Debate over, reality sets in, and we move forward to elect Biden to four more years.

[lees1975]

https://signalpress.blogspot.com/2024/06/joe-biden-is-81-years-old-and-that.html

This is all based on the false narrative that the media has been pushing since before the start of the 2020 campaign, that Biden's age is disqualifying. That notion has been debunked, and it has become clear, in the days since the debate, that is still not the case, and the debate performance is not evidence of that.

Be realistic. Trump's debate performance did not add a single independent, undecided Republican moderate, or frightened Democrat to his vote total. The Biden campaign's job of convincing them to get on board is now made more difficult than it was, perhaps. But then, perhaps not.

The debate temporarily shifted the focus from Trump's felony convictions and looming sentencing. For what its worth, it was horrible timing because it gave him a chance to spout his campaign talking points to an audience on national television before his sentencing, and it took the focus off his legal troubles. It almost looks like CNN planned it to do just that, change the content of the news cycle and what people are talking about. The emphasis in news media reporting will shift back to those convictions and the approaching sentencing.

The news media in this country, 90% of it, is owned by and controlled by corporate interests who could care less about democracy, individual rights and freedoms of ordinary Americans. What they care about, as we have all seen openly, is money. So that's what we are up against. The only real damage done by all of the caterwauling and panic on the Democratic side was to Democrats themselves. It seems like our party just can't resist shooting itself in the foot at the most inopportune time.

[Ocelot II]

1. And this:

And while the responsibility for Biden's debate performance rests solely on him, he was the one up there doing the talking, and it wasn't good, the reaction of Democrats to his performance has been inexcusable and extremely dangerous. It has given the right wing propaganda sources the words they need without using their own. [The instant jump to the conclusion that Biden needs to be replaced is exactly straight out of the Trump campaign playbook. They couldn't have done better if they'd written the script for this whole scenario. The demands for Biden to step down, the criticism of his debate performance, that Fox News is reporting isn't coming from Republican sources. It's coming from Democrats.

I give Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Gavin Newsome, and several other Democratic Senators and Congressmen who commented publicly on this credit for not playing directly into the hands of Republicans and Trump supporting media outlets. Had all Democrats kept their panic to themselves, and had they let people with the knowledge and prior experience handle this, the Republican media would still have pointed fingers, made accusations and claimed this was a disaster and Democrats were in disarray. But that would have looked like their own bias. They're getting their quotes and talking points from Democrats who, in defeatist fashion, are jumping forward way too soon.

And if this does become one of those turning point moments that costs Biden re-election, it will be his own Democratic party, and the media that prides itself on being fair and balanced with a progressive tone, that will be to blame. Fortunately, the people in the Democratic party whose opinion weights heavily and counts the most are putting this all in perspective and trying to drown out the defeatists.

[lees1975]

2. When this happens...

The debate temporarily shifted the focus from Trump's felony convictions and looming sentencing. For what its worth, it was horrible timing because it gave him a chance to spout his campaign talking points to an audience on national television before his sentencing, and it took the focus off his legal troubles. It almost looks like CNN planned it to do just that, change the content of the news cycle and what people are talking about. The emphasis in news media reporting will shift back to those convictions and the approaching sentencing.

What happens then? Are we going to hear all of the same kind of caterwauling, lip flapping and "disarray" from Republicans who are facing this disaster, and that is exactly what it is, and the calls for Trump to step down, if it turns out he is headed to prison, or to some kind of in-house confinement that keeps him off the campaign trail, and gives Democrats a huge boost by the continuous ability to attack the GOP on its "law and order" stance? Or will there still be those who don't have any sense of the situation at all fuming over the debate and demanding Biden step down because he is too old?

I mourn the death of common sense and critical thinking in American politics. It affects all sides.