“Shedding all semblance of decency, let alone public civility, a desperate Trump turned Tuesday’s presidential debate not only into a brawl, but also a national embarrassment. Behaving like a petulant teenager, Trump rolled his eyes, constantly interrupted, hectored, tried to pick fights, and generally made a fool of himself as more than 80 million Americans tuned in, most of whom were likely thinking, ‘What have we become as a nation?’ That’s why it’s time to call off the next two debates. Tuesday’s car wreck was a complete waste of time. “
—Analysis of Tuesday night’s “debate” by Press Run, an online news service.
“Are you willing to condemn white supremacists and militia groups and to say that they need to stand down and not add to the violence in a number of these cities?”
—Debate moderator Chris Wallace.
“Proud Boys — stand back and stand by. Somebody’s got to do something about antifa and the left.”
—Donald Trump, responding to Wallace. [A dog whistle to his supporters perhaps?]
“Standing by sir.”
—Proud Boys chairman Enrique Tarrio, responding to Trump on social media platform Parler. [Woof, woof.]
“I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.”
—Ronald Reagan, responding to a question if he had any doubts about whether he had the strength for the job of president at his then-age of 73, during the 1984 debate with Walter Mondale—a time when civility and decorum still carried the day in presidential debates. [With Trump, of course, you can kiss any idea of decency and respect for the rules goodbye.]
“Tom, this debate will go down in HISTORY. I showed the American People that I will ALWAYS fight to put America First no matter what and that I will NEVER stop working to Make America Great Again.
“I know the Fake News media will only report LIES about this event and how STRONG our movement is, which is why I was really disappointed to see that you chose not to step up and help make TODAY our BEST fundraising day EVER.
“You’ve always been one of my strongest supporters – I can’t win in November without you, so I’m giving you ONE MORE CHANCE to get on the donor list I see.
“My team is handing me a printed list of every donor who stepped up at this critical moment. Will I see your name, Tom? It’s currently MISSING.”
—Heartfelt “personal” email from Donald Trump at 11:05 p.m. Tuesday that is reminiscent of those Bobby Jindal emails I kept getting during his Quixotic pursuit of the Republican presidential nomination back in 2015 which consistently boasted of the groundswell support for his campaign which never broke past 1 percent. [Trump’s heavy reliance on capital letters aside, he’s certainly correct about the “historic” nature of the debate.]
Louisiana Voice 
“No mas”. No more debates. That was hard to watch.
It’s an exact reflection of what we’ve become.
Thomas L. Friedman is an internationally renowned author, reporter, and, columnist. He is the recipient of three Pulitzer Prizes – two for international reporting from the Middle East and a third for his columns written about 9/11. He is the author of seven New York Times bestsellers. He writes for the New York Times. After the debate last night he wrote the following piece, saying “Our democracy is in terrible danger — more than since the Civil War, more than after Pearl Harbor, more than during the Cuban missile crisis.”
I suppose it depends on one’s point of view. Telemundo flash poll after debate favored Trump 64% to 34% for Biden….a crowd Biden needs behind him. Does not bode well for Joe. Joe (per CNN) has no swell of support as their reporter who toured USA last week stated….no enthusiasm reflected anywhere. He does well to draw a crowd of a couple of hundred people versus thousands for Trump.
I am pretty sure Biden did not want to meet with Trump because Biden has zip to show for his 47+ years in Washington and he knew Trump would point that out. I am amazed that anyone is naive’ enough to believe that suddenly Biden will explode into some accomplishment of merit after all of these years of just being there and doing nothing but getting he and his family rich. Biden saying Trump paid little or no taxes when Biden helped write the tax code is pretty idiotic. Biden trying to blame Trump for Covid19 deaths is laughable…Obama/Biden did nothing to stop spread of Swine Flu, and even stopped testing as more and more cases were revealed (I believe Covid09 is more deadly than Swine Flu). Their own event manager publicly stated that their efforts were ineffective and incompetent. So, any statement by Joe that he could have done a better job is clearly false – the virus ran its’ course.
Trump did manage to get Biden to state that Joe will not honor agreement made with Bernie and Biden said he is the Democrat Party (manifesto laying out support for “New Green Deal”, socialized medicine, free housing, free college etc.) not Bernie or AOC. I am anxious to see reaction from extreme left of party. Joe’s campaign is falling apart before our very eyes.
And how, exactly is our democracy in danger NYT/Friedman ? The danger was, in reality, the attempted “coup” by our intelligence agencies (with involvement by Obama/Biden) by trying to set up Trump and reverse election. How on earth was our democracy placed in danger by the Civil War, Pearl Harbor or the Cuban Missile Crisis ? None of those events affected democracy, but did threaten the existence of the USA. If anything, democratic resolve was strengthened. This trend towards socialism by the extreme left is far more a threat to our liberty than any peril we have ever faced. No socialized nation has true freedom, do they ? That is the point of socialism/communism – to remove personal choice and let government choose for you.
But, for once, I fully agree with kamarcon. I believe the last civilized campaign we have had in this country was Reagan versus Carter and Reagan versus Mondale. This name calling (by BOTH sides) is beneath us. I wish the sides would simply discuss their positions and let people decide. And Nancy (hypocrite)Pelosi and Schumer do not help. They have reversed every position from Obama period (border security, tax cuts, Supreme Court appointees).
Dear Zoe….did you notice how Trump “discusses things rationally” last night. It is impossible to expect Trump to act like a responsible, clear headed, thinking adult. If you didn’t see this last night during the “debate” and notice that he was the only “immature man acting out like a bratty middle schooler” then you simple are seeing what in your mind’s eye you want to see. Trump is destroying the very America that you claim he is “making better.” All the while, you attack and tear down any and every Democrat….so, it is just plain odd that now you demand BOTH sides be reasonable and discuss their positions….?
Links please. Oh never mind. It was a twitter poll. Duh.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/09/30/reliable-polls-show-that-biden-won-debate-so-those-arent-what-trumps-allies-are-highlighting/
Zoe, as expected, you summarized the conservative spin, a nice word for lies, very well. Unfortunately for impeached bully trump, we saw his attempt to attack and fluster Biden resulting in HIM losing his cool and acting the fool.
As recently as a few days ago you were complaining again about the Democratic party platform. I did refute it months ago, but you seem to have conveniently forgotten that. The single most obvious fault with what you were told is that the platform didn’t exist until later during the convention. Here is the web address of the actual Democratic Party Platform: https://democrats.org/where-we-stand/party-platform/ Please look through it and let us know if you find ANY of the despicable things you were told were in there are actually there. It also shows the depth of your brainwashing that you believe that so many of your fellow USA citizens would support the horrible things you were told. Ahh for the good old days when people could disagree about political issues without being disagreeable.
“Biden trying to blame Trump for Covid19 deaths is laughable…” would be laughable, if it hadn’t cost over 150,000 of our friends and neighbors their lives. And as a side point, nothing Biden did or didn’t do has anything to do with impeached trump’s responses to the pandemic. Two simple facts: 1. The USA has less than 5% of the world’s population and over 20% of the world’s deaths. If impeached trump had handled the pandemic only as well as the world average, we would have had less than 5% of the deaths. So about 75% of the deaths, 150,000 and growing, could have been prevented. 2. Woodward has impeached trump recorded in early February saying that COVID-19 is passed primarily through the air and is very contagious and lethal. Common sense and subsequent scientific studies have shown that wearing a mask is going to block some of the virus and reduce your chances of getting sick. But impeached trump continues to discourage mask wearing while giving lip service to its effectiveness.
I originally thought impeached trump doing so many thing to make the pandemic worse was because he is dumb as a rock. I have changed my opinion to be that he is just doing his master’s, Putin’s, bidding.