What a difference two-and-a-half months make.

It was just late June when Donald Trump and Joe Biden faced off in the first presidential debate of the season. As it turns out, thanks to his disastrous performance, it was Biden’s last presidential debate ever.

Tomorrow is the second presidential debate, but it might as well be the first. Kamala Harris will be making her debate debut as a presidential candidate. She and Trump have never faced off before. Indeed, the two have never even met because Trump skipped the 2021 inauguration festivities after his failed coup attempt.

Debates are all about expectations and spin. The expectation for the June debate was that Biden would show Trump up for the blowhard he is, which is why the Biden campaign pushed for a debate so early in the election cycle. We all know how that worked out.

However, it’s hard to imagine that Harris isn’t in a much better position going into the debate than Trump is. For one thing, Trump can’t stop himself from vomiting his inner dialogue, which rightly disgusts a lot of voters. He digresses, he rambles, he struggles to put a coherent thought together. Biden’s poor performance was the spectacle at the last debate. This time out Trump won’t have that foil.

At the same time, Harris is used to arguing her case. After all, she was a prosecutor, where her job was to convince a jury. She knows how to lay out her argument and draw people into it. She knows that this time the voting public is her jury, and she will argue accordingly.

  • Cyyris@infosec.pub
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    8 days ago

    Exactly this.

    My mother continually defends that jackass every time I try and bring up how unhinged and nonsensical he sounds - such as when rambling about sharks, or Gettysburg.

    “Oh sweetie, he’s just kidding! He likes to joke and kid around!”

    No…No mom, he’s a deranged lunatic who can barely string together two coherent sentences.

    • solsangraal@lemmy.zip
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      7 days ago

      for someone who “tells it like it is,” he sure does need a lot of people to interpret when he’s “taken out of context” or “joking” or “locker room talk” or “alternative fact-ing” or any other bullshit to explain away his saying the quiet part out loud