20
votes
Donald Trump - Joe Biden US Presidential debates to take place on June 27th and September 10th
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- Title
- What we know, and don't know, about the presidential debates
- Published
- May 15 2024
- Word count
- 1474 words
Somewhat genuine question: Why? Why bother having these? What could we possibly learn about either candidate that we don't know yet?
People who haven't been paying attention to politics and need to be reminded who these guys are.
It also lets people see how both men have aged since 2020, which is apparently a concern.
Joe Biden will be 83 upon swearing in in January 2025.
Trump will be 77 upon hopefully being thrown in a jail cell for treason.
Using death-clock, putting in neutral outlook, no drinking, Biden has 2 years left and Trump has 4. And that's not taking into account how medical ailments affect ability to do the job.
Frankly, I think it's worthwhile to consider restricting people from running for office as a non-incumbent if they're over the age of 65, with something akin to cognitive and health testing. And just outright mandatory retirement for anybody over the age of 75, even outside of politics.
Ok, but the President of the United States doesn't get a neutral outlook, right? Even in the case that something went wrong, they'll have the best possible medical care. Taking a statistical average and trying to apply it to an individual only goes so far when you know the individual is an outlier on the metrics that were used to generate the data.
One could argue it balances out to neutral, if even that positive. Presidents show signs of age very quickly during and after their term(s). It's a job that requires you to be involved in a ton of different things 24/7, and is clearly very stressful.
How they handle pushback from debate interviewers and the other candidates.
One of the reasons Trump dodges debates. He can't handle scrutiny. Also, he doesn't have answers and he knows it.
The entire party removed their platform years ago. It's not like anyone in the GOP has any answers other than "the opposite of whatever democrats want."
That's not to say that they don't have positions on things. It's just that most of their positions are not in line with your average American's needs, so they hid behind culture war bullshit and economic falsehoods that sound good but are actually actively harmful to most voters.
Yeah, Trump’s recent Time magazine interview is going to be a preview of his debate performance. He has his talking points memorized, but he crumbles under any pushback and gives rambling non-answers that constantly move the goal posts.
That has always been the way he has responded.
Biden has to debate since he's the incumbent, debates are tradition, and if he dips out, press will raise hell. Trump has to debate because he can't blow off a debate with the incumbent, and he thinks he can pants Biden on stage. Both of them don't want to share a stage with RFK Jr, so it's in both of their interests for them to cooperate here rather than let it fall to the CoPD who may give RFK the time of day.
If I were Biden, I'd needle Trump right off the bat with something akin to "Oh, this is the best the Republicans could do, prop up the loser I already beat instead of sending someone new?" Trump is one hell of a narcissist, and that kind of belittling right off the bat would likely derail any semblance of coherent thoughts he may have been able to express before.
This is probably why I wouldn't be a great politician though.
Undecided voters don’t like that kind of sass from Democrats. Biden’s whole deal is that he’s a nice guy who has been through shit but keeps on trucking. If he starts being a meanie then who does he attract? People who like assholes are already in the tank for Donald Trump.
Biden told Trump to shut up and called him a clown in their previous debate and it was the highlight of the night.
I'd like to point towards tradition, but this time around I honestly can't see it as anything other than an extremely public dick measuring contest.
It’s a good tradition of democracy. They’re not necessarily for you, most people don’t pay attention to politics at all until it becomes an event. And as astounding as it sounds to more highly informed people, there are undecided voters out there. Refusing to debate is an easy way to give a win to your opponent. So even if a debate will probably hurt you, it will probably be less than the price you pay in being the one refusing to debate.
For Trump: gives him a chance to stroke his ego, but he also avoids looking like a coward who refuses to debate (doesn’t matter to the GOP, does matter to undecideds who are tuning back in after 3.5 years).
For Biden: gives him a chance to highlight his mental fitness/dispel “sleepy Joe”, and to goad/lure Trump into another “Stand back and stand by” moment vis-a-vis the far right.
Notable details:
Without the CoPD in the way, I’ll actually watch the debates if they let RFK, Jill Stein, and whatever nutjob the Libertarians run this year on stage. Can you imagine how great it would be to watch the Libertarian guy derail the Donald into a discussion on whether or not drivers licenses are fascism (the original question was about monetary policy)?
But without the CoPD, it's just an agreement between the two parties to have a one on one debate and they aren't obligated to have third parties at their event.