Thought this would be useful
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Notes -
I’m going to have to go to sleep soon (watching from the UK) but I think Kamala is doing pretty well so far. She sounds relaxed, well-informed, and hasn’t tripped over herself or gone into major word salads. Trump is doing a solid Trump and has got in some good jabs but some of his talking points have been a bit wacky. The Haitian “people eating pets” story may be true or may be false, but I think it would have been better played as, eg, “people are saying this, now I don’t know if it’s true, or if it’s rumours, but it doesn’t matter, there have been some people killed by illegal Haitian drivers, and the people of Springfield are in a panic, they feel abandoned by a government that doesn’t care about them.” Only 40 minutes in though so all to play for…
Edit: lol, “if she becomes president I predict Israel won’t exist 2 years from now”. On top of that line about how “He [Biden] hates her” it really feels like Trump is losing his rag.
Edit2: Harris much better than Trump on foreign policy imho. Maybe it’s because I’m a geopolitics nerd but so many of Trump’s talking points sound like they’re aimed at <85 IQ people who don’t know crap about the world.
Edit3: Trump definitely deteriorating imho. Losing coherence and dropping talking points in a scattershot fashion. Moderators are obviously biased in Kamala’s favour, but I don’t think it significantly changes the vibes. Trump could have been calling them out on that in a smart way but he’s just not doing a good job.
Edit4: goddamn you America, I have to work in a few hours
Make it <105 IQ and we’re just talking about the electorate.
A very small number of people actually know what goes on in international affairs. If we’re lucky we might get a book a decade after the thing happens, written by someone who has an interest in making themselves look good. Or a declassified documents dump, but those seem out of fashion lately.
I’m curious exactly what Kamala’s role was in speaking to Zelenskyy prior to the invasion. My guess is that Trump was right, they weren’t interested in negotiating to avoid a war, Kamala was there to tell Zelenskyy to not give an inch, America had his back, and if Russia invades he’ll secure his legacy as the Ukrainian president that defeated Russia.
The US government certainly did not believe that Ukraine could viably hold back a Russian invasion, that’s why they closed the embassy and pulled out all personnel, and why they resisted sending large amounts of additional weaponry until after they’d repulsed the siege of Kiev.
That doesn’t mean they didn’t lie to Zelensky, but I honestly question if even he thought they’d be able to defend against an invasion; he disappeared for a few days early on (speaking from unidentified locations etc) and before that seemed to doubt whether the Russians would actually invade.
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