way to take that quote out of context and then argue something else. This is the whole sentence:
  I know everyone here thinks it was a big Harris win and no one denies it, so I'm just here to tell inform yall that "those of us who live in reality" don't consider it a big win for Harris or that Trump did badly.
  I wasnt talking about the substance here. It was commentary about how it is being claimed that it was a "big loss for Trump" and/or a "major win for harris," which it was neither. People who actually interact with other people "in the real world" have a better understanding of how people actually perceived the debate.
  Right out of the Fox News talking-point playbook. And the proper spelling would be "whiny". Unless you're comparing her sound to a horse's neigh.
  Is it? I don't ever watch Fox, so I wouldn't know. Assuming and generalizing, not a good strategy.
  Right out of the Fox News talking-point playbook.
  Lol. Again, even. And even if it is, it's not wrong. This place is a liberal echo chamber. The sooner you're able to understand/accept this, the better off you will be overall.
- Congratulations on both inhaling and exhaling successfully despite your condition.
  
  Ah, the first purely ad hominem. I love it. It confirms that many here have nothing intelligent/important to add.
- You post a lot of defense for Trump for someone that doesn't like Trump. You also post a lot of attacks against Harris and Walz.
  Trump is at best a misinformed bumbling dumbfuck who thinks immigrants eat pets and children get surgeries in school, whereas Harris' lies are at worst the typical politician lies about supporting things she doesn't really support.
  It is insane if you think these are on the same level.
  Anyway, vote Harris because Trump will try to January 6th us again.
- Trump did just fine
  "Immigrants are eating people's pets!"
  "Post birth abortions are happening!"
  "Children are coming home from school having surgery done to them!"
  Saying any 1 of these should be rated as abysmal. Saying all 3 and being considered "just fine" shows what a dumpster fire the Republican party is.
  
  Ok. Thanks for your opinion.
- You are adorable, Colin Robinson.
- Okay, let's be generous and give you the benefit of the doubt. What would you consider to be an unbiased, credible source of factual information? Be specific. You're the one putting out the blame, before you say anything along the lines of "it's not my job to educate you" or "do your own research". You're the one making the claim of bias.
  
  What would you consider to be an unbiased, credible source of factual information?
  Oh geez... I don't think they make those anymore... the best we can do is try to recognize the bias when we see it.
  I did find a cool app recently, though. It's called "ground news". It attempts to show bias of news articles. Being left, right, or center. It is very useful, I would recommend it.
- I hate trump but I agree. This wasn’t a landslide victory for Harris. She won in my opinion but only by a thin margin.
  
  Trump claimed immigrants were eating people's pets. And doubled down when called on it. How low is your bar?
  
  Thanks, crazy you're still getting downvoted. I guess you weren't extreme enough.

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