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I feel like Trump is just too old and tired now. Not as much as Biden, but he's clearly lost a step compared to what he had before. There's no energy, no zingers, no new ideas, nothing but repeats of his old slogans.
On the other hand Harris is also just... a shockingly bad candidate. She was terrible in the 2020 primary debates. She didn't understand the issues, she didn't have any charisma, and her most memorable moment was... attacking Biden for being racist. I couldn't believe that he still chose her after that, and then now basically gave her the nomination. She would have been destroyed in a proper primary.
So this is a weird election where most of the focus is on the VP picks, because they're a lot more articulate than the actual presidential candidates. I guess the strategy will be for both candidates to just limit their appearances as much as possible. Very odd.
I won't vote because I hate the stupid charade that my one vote is supposed to matter, and because politics is the mind killer, so not voting keeps me sane. But if you put a gun to my head and forced me to choose one of them I'd pick Trump.
Not to worry, the media has Harris’s back when it comes to her debate performances. I heard the following on NPR just the other day:
The bolded struck me as particularly ridiculous. I really wish there had been someone else in the booth to ask “Really? Name two.”
She apparently beat Pence in the VP debate. I didn’t really watch but the voting afterward of who won favoured her
I actually watched that debate and was stumped by that consensus. I didn't think he crushed her or anything, but he was the clear victor to my eyes.
I think it's worth considering the 'fly factor' for that. The image of a bug stuck to his head wrote all sorts of jokes in the aftermath, and it would be enough to do him in.
He also speaks in the most boring slow “I’m saying something profound” way.
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I think it makes sense to me. A lot of presidents seem to pick weak VPs on purpose in order not to be outshined. See Vance for instance, he’s articulate but not actually liked or charismatic at all. Neither is Walz.
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I think the tempering is because he was shot in the face about 2 months ago.
People are trying to kill him. He avoided death by about a centimeter.
I think that’s what caused the mood shift.
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Your vote absolutely does matter! You might not live in a swing state, but your vote can and does affect the ideological disposition of local elected candidates for office.
For example, if you are a Democrat in a red state, you might not succeed in electing a Democrat to your local congressional seat. But, on the margins, your vote can influence how radical the elected Republican might feel they are allowed to be once they get into office. I don’t have data to back this up, but I have two hypotheses which some political scientist might study someday. Elected officials with a low Cook Partisan Index score (closest to zero) are more moderate politically, and candidates elected to office with the thinnest margins display more moderate behavior in office than in blowout elections.
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I agree that Trump has way less energy now, but I like this version of him a lot better. The zingers didn't really do it for me.
And I believe, if he wins, that his administration will be better run this time.
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