The mainstream media is bought by the trillionaires, so I’m mostly ignoring them.
I thought The Atlantic was basically the last one left. Even The Guardian has encroached first into clickbait titles and now several paragraphs at the top of clickbait content even if the latter part of an article can finally get into real stuff. So it is in transition as it finishes off the enshittification process it already began.
But The Atlantic… I hold to a different standard, in my mind, and when they speak, I still listen. Perhaps I shouldn’t - can you point to an example from them that shows that they have jumped the shark too? The Atlantic isn’t in the same class as e.g. the NYT!!?! They are still worthwhile (I thought?)!
So media aside, people - especially young people that don’t have the personal history with political matters - they watched the debate, or saw clips of its worst moments. They see this shit with their own eyes. It’s not just the media doing a hit job, as has been true in the past. This time it’s real.
Asking your President to remain awake during a conversation, especially one prepared for literally weeks to months in advance does not sound like bullshit to me. Rather it sounds like the basic foundation for any job that I’ve ever had personally, and have ever so much as heard of.
Perhaps Biden('s people) should not have agreed to a debate in this format, giving only 2 minutes for each question, that favored Trump’s style of false but pithy statements? Nonetheless, he did agree…
Also I’m not saying he’s senile, though I would like for a real test to be done. In any case, can we agree that it doesn’t matter at this point? Doing the debate in that manner caused a LOT of harm to his campaign. Maybe I’m just not stating it in the right words, but that’s more along the lines of what I mean…
In more detail: we cannot control people. Hillary Clinton failed to earn sufficient votes, and Trump won in 2016. Now, is Biden repeating the same pattern? Vote Blue No Matter Who is an authoritarian dogma - but we have no power to enforce it. People, especially the youth, will do as they please. The only hope is to try to earn it? That’s going to be a LOT more difficult now, than it was prior to the debate…
Excellently articulated. Perhaps there’s a simple explanation for all of this - perhaps he’s sick, or if we really want to get conspiratorial, even maliciously poisoned? (I’m trying to convey something that would be outside of his control hence not remotely his fault in any way.)
The thing is, it doesn’t matter. He could have cancelled the debate altogether, but instead he rushed through it. This seems reminiscent of his handling of the withdrawal from Afghanistan, which tbf was 99.9% Trump’s deal, except the handling of it was Biden’s, and revealed some about his personality, to ignore his advisors and substitute his own knowledge for theirs. Which is fine, it’s his prerogative as President to do exactly that, except… he was wrong. The first and basically only job of a leader is to pick good advisors and listen to them, so as to be correct. (Then, if time, train someone else to do likewise.)
This is also reminiscent of Bill Clinton’s handling of his sexual scandals - it happens, but then he went and lied about it to the Supreme Court, which was a whole other thing.
So now, people are - FOR SOME REASON - not quite trusting that what Biden is saying is truthful. Maybe he means well, maybe it really is temporary, but again, none of that is relevant. He needs to reassure people, if not last week’s opportunity then create some new one, that he really does have what it takes to go the distance and be the leader of the United States of America for the next four years.
Fuck, I’m freaking out, bc Trump is going to win.:-( Anyway, thank you for keeping your head about you as the rest of us lose ours - your calm and cogent analyses of things are helpful to read:-).