Presidential Debate 2020

[InVOLuntary]

No... like the Senate Intel Report.

That showed No Collusion.

 

[utvolpj]

I've never envisioned you in a trucker hat, dirty wife-beater undershirt, and listening to Aaron Tippen on your radio until now.

Well I'm from E TN and could absolutely pull it off if needed. I could also karaoke a few of his older songs

 

[Vol737]

This isn't Singapore. 400k is rich.

I'm barely still considered middle class and that is about 3 times my pay and I make more than 90% of people in TN. You are living in fantasyland.

Just depends on the region, though. $400K before taxes doesn’t get you very far in a lot of areas. Family of 3/4/5? Crazy property tax? State income tax? Been there, done that. Fuggetabout it!

 

[k-town_king]

The classes need to redefined.

You are out of touch if you think 400K is middle class. Must be nice.

The median earnings in TN was 30K in 2018. I make several time that and people think I'm doing pretty well. I make a fraction of 400k. That is not middle class in the US.

400k is not wealthy or mega rich. I do know several people making money like that and they are regular guys. They don't make a middle class income though.

Maybe if you are in SF or NY.

 

[k-town_king]

Just depends on the region, though. $400K before taxes doesn’t get you very far in a lot of areas. Family of 3/4/5? Crazy property tax? State income tax? Been there, done that. Fuggetabout it!

I understand that. Living in East Tn making six figures and you are doing great. 400k and you can live like a king here.

But in Hawaii, Bay area, NYC and a few other places I can see it.

 

[Vol737]

I understand that. Living in East Tn making six figures and you are doing great. 400k and you can live like a king here.

But in Hawaii, Bay area, NYC and a few other places I can see it.

Agreed.

 

[Hunerwadel]

I watched as well. Complete s*** show. However, I believe it was Trump's intentions to rattle Biden and although Biden seemed to be dead toward the end of the debate, he didn't completely derail.

Biden seemed to be the winner if you're looking for a more "classic or traditional" debate, but I'm not and neither is the people that voted for Trump. You dumb***es just don't get it. I'm 100% sure, while some of you have college "degrees" and live a flourishing life, you all just sit there and listen to everything Biden spews.

Name 1 president that didn't give "morale speeches" or poetic-like messages before Trump. I don't need someone talking nicely to me. I don't need anyone for morale. I just want to see who they truly are.

Biden kept turning to the camera talking to the "American people". The real "American people" can see right through him and know he's full of s***. It's you lawyers and bankers and the rest of you that dress up all nice and pretty and go out to dinner with your "colleagues" to see who can spend the most on dinner and passive aggressively tout about the number of clients you have and your "portfolios" and then step outside to leave only remember that all of that can't cover up how pathetic your lives truly are. It's you all that eat up every bit of the bile coming out of his mouth that he's flip flopped on for the past half a century. If you think anything that "man" is saying is truth, than you are a f***ing moron. The dude has been a politician and ONLY a politician for longer than most of you all have been alive and twice as long as some of you. 47 years. That's YEARS. He could look you straight in your face and tell you the sky is green and believe every word of it cause he knows no different. He believes everything he says to be true. Sad reality is, so do most of you.

A few times I just wanted to tell Trump to shut up. I didn't really gaf about what Biden was saying, but it did seem juvenile when he would continually interrupt. The man can be a savage using 1 or 2 word interruptions y just as well as he can trying to talk over him. Also, I wish i could prepare Trump for the debate. Biden left himself open so much on so many issues that if Trump would slow down to think for a moment, he could've destroyed him, but he went full attack mode.

Point is, Trump is not a talker and that's fine with me. I don't have daddy issues like you liberal twats and need to be "reared" by the president. His policies work and before COVID, this country was actually rising like I never though it would again. He sucks as a political speaker. Biden is a great speaker. Obama was a great speaker. Bush was a great speaker. All s***ty policies and all liars. Trump's talking and rhetoric used to bother me a lot more, but now I loathe you idiots as much as he does. So ready for all this to be over with so we can at least have 3 more years before you all come back in droves to show your ignorance and stupidity on a global scale . Go back to your video game world and leave the real world to people that don't want to ruin it for everyone else.

You could have just said "I'm a Trump guy".

 

[hog88]

I understand that. Living in East Tn making six figures and you are doing great. 400k and you can live like a king here.

But in Hawaii, Bay area, NYC and a few other places I can see it.

Hence my comment.

Income classes need to redefined and calculated as a comparison to cost of living in the various regions of the country.

 

[Rifleman]

A household that makes $375k is in the top 5% of all income earners.

I feel as if your range needs adjustment. Down. By a lot.

I'm sympathetic to both views. Clearly 400k is ashtray change to the wealthiest Americans, and the area you live in is going to dramatically affect how far that goes. I'd call it upper middle class. I have friends in that range who live very comfortably in Manhattan, so it isn't chump change.

But the larger issue is the gap between that group and the top 0.5% percent. Sure let's make Trump pay taxes, in the unlikely event his businesses ever make any money. (If he failed at casinos, moving into golf courses is like someone who can't balance on a sidewalk trying to become an Olympic gymnast.) But if you don't get billionaire Bezos and Buffet and Bloomberg to pay as well, it is all meaningless.

Also history has shown that the IRS has taken in an almost the exact same percentages of GDP even when top marginal rates were insanely high pre-Reagan. You really just need to get the lower middle class stabilized and growing to get things moving in the right direction. Even now, not that huge of a policy shift is required to do that in my opinion.

A fiscally bipolar America could work if we went hard into the supply side economics when the economy is hurting, then shifted toward an FDR level of government building the levees to stave off the next recession and ameliorate the downsides of capitalism during the good times. It seems we tend to get the worst of each side's ideas at the worst times in reality, and we now seem to be in a 40 year cycle of boom and contraction where some people have experienced only the boom and some only the contraction.

 

[C-south]

This isn't Singapore. 400k is rich.

I'm barely still considered middle class and that is about 3 times my pay and I make more than 90% of people in TN. You are living in fantasyland.

It isn’t when the government takes half.

 

[k-town_king]

It isn’t when the government takes half.

And people making less get taxed as well. I get 30% taken.

For 90% of the country that isn't middle class.

And the only places where 400k isn't middle class are "liberal sh*tholes" so why do you care? In Trump country 400k might as well be 4mil a year.

 

[bUTchLookin4Dimez]

You could have just said "I'm a Trump guy".

Ok and all you liberals could just say "I have no brain and just do and believe what MSM tells me. "

 

[Y9 Vol]

And people making less get taxed as well. I get 30% taken.

For 90% of the country that isn't middle class.

And the only places where 400k isn't middle class are "liberal sh*tholes" so why do you care? In Trump country 400k might as well be 4mil a year.

Sometimes it is better to just let a response go instead of just vomiting nonsense.

 

[Hunerwadel]

When I woke up this morning the one thing that stood out above everything is Trump's answer on white supremacists groups.
His non answer only lends credence to the belief of some on the Left that Trump and his supporters are racists.

Question: Why would Trump not just say I condemn all forms of racism?

 

[hog88]

When I woke up this morning the one thing that stood out above everything is Trump's answer on white supremacists groups.
His non answer only lends credence to the belief of some on the Left that Trump and his supporters are racists.

Question: Why would Trump not just say I condemn all forms of racism?

Good question and he really screwed that one up.

 

[Y9 Vol]

When I woke up this morning the one thing that stood out above everything is Trump's answer on white supremacists groups.
His non answer only lends credence to the belief of some on the Left that Trump and his supporters are racists.

Question: Why would Trump not just say I condemn all forms of racism?

Same reason Joe did not condemn Antifa?

 

[hog88]

Same reason Joe did not condemn Antifa?

Trump could have hit a home run

 

[k-town_king]

When I woke up this morning the one thing that stood out above everything is Trump's answer on white supremacists groups.
His non answer only lends credence to the belief of some on the Left that Trump and his supporters are racists.

Question: Why would Trump not just say I condemn all forms of racism?

Because he is a racist that supports white supremacists. He made it clear for anyone who had not already accepted the fact.

 

[volbeast33]

Exactly! It’s I’m blue or red and this is how I see everything. There’s no common ground, it’s just fighting each other and getting nothing accomplished. It’s saddening and disheartening to see where we are

What’s worse than that.... you could switch a Democrat position with a republican one and the voters opinion would change right along with it.

 

[IBlvNTmWrk]

Stampedes are coordinated action in that everyone has the same purpose (to escape) and does the same action (run in the same direction). But there is no leader or director. Lots of protests are similar. Somebody doesn't like what's going on. They go out and protest. Other see and join in and invite even more. Soon there's a mass of people chanting and doing various things together, even though no one person or group of people are leading the protest.

Stampedes are uncontrolled impulses. And do you know how they are controlled... by making the leaders of the stampede turn in the direction you want the herd to follow. I guess you also think flash mobs are not planned. Someone just breaks out into dance in the middle of the street and before you know it... boom... they're joined by numerous others who surprisingly all know the same dance routine. Surely you can not be that naive.

But you can easily prove your point. Just pick a random day and walk out to any street corner in any city and start yelling about whatever it is you want to protest. Then... let us know how long you stood there looking like an idiot before your were joined by a mob miraculously carrying signs that support your protest.

Can't wait to see the video.

 

[Rifleman]

Taking a step back this morning, I think that both men accomplished what they wanted in that they both recognize that there is such a tiny number of undecideds out there that it is pointless and wasteful to try to win them over now, so the whole goal for each was to motivate their bases to just turn out.

Biden needed to show his base that he can take Trump's attacks for 90 minutes and not fold. He was successful in that.

Trump wanted to show to his base that he still has what they found charismatic the last time. I would call it bullying and being a blowhard, but hey, it worked for him last time. So he was successful at it again this time.

The more I think about it, the less likely it was that this was going to be substantive or anything other than what we saw. Trump railing at Biden, and Biden not backing down. Both did what they needed to do. There is really no point to the next debates. Will be more of the same.

Trump strategy, if it works, would be to turn out his strongest demo well beyond 2016. And, if you look at the demographics, he has many more available non-voters than Biden, so it isn't impossible. Cook Political put together a tool to allow you to play with turn out and support.

2020 Demographic Swingometer | The Cook Political Report

If the turnout is similar to 2016 with current demographics, Biden is at 307.

If there is a 5% growth in the non-college educated white vote with no other changes, and this is Trump's strongest demo, Trump is at 306.

But, if the current polling is correct and Biden is taking far more of that piece of the demographic pie than Hillary, Trump needs to make inroads with other demographics in the key battlegrounds. If he can't do that, he needs about a 20% growth in non-college educated white vote and no other changes. That seems unlikely, as he is causing increased enthusiasm among both his base and his anti-base (calling it Biden's base seems inaccurate) when he pulls some of these stunts.

 

[1972 Grad]

Same reason Joe did not condemn Antifa?

Antifa is just an idea.

 

[luthervol]

Taking a step back this morning, I think that both men accomplished what they wanted in that they both recognize that there is such a tiny number of undecideds out there that it is pointless and wasteful to try to win them over now, so the whole goal for each was to motivate their bases to just turn out.

Biden needed to show his base that he can take Trump's attacks for 90 minutes and not fold. He was successful in that.

Trump wanted to show to his base that he still has what they found charismatic the last time. I would call it bullying and being a blowhard, but hey, it worked for him last time. So he was successful at it again this time.

The more I think about it, the less likely it was that this was going to be substantive or anything other than what we saw. Trump railing at Biden, and Biden not backing down. Both did what they needed to do. There is really no point to the next debates. Will be more of the same.

I would be happy if they cancelled the next two. It is pointless to have a "debate" with Trump.

 

[Hunerwadel]

Same reason Joe did not condemn Antifa?

He might have had Trump stopped talking for a while.

 

[1972 Grad]

$400k isn't rich, that is solid middle class. That is a lot of small business owners, you know the people that employee the most Americans and drive the economy. So raising taxes on those making $400k will hurt far more people than just those making $400k.

Almost no jobs were created during Obama's big "green energy" push the only thing accomplished was the lining of his buddies pockets and fleecing of the taxpayer. All of this talk about green energy yet not 1 damn word about the most reliable source of green energy we know of, nuclear. So it's nothing but a boondoggle.

You have become an out of touch elitist.