TPM - Josh weighs in "A Bad Night for the President"

[NRaleighLiberal]

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/a-bad-night-for-the-president

By Josh Marshall
|
September 29, 2020 11:35 p.m.
I worried what this momentous night would bring. In the event I think it was somewhere between bad and disastrous for President Trump.

The most important fact about this debate is that going into it President Trump was clearly behind. He needed to shift the dynamic of the race, force some major error, introduce some new factor. That didn’t happen. I saw nothing tonight that seems at all likely to improve things for President Trump. Nothing.

Biden did fine. Not great. But fine. I’d say he had a B performance with some B+ or even A- minus moments. But for him that’s fine. He’s ahead. He’s not running as best debater. He’s not running as most dynamic figure. He’s not competing for most unstable affect. He’s running as the guy who will end the nightmare. If that’s the goal he turned in just the right performance.


To the extent there was any strategy to Trump’s ranting – and I think it was mainly instinctual – it was to create chaos in the hopes it would throw Biden off his stride and prompt some scattered or damaging moment. That didn’t happen. It was really just Trump yelling. That was the strategy his surrogates previewed. And if he had triggered some embarrassing flub perhaps it would have been a winning strategy. Everybody knows Trump’s a bully and a loudmouth. That’s not new information. But maybe it would be worth it if he forced some major error from Biden. He didn’t. And so what we had was Trump ranting, visibly angry, launching off on numerous digressions, lying. It was ugly, unhinged and exhausting – a good summary of Trump’s entire presidency.

One thing that struck me was that the few times when Biden was able to speak uninterrupted for 30 or 60 seconds he was actually devastating against Trump. I was thinking, Trump’s right to keep interrupting. When Biden gets to talk it’s terrible for Trump.


snip

I think there’s a decent chance this performance will be quite damaging for Trump. But who knows? Other outrages have rolled over him like water over a duck’s back. What I’m very confident of is that Trump needed to change things in his favor. He failed to do that. Since he’s behind and significantly behind that is a huge missed opportunity and a big loss.


it's not that long - the stuff in the snip is good too. read it all!

[SharonClark]

1. Good analysis.

[Kitchari]

2. "Ugly and exhausting" Josh called it

Agree completely

[oasis]

3. Trump gets a F-. He would've done better to duck out. nt

[Tommymac]

4. The Killer Clown showed he has no respect for the Rule of Law.

This debate was his public coming out party as an out and out Strongman wannabe.

States need to take extra diligence to protect the People's ballots.

And also deny Trump the ability to abuse the courts with frivolous challenges.

It is going to be a long 30 days...Let's use the only effective weapons' we have - Our Vote. If it's big enough of a win for Joe & Kamala then legal challenges will be moot.

GOTV GOTV GOTV

[ailsagirl]

5. Gee, that's too bad...

[Dopers_Greed]

6. Post-debate, my social media circle has been more disgusted with Trump than I can ever remember

This is just going to motivate us more

[Grasswire2]

7. The "Portland Sheriff" has tweeted his response to Trump.

He says he does not support Trump and never did. He says that Trump makes his job harder.

And a lot of Trump humpers are crapping on the sheriff on twitter now.