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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   33973 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 9, 2024

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Alright folks, the U.S. Presidential debate is coming up tomorrow night. I'm invested because I've got friends from both sides of the aisle coming, so we'll see what's going to happen...

What do you think will be the major issues discussed? Strengths for Trump? Strengths for Harris?

Outside of just 'debating skills' what do you think the policy strengths/weaknesses will be? My guesses:

  • Trump will continue to hammer strong on immigration issues
  • Abortion will still be a sore spot for Trump and Kamala will focus tehre
  • Economic issues will of course be Kamala's big weakness, Trump will pounce
  • War in Palestine will likely come up again - not sure how Kamala sees it (will she go anti-Israel?)
  • Taxes will be a thing
  • Maybe Trump will harp on government spending/inflation?

I doubt these will come up, but my personal dream is that nuclear and crypto become talking points, and Trump very publicly comes out for both. We'll have to wait and see.

So - what are you predictions my fellow Mottizens?

I have to admit that I'm disappointed the microphones will be muted except during designated response times, because it denies us the (admittedly small) chance that, when Kamala tried to talk over a moderator, Trump could butt in with "Excuse Me, ECKS-CYUSE ME, SHE'S SPEAKING!! COMMIE-LA IS SPEAKING!! VERY RUDE!!"

Predictions: the debate will be boring; Kamala will say a bunch of vague things and throw some zingers at Trump; Trump will offer some stream of consciousness responses and some Kamala jabs; neither will have a collapse a la Biden; hand-picked focus groups will say Kamala won in a blowout; nothing really happens in the polls.

I'd love to see AI come up in the debate, though.

I subscribe to the @wemptronics school. The Goldilocks zone falls between “more present than Biden” and “less bitchy than Trump.” Both should be easy for a normal person. Unfortunately, nobody in this election cycle has been particularly normal, so there are a few routes to mess it up.

  • Hammering on Trump too hard will cross the “bitchy” line.
  • Staying completely vague will fall below the “present” line.
  • Presenting unhinged economics could go either way depending on how specific she gets.

I predict Harris will not unveil anything resembling signature legislation. If there was any low-hanging fruit, it would have already been pushed through via Biden, because a good economy is better at winning elections than a good promise.

More likely she remains a policy non-entity. Fox and friends will press on this as a safe, reasonable angle of attack, but they don’t have a good counterplan, since no one wants to admit to running a tight economy. That leaves us with “State” vs. “State” strategy: two smiling faces telling us they’re going to fix inflation and/or original sin.

Also, why would you want Trump to come down for either nuclear or crypto? I guess he can’t make the latter more sleazy, but he could single-handedly boost the green wing for a generation.

Also, why would you want Trump to come down for either nuclear or crypto?

Why would you not want the President of the United States to be on your side?

Because the current generation of eco-warriors are focusing more and more on carbon than on nuclear. The last thing they need is an infusion of fresh anti-Trump partisans.

Possibly because you believe he won't be able to accomplish anything for it anyway, but will tar the idea for the future by his association with it.

Even better: he'll highlight the crazy, the unserious, and the vindictive, letting you know to avoid them.

The three stools of Trump's original 2016 campaign were: illegal immigration, tariffs, and ending wars.

Tariffs were so successful that Biden continued many of them.

Ending wars was so popular that Biden also basically didn't start any new wars.

Illegal immigration: when Trump took this up in 2016 he was the only GOP politician talking about it, now it's mainstream. The wall went from being violently opposed to routine funding in Kamala's budget.

Trump is the most popular politician in America.

Ending wars was so popular that Biden also basically didn't start any new wars.

I don't think that Trump surrendering the the Taliban was that popular - it is just that the Republicans managed to pin the blame on Biden (who was in office when the final US pullout from Kabul was due under the surrender agreement Trump signed in Doha in Feb 2020.

FWIW, I think that Trump was right to surrender to the Taliban (there was no pro-US government in Afghanistan worth defending) and Biden was right to implement the surrender agreement rather than ratting on it the way the Deep State wanted him to. But I notice that "Biden pulled out of Kabul and bad things happened as a result" is an attack the Trump campaign are running on, notably at the Arlington press stunt, so I assume the people making the decisions think that this is a good line of attack.

When the Biden administration came in they tore up Trump's agreement with the Taliban in their desire to avoid ever giving Trump credit. Then followed the debacle. Trump deserves the "blame" for starting this chain of events, but hes right to note that Biden could have handled events better -- for example, not leaving all our weapons for the Taliban to pick up off the ground.

Criticizing America's poor leadership is one of the great themes of Trump's tenure in politics.

Ending wars was so popular that Biden also basically didn't start any new wars.

To be fair to the poor old man, Biden himself was notably part of the "peace wing" in the Obama administration - he opposed getting involved in Libya

Talk is cheap, and he didn’t have a son or an election on the line for the Lybian misadventure.

He did for Ukraine, hence the war.

Ending wars was so popular that Biden also basically didn't start any new wars.

Only technically true, in that he didn't start the war in Ukraine. However it has enormously escalated under his administration, and we're basically bankrupting our nation and ignoring every other priority to keep escalating it.

bankrupting

Less than 60 billion in total is hardly a rounding error...

I'm not sure whether I'm more amused by the conflation of correlation and causation in an inversion, or the unironic use of budgetary PR in a budget year that was nearly half continuing resolution.

Edit for elaboration, since it may come-

I find the claim that the Ukraine War escalated enormously under the Biden Administration laughable in a 'that is actually amusing' way, given the evolution of many dynamics since 2022.

In 2022, the Ukraine War was a war of national elimination by a Russia waged on three different fronts that threatened to collapse the Ukrainian state, multiple major population centers changed hands with a routine use of artillery against population centers, European countries were to supposedly facing mass freezing death in the winter and total economic deindustrialization for lack of gas, and Very Serious People and Motte Posters were warning that the specter of nuclear escalation was right around the corner if Ukraine received military supplies or tried to retake cities that the Russians had not only conquered but formally annexed. 'Plausible' peace terms included a unilateral disarmament to a scale where Ukraine would have fewer tanks to begin the next war with than it has lost since this war began, a great risk factor for a fourth continuation war. Western discussions on Ukraine included whether there would be an armed intervention, ranging from a No Fly zone to special forces advisors or 'volunteer' military formations.

In 2024, the Ukraine War has largely narrowed to one front, the scale of territory changes and civilian deaths has dropped precipitously to a degree that zoomed-in maps are required to assess relative changes that are hard to recognize from a country-wide scale, the Europeans are far from freezing and no longer operating under the previous economic sword of damoclese, and nuclear threats are so passe that the Russians themselves are downplaying the first invasion and occupation of Russian territory since WW2. 'Plausible' peace terms now adays no longer pretend to rest on Ukrainian disarmament, but hinge on how many years it will take the Russians to re-build themselves out of a Soviet-era military and whether they would really try another attempt at Ukraine and thus does Ukraine have a reasonable need for western security alliances. Western discussions on Ukraine now includes routine criticisms that the lack of Western presence on the ground to die is an immoral policy of treating the Ukrainians as canon fodder.

The stakes, the risks, and even the rate of loss of the Ukraine War have decreased considerably since 2022. It is strategic de-escalation in nearly every sense of the word.

As for bankrupting the nation in the support of the Ukraine War, that would be somewhere between factually inaccurate and glossing over many other more relevant contexts that prevent one's preferred policies from being funded.

Ok let's play some fantasy football here in the comments:

YOU are the wizard of oz behind the Kamalarama. You need to come up with a line of argument, a plan of attack, to coach her on that will win the debate for your candidate. What do you do? Litigate Project 2025? Bring up Hannibal Lecter in your own answers (seriously what's the deal with that)? Ask him when he last spoke to Mike Pence? Ask him when he stopped cheating on Melania?

What's the attack she can launch here?

The best outcome for Harris, and also the most likely outcome where the debate makes a large difference (I agree with other commentators that the debate is unlikely to change anything and that the most likely outcome is that both candidates have been effectively sedated by their teams and we get a mediocre snoozefest where nobody takes risks), is that she manages to put Trump on tilt and he spends a large part of the debate rambling incoherently. Double points if he rambles incoherently about the 2020 election because that makes him look like a bad loser.

I don't know what are the best attacks to put Trump on tilt, but I assume Harris has people on her team who do have an idea. The critical point is that the target audience is Trump, not the people watching on TV. The cliche one is to talk about how small his hands are.

prescient! as was parent's hannibal lecter mention.

I think emulating Obama's 2012 "the 1980s called. They want their foreign policy back" debate performance is probably a good call. Especially with how effective the "Republicans are weird" attacks have been recently. Be confident and even a little dismissive, while constantly jabbing at how weird/conspiratorial Trump and his allies are. Try to bait Trump into coming across as a loony old man while presenting herself as the boring, safe option that's not going to slip into senility two years in.

This could backfire and come across as bitchy if Trump manages to remain disciplined and statesmanlike, but Trump historically has about half an hour in him before discipline breaks down and he starts free associating.

I think something like Trumps tax cuts and tariffs are going to blow up the economy at a precarious time when you want the adults in charge, could work.

Maybe a "too online" jab as a variation of the "weird" jab now that he's getting Elon Musk to cut down the government, which intrigues me but could come off as alienating or reckless to the average voter? Basically emphasize that she cares about what people in the real world think instead of being obsessed with the internet.

Abortion should be an obvious win especially with the recent Trump Florida flip flop.

I think laying out a succinct case for what Trump's recent criminal cases are about, and push the fake electors story hard, saying something like two terms won't be enough, and after Trump it'll be Trump Jr. or something.

I think the best line of attack would be portraying Trump as a buffoon who lacks the work ethic or principles to accomplish anything or even do his job. Not a neo-Hitler or American ayatollah, but a huckster whose entire vision is driven by whatever talking head he last saw on Fox said. Mention how many games of golf he played while President (ideally, claim he has a terrible handicap and draw him into a prolonged argument about how good he really is). Have a long list of his broken promises and, if possible, at least some plausible sketch of a story of how the Biden/Harris administration actually fulfilled them. I'd encourage her to heavily embellish those stories; if there's even a remote kernel of reality to them, she won't get any flak for it, and even if it's an outright fabrication it doesn't matter too much. At the same time, represent herself as a competent workhorse who's capable of handling the job of President. Have defenses at the ready for attacks around her being too liberal, and feel free to jettison or reject any policies that are inconvenient.

The problem with playing exclusively the man and not the ball is that you only discredit Trump and not any of the things he wants to do. If you beat Trump by effectively saying that tariffs, immigration control, free speech etc. are great then people will expect you to implement those things in office. So you’ve won the battle but lost the war.

Ideally, you want to discredit your enemy and his ideas at the same time:

‘Orange Man’s ideas must be stupid, listen to him ramble on!’ And simultaneously, ‘only an idiot could think that cutting off free trade will improve the economy’.

  1. Winning is winning. I think people here overstate the level of committed ideology among practicing politicians. They mostly want to win and be celebrated by culture.

  2. There's the time honored strategy of campaigning one way and then governing another. You'll have less public support to implement your maximalist goals, but you'll also have won an election (and helped more downballot Democrats win their elections). That leaves you in a better position to achieve maximalist goals than losing and being the minority party. When you wield power is when you try to shift public opinion: you have more tools at your disposal.

All true.

Seems like a pretty good strategy; I guess the obvious problem is the conflict with previous messaging, and trump appealing to his actual record in office versus kamala's record in office. still, a better suggestion than I think most of the strategists are offering.

Well, the previous messaging is baked in already. But although the best time to have good messaging is yesterday, the second best time is today.

There's a nice side benefit: Republicans will then say "she's a weather vane who's abandoned all her previous policies!" That does some damage to her, of course, but it's mitigated because voters hear "she abandoned a bunch of failed policies and is more moderate nowadays."

The smart attack is to outflank him from the populist side by out-promising him in a vague way. Whatever Trump says he'll do (on the economy, immigration, whatever) she'll do even more and better. "I'll do even more and give you more free stuff."

This approach doesn't appeal to me personally at all, and probably doesn't appeal to the type of person who is coaching Kamala for the debate, but it appeals to the average voter and Trump would have a hard time rebutting it.

I think the rebuttal would be to point out that she's been VP for 4 years, and neither she nor Biden nor the other Democrats have done or tried to do most of those things, and it's off-brand for them to even try. If Kamala promises to build a wall and it will be "uge! bigger and better than any wall ever built before. The best wall!" Trump will call her a liar. Now granted, Trump also didn't build a wall, but he tried, and can blame the Democrats for not letting him.

Kamala is restricted to promises that are consistent with Democrat positions, at least if she doesn't want to get called out as a blatant liar. And avoid alienating the Democrat voters.

I think her strongest line of attack would be the people who have worked with him before who either disavow him or are endorsing Harris. The nonpolitical normies are most likely to defer to people whose names they know and that they remember as competent bureaucrats.

I think her strongest line of attack would be the people who have worked with him before who either disavow him or are endorsing Harris.

Trump's best retort to that would be "Like Dick Cheney!" Maybe pantomiming a shotgun.

Yeah hammer home they are people like Cheney and it was a regret you (ie Trump) had in first admin. Then note the turnover Harris has in her office but note it wasn’t political but personal. Recount the story about how she made the intern stand when she walked into the office whilst being California AG.

Bring up Hannibal Lecter in your own answers (seriously what's the deal with that)?

What do you mean what's with it? It's a joke in a laugh line Trump has given in a few speeches. It's not esoteric.

I honestly don't know, because I cannot possibly craft an argument she could make at this late stage which could possibly win me over. Her proposals to raise capital gains tax, a new unrealized gains tax, her talk about how Trump has lost his "privilege" of free speech, this woman will utterly ruin this country. At best the deep state runs her like a puppet, same as they did Biden, to prosecute pointless foreign wars while a feckless DEI cabinet lets the country burn as they give speeches about how bridges are racist and sexist.

As for what she can do to win over that extra 1% of the electorate to clinch a close election, I'm not sure that's on her. That's going to be on the media to craft her legend, and social media to censor anything that puts holes in it. I mean, already, with virtually nothing that's changed about her, she's still the same abject failure of a presidential candidate she was in 2020. But the media has turned her into the second coming of Obama based on nothing.

All she really needs to do is get a few canned lines out that the media spin masters can work with, regardless of context. That'll be clipped out. If she can get out a single "I'm talking now", whether it lands or not during the debate, SNL this Saturday will have a long hagiographic cold open dedicated to it. More people will see that than the debate, and that's how they'll actually remember it. And everyone will clap.

It doesn't work that way anymore because the very concept of a 'mainstream media' was shattered into a hundred thousand screaming fragments by the bale curse of social media. 'respectable' media like NYC and ABC may capture the lib normies but that audience is growing smaller by the year and more out of touch by the moment.

No one even remotely in our reality would think Kamala is a strong candidate.

No one even remotely in our reality would think Kamala is a strong candidate.

Someone reported this as "Building consensus," and it does come awfully close to saying "Nobody could possibly disagree with me." I'm gonna call this a borderline statement of opinion, but do avoid making statements like this no matter how strongly you think they are true, because there certainly are people "in our reality" (though maybe not on the Motte) who think this.

I apologize. I've got a bad habit of making hot takes.

To expand on that pithy statement, I can't see her as anything but a worse version of Hillary Clinton. She, at the very least, had experience in government and political wrangling. What does Kamala have in comparison?

Harris is a better candidate than Hillary Clinton. Clinton treated voters with apathy at best and unveiled contempt at worst. Kamala, whatever someone thinks of her substance, is actually trying to appeal to voters.

Mainstream media proved it still existed and was stronger than ever during COVID and the Summer of Floyd.

No one even remotely in our reality would think Kamala is a strong candidate.

All this could be, and I feel the same way. And yet, the fact remains, lots of voters are not "even remotely in our reality". The mainstream media might be shattered, but Kamala only needs to nudge things fractions of a percent, and those shards are fully capable of that.

Kamala's campaign has been about minimizing attack surface area. I don't see why they would go for broke here unless they think they need to. She'll have some zingers and jabs, because that's what the event is for, but my guess is the people around her don't aim to win the election off of the debate. Trump will provide enough distractions that turn an unimpressive, mediocre performance into a perfectly adequate one. I expect that's what the Kamala campaign wants: an adequate performance that provides some evidence she is not an empty husk. That Slate and WaPo can write about and gloat over. No big risks, no big offensive. She only wants small wins. Small little anecdotes that can comfort "ew/sigh, Trump" people to think okay maybe she is someone I will turn up to vote for.

If a bad (not catastrophic) performance happens there's still some time to at least partially recover. This probably applies to Kamala more so than Trump, but Trump already has a lot Trump priced into the polls right now. Play it safe, do the things, say the stuff, flip flopper, abortion, try not to implode, and hope other person implodes.

Policy differences aside, I'm not sure what kind of performance she could provide in a presidential debate that would convince me she's worth turning up for. It's a contrived arena and POTUS doesn't always get 4 weeks of prep to deal with stuff. I need to see her on her feet, nimble, thinking. I want to see her express a train of thought beyond Politico Brain Speak, or perhaps a more sophisticated version of those same platitudes would do.

There are plenty of people that are looking for reasons to trust Kamala is not only a DNC puppet suit and, while they would never say it, unqualified. Most of them do not like Trump, but she needs a couple wins for these people to point to. Trump, as ever, is a walking wild card. For all I know he'll give the greatest debate performance ever. The debate does provide a mostly unfiltered platform for Trump to reach people that typically only read about his latest antics in their feeds or reporting. If he wanted to sell a More Moderate Presidential Trump it's the best platform he'll get.

I don’t think that’s necessarily true.

First of all, like or hate Trump, he has political views and ideas and he’s been talking about them. She has said very little about what she wants to do. And I think unless she has something she wants to do, is just going to come off as weak. He wants to round up millions of illegal immigrants. What does she want to do here? If he talks about his plan and adds in the crazier stories about what immigrants are doing (for example killing ducks in Ohio parks) and it’s going to be hard to just vibe it. Likewise inflation. Talking in vague generalities isn’t going to make groceries or gas cheaper. Again, if he can point out those stories where this hurts ordinary Americans, she can’t exactly get away with not having a plan.

As far as the bad performance being recoverable, I’m not so sure just because of how close the election is. We vote November 5, two months from now. That’s a pretty small window and probably not enough time for memory to fade. People were talking about Biden’s bad debate for a month or more. I grant that his obvious Sun-downing is probably worse than anything she would ever do, but still it’s not easy to just forget an obviously bad debate. So she kinda has to go for broke here. If she can’t convince people t9 even consider her as anything other than an empty head, she’s not only not going to close the deal, but might lose some Never Trumps.

As I said I expect her performance to be sub-par for me, but most presidential debates are not memorable enough to store in my stupid faux elitist hipster brain. For Kamala's needs, and the average voter watching, I think she has a good chance of getting some small wins and not spontaneously combusting-- a la the Hindenburg or the sitting POTUS. People talked about Biden's debate because it was so terrible he had to leave the race. There's no one else behind her. Kamala is too big to fail.

If she does poor enough to get hurt in the polls she can tap a media machine that's chomping at the bit to get access to her to Learn What She Really Thinks. They will be happy to help her out. Admittedly, if she sucks so bad at the debate her entire campaign and media engagement strategy has to change that's not a good sign. I wouldn't bet on the crash and burn though. Does she need a good performance at the debate to win the election? I say no. Is she capable of getting some monster success out of the debate? I haven't seen signs she is capable of this, but she could surprise us!

That's why I predict safe, boring. She aims for the minimal adequate showing. She has a brain, a mouth, she can memorize some zingers. She's fine. Better than that other guy.

Perhaps this is more deserving of a top level, but Kamala released a policy page on her website! Interestingly, all her policy proposals are juxtaposed against her campaign's summaries of "Project 2025 Agenda". Man, they really committed hard to the 2025 angle. Some bean counter strategists must have determined that if attacking Trump isn't working anymore, then attacking something that represents him is just as good.

Policies include:

  • Guns are bad
  • Tax more
  • Tax less
  • Fentanyl is bad
  • Borders are under control thanks to me (Kamala, Not-Border-Czar Esq. II)
  • High rent is bad

I won't look at the Trump campaign's policy page but I bet I could copy paste most of this except guns and change high rent to high inflation. Since this was posted before the debate, I assume we'll hear all about her concrete policies posted to her website during the debate. People say she doesn't have much policy, but don't they know there are concrete policies on her website?

I mean we’re a bad sample simply because we’re tuned into political issues and discussion. Keep in mind that outside of the too-online left and right, most people’s interactions with politics happens in spurts — the conventions, the debates, and maybe they catch an interview or two on a talking head show. They have other interests and are too busy doing other things to really pay close attention to who’s doing what outside of the big show events. Which means that this debate is likely the first time these normies will have really paid attention to what either one of those candidates has to say. This means it’s a make or break for Harris who hasn’t publicly tried to run for office since 2020 when she failed pretty hard.

The media can help, but it’s not going to completely erase a bad performance especially 2 months from the polls. If the normies aren’t following closely, they might not see her interviews with friendly journalists.

Some bean counter strategists must have determined that if attacking Trump isn't working anymore, then attacking something that represents him is just as good.

Interestingly enough, I got a Pro-Trump leaflet through the door, and about a quarter of it was dedicated to debunking the fact that Trump supported Project 2025 along with some Trump quotes calling them wrongheaded or something similar.

That tends to suggest at least some of the Trump PAC's et al think connecting him with Project 2025 is a potential weak point. Otherwise you don't spend time and money counter-pointing it. Though my wife had never heard of Project 2025 so all it succeeded in doing for her was make her look it up in a kind of Streisand effect way.

The winner and the show stealer will be the fly, dispatched to vanquish Trump this time…

Upon the stage where giants took their stand,
A simple fly descended from the air.
On Pence’s crown it chose to make its land,
A moment strange, bizarre, beyond compare.
While words of policy and law were said,
That tiny creature stole the viewers' eyes.
A fleeting buzz now swarmed around his head,
And tarnished Pence with silent, mocking ties.
For though the speakers bandied weighty things,
The fly became the subject of the night.
No lofty speech nor future hope could bring
His image back from this odd, comic sight.
Thus, politics—so fragile in its grace—
Was boggled by a fly's brief, subtle trace.

The best bet for Kamala will be to be super fake and positive for as long as she can keep it together. She has a deeply unappealing demeanor, and if she can keep that under wraps it will be to her benefit. Quips like "I am speaking now" might cheer the troops but will lose her votes. Trump will try to bait her. If she sticks to her pre-scripted answers she'll do better.

Whatever happens, the media will say that Kamala "won" the debate. If she is halfway competent, they will even say it was "one of the greatest performances of all time" up there with Single Ladies.

Speaking of exaggeration, Trump will say that when he was in charge, the U.S. economy was the strongest of all time. He will probably invoke Communism at some point.

90% chance that Kamala will lean heavily on the biggest lie of the campaign to date: that Trump will ban abortion nationwide.

Agree with other posters that Trump holds a large home field advantage. Kamala’s task is to define herself without angering anyone. This is hard, and she doesn’t really have time for people to get over it when she PO’s people or says retarded things. Trump, on the other hand, his foot-in-mouth disease is like water off a duck’s back for anyone who could vote for him at this point.

I saw a profile of undecided voters from the NYT. Median picture- not a trump fan but think they can live with him, pocketbook voter, feels like he doesn’t know enough about Kamala to make an informed decision. Usually, the more people see of Kamala on economics the less they like her. So advantage; Trump.

With the parties' microphone being muted while the opponent is speaking, that prevents Trump from shooting his mouth off too much, and it prevents Kamala getting her true girlboss moment where she shuts down the misogynist orange man.

If we get the relatively restrained Trump from the first Biden debate (feels forever ago, honestly!) I think he makes it out okay.

I can't think of a single Trump debate moment that actually hurt his standing, there may be a couple but he's a known quantity. Unless someone else takes a shot at him during the debate it won't be anything remarkable.

I don't see how Kamala makes it through the entire thing without at least one 'gaffe' and it is possible her normal demeanor, once its on full display for an extended period of time, just grates on everyone.

I'd argue that Kamala has the really hard job to make herself look both competent and collected, and if she doesn't land a single solid blow on Trump she loses by default.

I think there is potential that Kamala has a complete cackling brain fart moment where she spews a genuinely absurd answer to a question she didn't anticipate. This will be somewhat relevant but will depend on whether its 'memeable' or not, I'd guess.

Mainstream coverage of the debate will declare she dominated the entire time in any case.

I can't think of a single Trump debate moment that actually hurt his standing, there may be a couple but he's a known quantity. Unless someone else takes a shot at him during the debate it won't be anything remarkable.

His first debate in 2020 was very bad. Not as bad as Biden's recent debate, but worse than pretty much all others in living memory.

I think you are generally unfair to Trump but this is spot on. Dude couldn’t shut up and saved Biden numerous times.

There will be pressure on Harris to get in at least one "zinger", although it doesn't need to be too effective. She just needs to show that she can form a coherent thought to be better than Biden. Harris will be well-rehearsed so I doubt there's much of a chance that she self-destructs as spectacularly as Biden did. There's a chance that Trump could do something crazy, although he's too tired now to act like he did in 2020 so I also don't think the chance is that high. He can ramble semi-coherently and it will be enough since the bar is extremely low for him.

I'd say there's a 10% chance one candidate loses badly, a 30% chance Harris overperforms slightly, a 20% she underperforms slightly (relative to expectations), and a 40% chance that both candidates hold their own and nothing really happens.

Harris will deliver a mediocre performance that will look positively masterly next to Trump's old man ravings. It will have minimal impact because every aspect of Trump's incapacity is priced in. Practically speaking, Harris can't win, she can only lose.

what do you think the policy strengths/weaknesses will be?

Trump's biggest policy strength is simply that he is the challenger and can thus run on vague promises instead of his actual record. Whenever he talks about specifics, it's embarrassing (but again, priced in - no one expects Trump to know what he's talking about). His biggest vulnerability on that front is that he's surrounded himself with extremist weirdos who have fairly radical ambitions and Trump has a history of being pretty milquetoast with respect to his advisors, so he may suffer if those attacks stick to him. "JD Vance pals around with mask-off authoritarian billionaires" is probably a more fruitful line of attack than "your proposed economic policies are positively Argentinian", even though the latter is more substantive.

Harris' biggest policy strength is that she's not Trump and can thus talk about policy in a way that doesn't threaten to have your brain self-deport through your ear canal. Her biggest policy weakness is that her policy proposals are still very bad and she's not going to get graded on a curve like Trump will be.

5% chance Trump refers to Harris with a racial slur. 50% chance Trump makes some implausibly deniable misogynistic remark.

Practically speaking, Harris can't win, she can only lose.

Then why take the debate?

There's only certain lengths you can go before defensive campaigning looks like cowardice.

And you can't really afford that given the circumstances.

You don't want Trump able to say "I knocked out Biden and now Harris is hiding, I took a bullet for the American people and she's too afraid to even tell you who she is. Who do you want standing up for you?"

Doing one debate denies him at least that.

As far as I can tell, she inherited the debate agreement from the Biden campaign, and would look weak backing out of the already-reduced debate schedule (and rules!) he had committed to. I believe the last few cycles have had three debates, all after the conventions.

I think there are rumors they tried to get the rules modified (unmuting mics), but I don't think they changed them. IMO if Harris were a strong candidate, they'd be trying to schedule another one or two, but I haven't heard any such rumors.

She and her staff may not share my belief. Also, they may believe (possibly correctly) that not debating is worse than the likely outcome of an unimpactful debate.

Trump is the moderate realignment candidate, this is why he's backing off abortion and being endorsed by Kennedy, Tulsi Gabbard, and Elon Musk. The odds of Trump using a racial slur are zero, because like his decorum or not he comes from a generation that finds such things unspeakable. (If he didn't say it about Michael Jackson or Muhammed Ali why would Trump wait 80 years and then start dropping slurs now?)

His biggest vulnerability on that front is that he's surrounded himself with extremist weirdos who have fairly radical ambitions

Like the Biden administration? Like Kamala?

Kamala has to do 80% of the work in the debate.

Trump is a known quantity in these things. Rambling will occur. His best messaging will be on immigration.

He'll have three some (EDIT: editing for clarity, but leaving the original typo because the first response to it was hilarious)

Trump will launch some zingers that land with varying degrees of efficacy.

Kamala has to convince those on the fence that she's not just a party apparatchik. She also stands to risk some support if she gets caught in a flip-flip struggle (some outlets are reporting that part of Trump's strategy is to try to corner Harris with her own debate performance from the 2019 primaries).

The median case is just that - something like a 2-3 point bump in the polls for whoever "wins' the debate. But this cycle has been about outliers. The last debate resulted in a sitting president getting knocked out of the race. So, what are some possible outliers?

  • Trump could actually say something to sink him with a large part of undecided women - the key demographic for the election. It won't be about abortion, but I wonder if Harris can needle him enough so he off-handedly says something along the lines of "This is why you can't have a woman as president, the're too nasty." Trump loses hard on comments like this.

  • Trump plays possum enough to let Harris sink herself. This is an almost guaranteed win strategy, but Trump finds it hard to help himself and just not say much. The interesting thing is this was actually what happened for a good part of the first half of the Biden debate. Trump saw that Joe's train was running off the tracks and just stayed out of the way .... before joining him in the ditch over the second half of the debate. If Trump had more discipline, he could engineer some pretty amazing mechanics with this in the debate - say he gets a 30 second rebuttal period after some Harris response, instead of responding at all, he could say "Actually, I'd really like to hear more from VP Harris on xyz" and just give her 30 more seconds to implode.

  • Harris short-circuit version 1: She gets tongue tied and confused early with an answer and defaults to a weird combination of canned responses and her woo-woo wine aunt aphorisms. This is probably the debate perfformance (outside of the median) that most people are expecting - and the reason why Harris has, reportedly, been conducting many, many prep debates with her staff. If this happened, I think you might be looking at almost the same level of panic as after the Biden debate. There's not enough time for Harris to recover and the worst clips would be repeated ad nauseum in PA and elsewhere. Like I said in another post, there's a chance Trump goes 2-0 with 2 KOs in Debates this year.

  • Harris short-circuit version 2: ONLY Canned responses without any zingers to Trump or "hear felt" personal anecdotes or connection to voters. Comes across as robotic and scared to go off script. Will answer follow up questions with close to literal repetitions of what she just said. Minimal wine-aunt woo-woo-isms, but not zero. This exits as a Trump win, for sure, but I don't see the same level of panic in the DNC / Harris campaign. They would wake-up Wednesday thinking it wasn't that bad and "she won on substance." They run the rest of the campaign with these odd "isn't she so relatable!" spots from time to time (remember the infamous Hillary in Cedar Rapids selfie video). The end result is a Trump win bigger than everyone expects. The sobering, "Oh, shit, how did we not see this coming after the debate?" will hit like a falling silo on election night.

All that being said, the thing that will definitely not happen - but that I want to - is one of the debate moderators asking, "Why the hell have both of you gone full retard on economic policy. Tariffs and unrealized capital gains taxes. No reform to social security and medicare. How will your administration handle the recession that will likely occur during your first year in office?"

Personally, I think I would prefer her to be a party apparatchik, because I think another President DNC is preferable to a President Kamala. I wonder how many Democrats feel the same. The impression I am getting from many Democrats is that they're voting for the party not Kamala, so coming across as a party apparatchik might actually be a the better move. She just needs to come across as the black female girlboss figurehead but not too obnoxious to turn off moderates.

because I think another President DNC is preferable to a President Kamala.

In what ways?

While the DNC might be preferable to this particular candidate, it's not a positive development for the country.

Who are the DNC? They are people who care about partisan politics so deeply that they dedicate their lives to working for a political machine. They are not elected by the people but instead advance via intra-elite status competition. In short, they are activists and ideologues.

The median views of a White House staffer are far removed from those of the typical American. They defer to the voters only to the extent that it helps them win the next election. Then it's right back to doing the things they wanted to do anyway. Did the voters ever call for open borders? No. But that what the activists wanted, so that's what we got.

A President is more directly answerable to the people than his staffers. A strong President can restrain the extremist views of his staffers. But a weak President like Biden or G. W. Bush gets dragged into doing whatever their handlers want. As a result, we got endless wars and open borders. Kamala, with no internal compass of her own, means more of the same.

A strong President can restrain the extremist views of his staffers. But a weak President like Biden or G. W. Bush gets dragged into doing whatever their handlers want.

I like the idea of a "high draft pick" presidential candidate being (1) Self-assured to almost the level of obstinate and (2) Very vocally honest about their value system, world view, and political theory.

This would probably result in more Trump-like dispositions in candidates (regardless of political persuasion). Higher temperature in terms of campaigns, but, perhaps, a lot more predictability in the administration.

This is a fair ... enough ... reason to vote, but my perspective would be that "rule by party" resulted in an orchestrated dishonesty campaign denying the senility of an elderly man endowed with the power of the office of the President.

When no single person is "in charge" and decisions can be made with a collective diffusion of responsibility, bad things happen.

As a partisan Democrat, my issue with Joe Biden was he could not win the election. He can still do the job of President, at the very least no worse than 2nd term Ronald Reagan, he just couldn't be President & run an effective campaign due to his age.

I think it might be worth examining your biases re: Ronald Reagan.

Here is a speech from Reagan towards the end of his second term. A balloon pops and he reacts on his feet, quipping "missed me", which causes the audience to erupt in laughter.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=2IGDYGroToY

Here's Reagan giving a 36 minute speech in 1992, four years AFTER the end of his Presidency.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=WxL3OU1dwmI

In this video we can see signs of decline, but he's still quite a bit more functional than Biden today. Will Biden be giving speeches at the 2028 convention? Will he even be alive?

There's a lot of sane-washing that's being done on Biden's behalf. People are trying to claim "both sides". It's simply not true. His current decline is far beyond what we've ever seen for a President.

The reason he could not win the election was that he is a senile old man, which impacts his ability to be president quite a bit as well.

Donald Trump is the main reason to vote Democrat, and Democrats are now the party of trusting the experts. I think Democrats mostly just want "their people" (the experts) in charge, and President Kamala is just a product of circumstance. If Kamala tried to exert too much autonomy, I think the party would remove her like they did Biden, or at least freeze her out and frustrate her efforts to do anything. It could happen quite suddenly, perhaps with some scandal that had previously been denied and ignored. I think Democrats would mostly be okay with this. There is very little talk about the previous dishonesty campaign, nor the fact that the US does not and has not had a functional President for a long time. That doesn't seem to be shifting anyone to vote differently, because they're voting for the party. Attempts to build a cult of personality around Kamala have been mostly astroturfed, and it has no staying power.

Trump is entirely opposite in this regard. Much of Trump's support comes despite the party. He does have a cult of personality. This is perhaps a much weaker ideological coalition, and I am concerned about what will happen when Trump's luck runs out the next time someone shoots at him.

"This is why you can't have a woman as president, the're too nasty." Trump loses hard on comments like this.

Well, he didn't say that for Hillary.

I was specifically trying to describe outlier scenarios. I don't think he'll say it regarding Kamala, but the chance is not zero. Furthermore, while I don't buy into the "Trump is just as cognitively frail as Biden!" narrative, I think there has been some level of performance decline over the past eight years. I don't see Trump flying into a totally unhinged misogynistic diatribe on "womenz are bad!" It could see Trump, in his stream of consciousness, letting fly some line like the one I proposed in my original post. Look at the J.D Vance "cat ladies" comment; off the top of his head in an interview, and it was horribly received pretty much all the way around. If Trump hits the same note, even if the line is flippant and unserious, it matters in an election that will come down to ~250k votes.

He'll have three some zingers

“Blowjob Kamala? More like spit roast Kamala.”

(If you’ll excuse me, I need to wash my mouth out with soap.)

Thanks for the hilarious catch. I edited the original.

Continue doing the Lord's work, brother.

Harris will give bizarre word salad non answers to half the questions, but the other half she'll have a nearly flawless rehearsed answers for.

Trump will mostly ignore the questions and just go on about whatever topics he feels he's strongest in. His answers will also be too online, and assume you know what he's talking about. At some point he'll bring up the 20,000 Hattians in Ohio, but it will be in the most confusing way possible. You'll either know what he's gesturing at and nod along, or think he's an absolute crazy person.

Despite the mics being muted while the other person is talking, at some point Kamala will try to shoehorn in "I'm talking now", because the "vote blue no matter who" crowd loves it when she says that and it gets them all fired up. But in context it will make almost zero sense.

If the debate rules break down at some point like they did with Biden, and they stop muting the mics, I have no fucking clue what sort of chaos will break loose. Pretty sure Harris' entire strategy is to just bully Trump into shutting up with girlboss energy, but I'll be extremely disappointed if he lets her. But I wouldn't be shocked if the moderators put their finger on the scale and start selectively muting Trump so Harris can speak in that situation, even if it's supposed to be his time to speak, like for his 2 minute rebuttal or however they structure it.

If Trump actually accused Kamala of helping Haitians eat cats what the heck happens?

"You, and Joe Biden brought in millions of illegal immigrants, and now. Did you see this folks? They are stealing and eating cats in Ohio. True story, I couldn't believe it myself."

I think it'll be way less coherent than that. You can actually tell what's happening almost in your fictionalization. I think it'll be something where Trump just blurts out, apropos of little

"She put the Hattians on Ohio! Terrible, terrible. Many such cases." And if you know, you know. If you don't, he just sounds crazy. What about Hattians in Ohio? Was Kamala actually in any way responsible for... whatever he's talking about? He might as well be ranting about lizard people or clockwork elves.

But your paragraph doesn't have to word "cats". The cats part is something Trump could really fixate on if he gets told about it.

I know. That's the point. The last year Trump has been terrible at explaining the things he's seen on Twitter. He just blurts out some words that are kind of a sentence, and if you saw the same meme he saw, you know what he's talking about. Absent that, it's a mystery.

The only Trump I've watched lately was him getting shot and the debate. Debate Trump would talk about eating cats and say something like, "they're eating cats now, cats. People's cats. Terrible terrible people, and Kamala wanted them here "

Abortion will still be a sore spot for Trump and Kamala will focus tehre

I'm not sure why it's a sore spot, but then I may not have kept up with the "debate" on that topic. Can't Trump honestly (for Trump) say something like:

"What are you talking about? I've been saying all along abortion should be left up to the states to legislate, and oh, look, now the Supreme Court says I was right all along, it should be left up to the states. Which contrary to your side's usual fear-mongering, is all the ruling says. I already won! The federal government is out of the abortion business. Don't take my word for it, ask the Supreme Court, that's the law of the land now. There's nothing either of us can do about it, even if I wanted to, which I don't!"

That's actually less exaggerated and blustery than the average policy-related thing Trump says; as far as I know it's basically true. He's probably the least anti-abortion Republican president in living memory, yet has (indirectly) given that side its biggest win of my lifetime. It seems to me neither side can attack him convincingly on this topic. What am I missing?

Can't Trump honestly (for Trump) say something like PERFECTLY REASONABLE THING

Not really. Because the level of discourse is just too stupid. The average person doesn't know anything about the Constitution, how the government works, etc... They just want more (or fewer) abortions because other team bad.

Nevertheless, I'm not sure this issue is quite the slam dunk the Democrats think it is. The number of Americans who are pro-choice is not a large majority, only a narrow one. At times in the not-so-distant past, pro-life has been the majority.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/225975/share-of-americans-who-are-pro-life-or-pro-choice/

Donald Trump's position on abortion is much closer to the median voter's than Kamala Harris. Al Gore's "safe, legal, rare" was a good formulation. But the current Democratic party positively celebrates abortion. They refuse to denounce horrific late-term abortions. Things like having an abortion truck at the DNC come off as vampiric. It's not a good look. Which is why they lie about Trump's position rather than defend their own.

The thing is, Trump's personal opinions on abortion don't matter. Trump isn't proposing any changes to federal law, and in fact the justices he appointed ensured that he can't. His opposition to Florida's actions are all talk, and given he's on the campaign trail there's no reason to believe he'll put any public pressure on future actions if he wins the election.

Trump's effective policy on abortion is ending Roe v. Wade, which opened the floodgates on states banning abortion. But aside from a few extremely principled libertarians, that's not the policy anybody actually wants. Whichever side of the abortion debate people are on, their beliefs are strong enough that they probably want those beliefs to apply nationwide. And given he's running as a Republican, Trump is still on team "wants to stop virtually all abortion."

The thing is, Trump's personal opinions on abortion don't matter.

You're misunderestimating Trump. He has fully captured the Republican party. He forced them to remove anti-abortion language from the platform.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-backed-republican-platform-tempers-language-abortion-2024-07-08/

Kamala is a product of the machine. Trump is its master. His personal opinions on abortion matter a lot.

Whichever side of the abortion debate people are on, their beliefs are strong enough that they probably want those beliefs to apply nationwide

I actually don't think so.

Probably like 25% of the population are pro-life absolutists. And maybe 5% or 10% are pro-choice absolutists. But most people support abortions in some cases but not others (and miniature American flags for everyone). And lots of people don't care about the issue a lot either way.

He has fully captured the Republican party. He forced them to remove anti-abortion language from the platform.

My personal interpretation of Trump is I don't think he would take any real action in any direction on abortion once he's in office. I think he's more interested in being President because of the prestige of being President more than for any policy reasons. And because of that I don't think he would do much if they returned to that policy after the election.

But to tie it back to the point about Kamala vs. Trump's debates, I think she can simply ignore what you said and concentrate on him being largely responsible for overturning Roe v. Wade. I expect lots of talk about Texas.

Probably like 25% of the population are pro-life absolutists.

Let's clarify some language here. I was trying to do so in my first response but let's confirm if we're on the same page here.

When it comes to marijuana legalization, you might have an opinion one way or another but if the state next to you decided to legalize or criminalize marijuana, you might say it's none of your business. If the state next to you decided to legalize murder you would probably say "What the hell?! Change it back!" It likely will not affect you but it still offends your sense of right and wrong. Most people are not pro-life absolutists in that they might make exceptions under X weeks or in the case of child rape, etc. But I do think whatever criteria they think is right, they generally think is right everywhere and should apply everywhere, rather than being decided on a state by state basis.

My personal interpretation of Trump is I don't think he would take any real action in any direction on abortion once he's in office.

Which, surprisingly, is congruent with what he says he'll do.

I'm convinced that unless one has strong philosophical priors related to either the sanctity of life (life begins at conception) or bodily autonomy (woman's right to choose), the intuitive moral answer is one that you almost aren't allowed to say in public: there are capital-G Good abortions, there are bad abortions, and there are meh abortions. There are times when it is close to murder, there are times when it is a mitzvah, and there are times I don't really care one way or the other. And there are a hundred virtually unprovable factors that go into that determination.

But by altering what kind of abortion you are talking about, you rapidly change people's opinions on abortion.

But we have numbers!

Everything below comes from this link from Guttmacher. Guttmacher is rabidly pro-choice.

You can piece through the crosstabs as you like, but I focus on these numbers:

  • There are about a million abortions a year.
  • "45% of abortions were obtained at six weeks’ gestation or earlier,"
  • " 49% at 7–13 weeks’ gestation"
  • Only 7% occur after 14 weeks
  • The abortion rate is 15.9 per 1,000 women aged 15 - 44. If my mathin' is good, this would be 1,590 per 100,000. St. Louis has 69.4 murders per 100,000 people, the highest in the country. Do with that apples-to-oranges comparison what you will.

Here's another Guttmacher link - " About half of all U.S. women having an abortion have had one previously."

What does all of this mean?

Your categorization of good/bad/meh abortions is good and useful. The raw numbers, however, show that even if "bad" abortions make up a very small minority of all abortions, we're talking about (probably) somewhere on the order of 100,000s of cases of what a lot of reasonable people would probably view as infanticide.

Secondly, there's a bit of a hidden conclusion to drawn from the "Only 7% occur after 14 weeks" statistic. Some posters here like to point out how raising a r*tarded child is somehow beyond the pale for many humans (I think differently). Taken a little more charitably, it makes sense to consider that a fetus that has demonstrable physical or cognitive deformities could give would-be parents pause. But, if 45% of people are getting these abortions at six weeks or earlier, people aren't making these judgements based on particularly advanced fetus condition. At 6 weeks, an embryo is 6mm long, the size of a pea. Yes, there could be markers, indications, signs, what have you. But the often presented narrative of "We learned our baby would require 24/7 care forever" is far more rare than is presented in campaign narratives.

And that leads me back to the numbers. Democrats love to campaign on the the smaller proportion of abortions that would probably fall mostly into "meh" (and definitely into "good"). Pro-lifers see the plain fact that a lot of abortions are purely elective on the part of a mother than feels somehow "unready" to be a mother. We (I) think these are absolutely "bad" abortions, mostly the product of a sexual lack of discipline or a cavalier disregarding for what are very predictable outcomes of, you know, having sex.

While I don't doubt the sincerity of those emotions, there is no way they outweigh the fundamental right of an otherwise healthy baby to be born. Hypothetical future states about being "unloved" or "having a bad life" have to be thrown out. That's literally trading the truth of the present for an emotionally based forecast of the future. That's bad decision making 101.

Finally, regarding the fact that half of all women getting abortions have had one previously, I don't see how this is anything than stupid after-the-fact birth control. "Young girl makes mistake" is certainly an understandable situation for a single abortion. I do not see how it can be that common (50%!) unless it is viewed plainly as "no big deal"

Infanticide was a large part of the human condition for hundreds of thousands of years. With no real access to abortion and no way to tell if a child would be deformed at birth it was a very common practice.

"Most Stone Age human societies routinely practiced infanticide, and estimates of children killed by infanticide in the Mesolithic and Neolithic eras vary from 15 to 50 percent. Infanticide continued to be common in most societies after the historical era began, including ancient Greece, ancient Rome, the Phoenicians, ancient China, ancient Japan, Pre-Islamic Arabia, Aboriginal Australia, Native Americans, and Native Alaskan"

Killing actual living babies and not just a small pile of cells with no consciousness is a time honored human tradition, back when HARD TIMES™ made HARD MEN.

Abortion seems like a big step up in humanitarian behavior.

You're discounting that gestational time plays into most people's moral calculus. Most people feel differently about six weeks than six months. Which is logical: miscarriage rates start dropping precipitously after six weeks, and are minuscule after ten weeks. Many people might be placing those abortions of fetuses the size of peas in the meh category automatically, as the probabilistic child isn't probable enough or present enough at that stage.

To piggyback off of what @The_Nybbler said. This comes down to a bright line definition of when life starts. And an honest debate about abortion would have that at its center.

It's funny, we've all heard the joke about it being impossible to be "a little bit pregnant" - you are or you aren't. It seems, however, you can be pregnant with something that is only "a little bit human."

The problem is that this becomes the Sorites Paradox -- the paradox that asks the question "how many grains of sand make a heap?" (Worse, actually, because time is continuous). It's not resolvable.

@100ProofTollBooth

I'm not saying it doesn't present a philosophical illogicality. What I am saying is that philosophical consistency ends up requiring (for most people) taking counterintuitive actions in real life.

Taking a hard black-and-white stand at conception or at birth prevents you from ever facing inconsistency. But each requires biting the bullet and accepting some tough choices. The shift from people identifying as pro-life vs pro-choice is mostly capturing shifts in the perceived environment around those people, their actual beliefs resemble neither philosophically consistent position.

The polling is like asking people "Do you think we should paint things Blue?" Some small percentage of people will genuinely never tolerate anything blue, and some small percentage of penn state fans want everything blue. Most people will change their minds depending how many things are already blue.

I see what you're saying. This makes sense. And I appreciate the comment on philosophical consistency.

I'm not pro-life because of dogmatic adhere to religious teachings (although I do that in my spare time). I'm pro-life because I think philosophical consistency would push the more rabidly pro-choice into favoring eugenics.

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Right, I would be aghast if my sister got an abortion. But some crack whore getting an abortion? Yes, please, do everyone a favor! Or someone who will resent that child for the rest of its life due to the circumstances of its conception? By all means, save that poor kid the trouble. And of course that’s not even touching all the health-related stuff, both when it comes to the baby and to the mother.

I would be aghast if my sister got an abortion because she just didn't want a third child. Or if she had an abortion because she didn't want another boy. I would be aghast if my sister chose not to abort a down's syndrome kid, or a pregnancy that threatened her life.

Oh certainly, like I said, once you introduce serious health complications into the picture, my take is pretty much always, “Just get the abortion.”

Serious question, not trying to bait.

What if we have or develop a technology that gives you an early probability. You're 6 weeks pregnant and you get a report along the lines of "There's a 15% probability your baby will have xyz horrible disease or condition. We will know with 60% certainty at week 18, and 90% certainty at week 24"

What's the decision model look like then?

Right, so obviously I’m sure situations like this do come up, and I wouldn’t fault a woman for pretty much any decision she makes under that level of uncertainty. I would need to factor in things like: how much more difficult is the abortion going to be on her body the longer the decision is postponed?

I’m currently reading John Irving’s The Cider House Rules, and one of the early chapters in the book is about one of the characters becoming an abortionist in the late 19th century and the absolute horrors the women endured at that time; a lot of it dwells on how much more difficult and potentially fatal an abortion becomes the longer she is into the pregnancy. Now, obviously our medical technology is worlds better in the 21st century, but I would think that the likelihood of complications still increases substantially as the pregnancy progresses. I’m not a doctor and don’t want to speculate about what I would recommend for a woman in such a scenario. I hope to God I and my hypothetical future partner never have to make a decision like this.

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I think most would agree with this choice put in front of them, but the faith in the public health system generally is low enough that it might poll surprisingly poorly, especially if stories of (pro-choice) doctors handing out "totes serious health complications" notes for late-term abortions like prescriptions for emotional support animals. Witness the slippery slope that euthanasia in Canada has wrought.

That is the logical take, there are many on this forum that think you should be forced to raise a retard and care for them until you die because all life is sacred. So sacrifice your life and your wife's to raise an unproductive person that would probably have died without modern medicine because God says so.

I mean, no.

Because I believe in it and think it's right - that's why I'd raise an "unproductive person" (BTW how do you feel about 100% disability war veterans, just asking)

Your model for a "worthwhile life" doesn't trump anyone else's model for a "worthwhile life."

The only way to discover if you can derive meaning in life is to live it.

Never allowing that life to start is certainly a way towards finality.

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I think this is the mainstream opinion too.

Therefore, the goal of each side is to make the other side defend their most extreme beliefs. Here's where Trump can win I think.

He can flat out say "I do not support an abortion ban. But my opponent supports ultra late-term abortions". Kamala will have a hard time denouncing late-term abortions because she is a product of a machine that highly values conformity.

I mean the question is whose extremists are going to inflict a cost on the candidate for having a philosophically squishy position.

Not really. Trump is willing to defy his extremists on this issue(and almost all of them will vote for him anyways); Kamala is not(and they'll never have to face the question).

Trump can (and might) say that Harris supports abortions up to nine months, as he said about the Florida abortion referendum (after saying "we need more than six weeks", he said "At the same time, the Democrats are radical because the nine months is just a ridiculous situation" -- the MSM news blackout is such that I had to search specifically for Fox News to get this; other MSM just describe this as "Trump repeating lies about late-term abortions" or something similar). Of course the fact checkers will call this a lie (and it might be), but I don't think that matters at this point.

Yeah, it's a good point. More people will be exposed to heavily-filtered post debate coverage than the debate itself.

Honestly, the best bet for Trump is if Kamala shows up drunk or does something else that is too juicy too ignore. The debate won't be won or lost on policy.

Imagine the chaos if Trump says he can smell alcohol on Kamala’s breath.

Debate drinking game rules:

If Trumps says the words "wine aunt", everyone has to drink.

What am I missing?

Trump is the Republican nominee for president

a) Trump appointed the SC majority that overturned existing precedent on abortion. b) Democratic voters believe (correctly) that many Republicans want to ban abortion nationwide and many more Republicans are happy to go along with that.

There's zero chance that happens, of course.

Probably, but outside of election season, Trump is likely to be providing party support to those who will try whatever they can. For example, I still have no idea how Texas' laws about traveling out of state to get an abortion are not a violation of interstate commerce.

Yeah, I'd be inclined to agree. Kavanaugh, at least, would agree as well (he said so in Dobbs), so I imagine that's true of Roberts too. It'll die if it makes it to the Supreme Court.

You're missing that feels > reals. To the Democrats and to a sizeable chunk of unaligned it's not a complex philosophical or political issue with any nuances. There's the good guys who want abortion to be more accessible and the bad guys who want it to be less accessible (either due to ignorance or for cartoonishly evil reasons). Anyone who says it should be up to the states is for making it less accessible, because the position they were working from is it being federally protected. The idea that one could personally wish for it to be available but shouldn't be a federal matter does not register because Democrats consider government as a tool to use and not a neutral umpire enforcing rules and codes. It's baked in to both parties' core identity; in a democracy the majority votes and gets their way, but a republic is a specific structure.

Previous Republicans gestured at reducing accessibility but it didn't change. Due to Trump's supreme court nominations, abortion is less accessible. Nevermind that it's just he was in charge when something Republicans were working on for decades reached a tipping point, his presidency is the one that put the final nails in the coffin of Roe v Wade, so he's the worse of them all.

Are you saying that "feels > reals" doesn't apply to Trump's base as well? It is the human condition, not specific to one party or group.

Are you saying that "feels > reals" doesn't apply to Trump's base as well? It is the human condition, not specific to one party or group.

I am definitely not saying that. It is absolutely universal.

I just had to ask as you pointed out Democrats and undecideds but not Republicans or MAGAs.

They have their own topics on which they'll ignore the other side's nuanced opinions and just go by what's most convenient to assume the other side's saying. Accusations of "communism" from that side are often like that.

but my personal dream is that nuclear and crypto become talking points, and Trump very publicly comes out for both.

Being a crypto holder, I'm more concerned with the Dems/Harris' opposition to it than Trump's support for it. At the Nashville bitcoin conference thing, Trump tried to make it into a more partisan thing. I'm worried that Harris might respond to this with more opposition rather than trying to win votes from crypto holders...

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