Louis Ingenthron @LouisIngenthron@qoto.org

Here's the reason I'm so pissed off and sad after last night:

Before the debate, I could say to moderates and disillusioned Republicans (including ones in my family): "Look, I know you don't like Trump, but the best way to get rid of him and get back to normal conservatism is to repudiate him by electing a normal competent leader. You may not always agree with Biden, but you can trust that he's at least stable and smart enough to do the job."

Now, though? The best I can say is "Yeah, both candidates suck, right? Might as well stay home." Because there's no way in hell they'd bite for that first argument anymore.

#uspol

@Acronymesis @cbgrey @TonyStark I'll be voting for him either way. It's not my vote I'm worried about.

@farbel @lionelb Except we get a say in what we have. If the ticket can't win, then we need to make a new ticket.

@TruthSandwich You literally did that first in this conversation. I followed your path into that subject, lol.

@TonyStark @Acronymesis Or it's a sign that one party actually cares about merit and results and walks the talk while the other is a cult of personality.

Biden isn't entitled to our support; He needs to earn it. And letting Trump walk all over him in the debate is the opposite of that.

@TruthSandwich No, I was specifically referring to Trump in 2020, in direct response to you bringing that election up.

@TruthSandwich The only history I'm describing is the last 24 hours.

@TruthSandwich I would, but after Joe set the bar so low, Trump walked over it and out of the room.

I'd like to avoid another weak incumbent losing a winnable election, not repeat it.

@TruthSandwich How's he supposed to do that when he can't even run his own mouth for two straight minutes?

@farbel @lionelb Yeah, I'd rather have someone on the ticket who can drive us forward to beating Trump over someone who acts as a shackle slowing us down by forcing us to do their work for them.

@TruthSandwich It doesn't matter if he supports democracy or not if he's incapable of saying so.

His job right now is to get out the vote, and he's very clearly not up to that job.

@farbel @lionelb Except that convincing people to vote for him is the exact job Biden no longer seems fit to do.

@Vaniaji@toad.social I disagree. In 2020 he was able to call Trump on his bullshit in real time while smiling and joking.

This time around he was just confused and sad.

@Vaniaji@toad.social Right, I'd vote for a ham sandwich over Trump, but we're not who Biden needed to reach in the debates.

The people in the center will only show up to vote if they have a viable choice, and Biden's performance last night was the opposite of viable.

@theusasingers Biden also seems to be unable to focus or hold a train of thought long enough to deliver a fully-coherent 2 minute prepared response to prepared, expected questions.

To attribute that merely to a cold and a stutter is to bury one's head in the sand.

@Colarusso @icymi_law Yeah, I noticed that too, lol

@slightlyoff I'm a NoScript user, so you're preaching to the choir, but I don't think regular users would like that.

They still get pissed off when a browser tries to protect them from a bad SSL cert.

@IgnatiusJReilly @volkris So you're happy that he kept Trump's border policies and tariffs intact?

@slightlyoff Right, but the problem is that 98% of users will then think "this browser broke this web site" instead of "this web site is breaking the web". How do we fix that?