First 2024 Presidential Debate

I've thought about this. No one who voted against Trump in 2020 is likely to vote for him now. Trump lost in 2020 more than Biden won. I think Biden is President today because his name isn't Trump.

 

In a way I think you're right. There isn't anything particularly inspirational about him or his vision. Not a great speaker or leader. And honestly even when he was in the Senate and much younger he had that very strange interview where he was sparring with a reporter and telling the reporter he was more intelligent than the reporter and then lied about his educational background on TV.

For some Trump is very charismatic and visionary in a non-substantive way. Superficial nationalism and patriotism. Slogans. I wouldn't call him a leader either other than the Il Duce type. In terms of his staff management he does not exhibit any of the classic leadership and management traits or Covey principles.

Neither party seems to have been able to put forward substantial candidates. We blame the party but a substantial amount of blame surely belongs to the American voter in the primary.

 

My wife voted for Trump in 2016. She voted against Trump and for Biden in 2020 mainly because of the mess Trump made of the pandemic response. She may vote for him or not in 2024, I'm not sure. I am sure that she won't vote for Biden. She says that he's too old. Here's a bit of her political profile. She is not really very political. She never watches political news. She gets her news from CBS Evening News, San Diego local news and from Taiwanese news. I think that her profile is typical for many that helped Biden win in 2020.

 

Well, Ipsos now has them tied at 46% each. I suppose one can take comfort knowing Trump is doing his best to defeat himself.

 

They shouldn't be that close. Plus other polls put Trump ahead.

That closeness is probably related to Biden's poor performance. One fear is that many Democratic supporters simply won't turn up to vote because there's not a lot of enthusiasm for Biden.

 

There is no arguing about the ending of Afganistan campaign.
The weaknes was the way the exit was conducted.
It was shameful diaply of weakness.
This is what Putin saw.

 

Well, the Trump Administration will make things interesting and energetic. It'll be exciting for media as they will have four years to catastrophize about everything he does, says, or doesn't do. That gives them business.

If he's elected there will be riots as there were the first time as his opponents destroyed equipment, buses, and attacked people. There were even multiple faked hate crime events. That was interesting and his administration hadn't even begun. That will create business for insurance companies, police, and all the little anarchist and whack job groups out there. Drama, drama, drama (tantrums).

It will be a headache made worse by his behavior, his opponents hormonal childishness, his supporters sycophantic attitudes.

 

The challenge isn't in preventing people from switching to Trump. The challenge is getting out the vote. None of this helps.

 

That is the story reported most everywhere but not the story one hears on Fox, OAN, and Newsmax.

 

It's debatable:
Even General Mark Milley, the former chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff, called the US evacuation from Afghanistan a "strategic failure,"
Mr. McConnell, the majority leader at the time, took to the Senate floor to decry Pr. Trump’s planned withdrawal from Afghanistan, warning that a premature exit would be “reminiscent of the humiliating American departure from Saigon.”
All Russian and other foreign language channels at the time and soon after described the escape of Afghanistan as flight of defeated forces.
Leaving behind a lot of good, loyal people.
US troops pulled out after 20 years in Afghanistan, and the final few weeks were deadly and chaotic as the Taliban swept to power.
I fully understand that US military actions were under extremely dangerous circumstances.
The administration allowed Taliban dictate the date that Americans leave. Final days in Afghanistan devolved into a frantic race to get more than 125,000 people out — during which 13 service members were killed in a bombing attack outside the Kabul airport

 

20 years and ten billion dollars and in the end they threw down their weapons and walked away. George Bush learned nothing from our Vietnam debacle so he, and we, were doomed to repeat it.

 

This is true and this was the Trump administration rather than the Biden administration just as Steve said.

 

It was the Biden administration that allowed the Taliban to dictate the date that Americans leave.
Trump was no longer in the office of Pr, and Taliban was violating understanding achieved with Trump.

Washington CNN —
President Joe Biden ordered the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan over the advice of some of his senior-most advisers in the Pentagon and State Department, leaders who are now charged with carrying out the particulars of the complicated drawdown.

Pr. Biden, Aug. 18: The idea that the Taliban would take over was premised on the notion that the — that somehow, the 300,000 troops we had trained and equipped was gonna just collapse, they were going to give up. I don’t think anybody anticipated that.

According to an Aug. 14 story in the NY Times, “After Mr. Biden took office, top Defense Department officials began a lobbying campaign to keep a small counterterrorism force in Afghanistan for a few more years. They told the president that the Taliban had grown stronger.
And to intelligence estimates predicting that in two or three years, Al Qaeda could find a new foothold in Afghanistan.”

“Shortly after Lloyd J. Austin III became Defense Secretary on Jan. 22, he and Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recommended to Mr. Biden that 3,000 to 4,500 troops stay in Afghanistan, nearly double the 2,500 troops there,” the Times story states.

Citing anonymous “officials,” the Washington Post also reported that, “In weeks of intensive deliberations in Washington, Austin and Gen. Mark. A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, privately advised Biden against a full withdrawal.”

The WSJ echoed that reporting in an Aug. 17 story.

“The president’s top generals, including Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Army Gen. Mark Milley, urged Mr. Biden to keep a force of about 2,500 troops, the size he inherited, while seeking a peace agreement between warring Afghan factions, to help maintain stability,” the Journal reported. “Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who previously served as a military commander in the region, said a full withdrawal wouldn’t provide any insurance against instability.”

 

https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-middle-east-taliban-doha-e6f48507848aef2ee849154604aa11be

 

The problem is not with the exit, but with how it was done.
The same happens when agreements made with terror sponsoring organizations and regimes.
Be it Hezbollah, Hamas or Taliban, a deal is never a deal.
But in case of managing the chaotic exit from Afghanistan, sent a horrible message and damaged the deterrence US projected all over the world.

 

I am appalled that these two are the only candidates from which we have to choose.
Trump is the quintessential narcissist and far from senile.
Biden has evidence of dementia and should be allowed to retire from public life.

Who was the last presidential candidate that anyone on this forum thought was a QUALITY candidate?

I'd vote for Trump any day over Biden.

 

Answering a slightly different question, both major-party tickets were decent as recently as 2012.