I promised myself I would wait until this evening to write about my thoughts on last night’s Presidential Debate. I wanted to wait a day to see how news outlets were framing it. However I can’t help myself and am jumping the gun. Republican Voters Against Trump created a supercut of the Fox News panel that started chattering after the debate ended. ‘Bless their hearts’ they tried to polish the orange turd but even those sycophants couldn’t hide how aghast they were over what we all witnessed.
HuffPost has a piece with series of tweets (or Xs or whatever the hell they’re called now) reacting to RVAT’s takedown. I’m not going to take the time to include a bunch of them here. You can check out the link for some of the initial responses. I will however include one so you can see for yourself the collective ‘OMFG did Trump get his ass handed to him’ reaction from his ‘friends’ at Fox:
Even Fox News knows Kamala Harris won the debate. pic.twitter.com/KuTywJ85P1
— Republican Voters Against Trump (@AccountableGOP) September 11, 2024
I got a particular kick out of Jesse Waters who I think might have been wishing Tucker Carlson was sitting where he was. However, I saw a longer clip of this instead of this mashup and one theme jumped out. It’s the same with things I’m seeing both in print and online today. BAIT. As in Harris kept dangling it and Trump being unable to resist gobbling it up, and thrashing around in the water. before finally getting hauled into the boat and flopping around on the deck. Talking heads spoke about how Trump’s team warned him, probably even begged him not to take the bait that would be offered. I’m sure they even tried to get him to practice using some of the very things Harris said. But Trump, being who he is was never, ever EVER going to allow some woman, some BLACK woman to stand there and “sass” him to his face. So Trump took the bait, hence the title image.
Harris played (and I do mean played) catch-and-release with Trump all night long. Even he knew it. Mr. ‘Bigly Tough Alpha Male to all Alpha Males’ realized he’d been manhandled by a five foot four inch tall WOMAN as soon as he left the stage. I keep saying Trump’s not the least bit smart but he IS media savvy and he knew how badly he’d blown it. So he did the unthinkable and stomped into the adjacent Spin Room to try and spin his debacle into a winning performance. His ‘best debate ever’ I think he said. Pundits in real time noted how desperate THAT made him look. At least he didn’t go so crazy watching that kind of stuff being said on the plane ride home that he caused his plane to crash!
So far there’s not been the Truth Social/Twitter explosion from Trump I expected by now. Maybe they took his phone away. Maybe they have one of those devices that blocks cell/wi-fi signals handy for times like these. However at some point the online primal scream from Trump will come. Of that we can be sure.
The other thing we can be sure of is some heads will roll. Trump ignored (I’m certain) solid advice not to do what he did last night. However Trump simply can’t admit he has ever done anything that was less than PERFECT. Anything that ever goes wrong is someone else’s fault. I’m sure the comments from some RWNJ talking heads about him firing his debate prep team will soothe his butt-hurt fee-fees. He can blame THEM for HIS mistakes and fire them. He does after all take savage joy in firing people.
I’d say since she is said to have been the Harris stand-in for whatever debate prep Trump actually did Tulsi Gabbard is gone for sure. Dare we hope we’ll never hear from her again? I hope she got paid upfront because when the Secret Service tosses her and her box of stuff out the front gate there won’t be a check for services rendered. Come to think of it I hope she DIDN’T get any money in advance. That she will have spent all that time consulting and maybe (probably) even expenses for travel, lodging and meals out of her own pocket. And wind up with NOTHING for it all. Yes, that’s mean-spirited on my part. And no, I don’t care.
In the end we are left with the FACT that Trump’s debate performance was such a disaster even Fox Freaking News couldn’t hide the fact that THEY knew damn well how bad it was!
Correction: Trump may indeed “take a savage joy in firing people” but he’s too much a chickenshit to do it himself. He always delegates the dirty to some underling.
Well, as I seem to recall, Trump made a not-too-shabby living by telling people “You’re fired” to their faces on that little bit of TV fluff, “The Apprentice.”
Yes, but that was a “reality” show, not actual reality.
He delegates his “You’re fired!” nonsense to “formerly known as tweets” X. How bizarre.
And when got “… hauled into the boat and flopping around on the deck….” all his ‘WTF happened’ wrinkles in his forehead, that Harris caused, were there for all to see!
“That’s donald trump”…. Exactly dumb-ass. donald trump is incoherent on the best of days. donald trump doesn’t know his ass from his elbow….apparently ever. donald trump can be led by the nose easily and it wasn’t just in this debate we’ve seen this disastrous weakness-he played this one for all the world to see when he squatted in the w.h. for four years. donald trump is completely unglued. he is unfit to ride shotgun in a garbage truck. he does not belong in the oval office and he never has.
When the talking heads and “journalists”, ALL of them, finally get to those truths above and stop trying to make him into anything other than what he is, an idiot, we might have a functioning Fourth Estate again. As things stand right now we have a bunch of whiny apologists making excuses for someone who is so fucking stupid he ought to be locked up somewhere so he doesn’t hurt himself or worse, others. I’m not sure what I am more ashamed of: living in a country that once put a moron like trump into the w.h. or these boobs who make every attempt humanly possible to normalize that which is NOT normal.
After dumbass’s performance last night, would anyone nominate him to “negotiate” anything for them?
“Such are promises…
all lies and jest.
Still a man hears what he wants to hear…
And disregards the rest.” Paul Simon The Boxer