Gazza M I found it wild that these two people should even share a stage. His madness is deepening

    The "Springfield migrants ate my dog" thing is wild. It went from a thing Vance had tweeted yesterday that I was joking about with an Ohioan friend to the headline from Trump's debate performance.

    That said, I don't think it's necessarily decisive for his supporters if Trump lies or appears to be incoherent. If he comes across as weak however it'll kill his chances. Those who vote for him gravitate to the appeal of a partisan power acting on their behalf.

    Vance turns out to be damaging in this regard, he lacks charisma and conviction as well as Trump's impenetrable arrogance—I got blindsided by how poor the guy is as a "retail politician". Pence in "Christian Dalek" mode declaring he wouldn't dine with a woman other than his wife was better for Trump.

      Burnwinter The "Springfield migrants ate my dog" thing is wild.

      I wasn’t aware of the story until recently - I just assumed the Simpsons continued to struggle for good material.

        Burnwinter it seems their strategy isn't really to expand their coalition, they're just aggressively red-meating the maga base and hoping that's enough drive them to the polls, while hoping overall turnout is low. this debate performance doesnt do him any harm with that in mind. whether it will prove to be the right move electorally remains to be seen. if he starts sinking in the polls over the next few weeks I expect the insanity to ramp up and the GOP to pull whatever crazy stunt he tells them to.

            Now you wanna run around and talk about guns like me and Tim ain't got none. What you think we sold 'em all.

            "concepts of a plan"

            Gazza M — what I meant by “coherent” was more so complete thoughts and properly structured sentences. He’s been struggling with those in recent weeks.

            Fully agree he spat out some absurd shit, but his base is about it and plenty of them are reading those same stories on the far right fringes of the internet.

              Gazza M Yeah I'm not sure each event matters so much, or at least when the race swings a bit as when Harris supplanted Biden or Walz joined her campaign, it seems the pundits and people are soon looking ahead for the next moment of drama.

              I read the polls are very close, within the margin of error. I'm not sure if I'm just imagining it or if this is some kind of Mandela effect, but it seems polling data is far less to be relied upon today than twenty years ago.

                  Burnwinter I'm not sure if I'm just imagining it or if this is some kind of Mandela effect, but it seems polling data is far less to be relied upon today than twenty years ago.

                  I assume it’s because of the breakneck speed of events. Historically an assassination attempt would be mainstream news for an entire campaign but it’s already been relegated to a footnote. It’s wild.

                      Mirth it’s good. Only issue is people are more fixed in their views. So the group of people who can be impacted by a single event like a debate is smaller than ever.

                        another observation i had which i havent seen mentioned, is just how audience captured many figures on the right are. trump literally was fed the insane pet-eating story 24 hours before the debate, and just blurted it out on the national debate stage. the same thing is happening with elon musk and a number of other public figures on the right eg. the russell brands and jordan peterson types. there's this bi-directional flow of misinformation that so baked into the right wing eco system in the US, it's hard to know where the lies actually begin and end. I don't even think they know anymore either, nor does it matter. when you're governed by lies, your sense of judgement and grip on reality becomes tenuous at best. it's crazy to watch the phenomenon unfold in real time like it did yesterday

                          Gazza M but they like that. They like this idea of free speech which is actually just the ability to spread misinformation that fits this narrative. When told by the press that the cat story was fake, JD Vance acknowledged this but still encouraged his followers to share cat memes. Elon earlier this week reminded X users to not spread misinformation, and then promptly distributed cat stories. It’s malicious, very nazi like, understanding the power of media. Hence the desire to discredit the mainstream, burn books, curtail education, etc.

                              Mirth Yeah. Suspect also that the era of people all watching telly in their suburban homes waiting for the pollsters to ring and then giving up an accurate picture of their views is long gone.

                                I tuned in for about 2 minutes when they were talking about abortion. I heard Trump essentially assert that many Democrats are in favour of abortion "even after birth". I turned off again.

                                And yet this statement didn't even make it into the list of weird shit he is saying. What a stuffed up state of affairs US politics is in.

                                  Asterix also known as homicide. I don’t know if people just lost a basic capacity to think over time

                                    I was just reading that apparently the moderators did pick him up on this. So he complained the debate was 3 vs 1.

                                    Yep. That's the conservative media's excuse. Apparently it was wrong of the moderators to fact check him in real time. The claim is Harris was not fact checked as aggressively, and the moderators were in cahoots with her all along

                                    i saw some summary where he made 33 factually inaccurate statements that didn't get checked and she made one. they should be happy that they couldn't possibly fact check all his lies.