Aaaaanyway, I'll post some comments on the debate here instead of making a thread for it.
-The takeaway that Biden fumbled this whole debate is exaggerated. He had a hilarious senile expression on his face for much of it, sure, but after the first 5 minutes he spoke intelligently and was able to keep up.
-Trump looked and acted like his usual ageless self. He definitely won in this department. Then again, it did nothing for him come election day in 2020, so.
-Credit to 45 for emphasizing his pre-Covid economic track record while acknowledging both the crash and the extremely rapid recovery, and for pointing out that the last leg of recovery under Biden was "bounceback". This is exactly what I would've advised him to say, and what I was half-worried he wouldn't say.
-I expected the whole "felon" thing to overshadow the whole debate. Instead, it barely came up. Trump was a lot harsher on Biden than the other way around, and the moderators were fair. He walked away looking like a jerk, which is nothing new at this point.
-Trump also couldn't stay on topic. He obviously doesn't care about childcare, and when the mods gave him a last unmerited chance to answer the question he once again just attacked Biden. I wasn't paying as much attention at this point because I stepped out of the room to eat chips and salsa, and the cringe was part of why I chose that part to do so.
-Trump should've stumped hard on the point of fentanyl. He didn't stop the fentanyl ODs either but Biden's border policies are more convincingly conducive to its proliferation within the US.
-I'm honestly kind of dreading Trump's foreign policy, though I'll be voting for him anyway because 90% of everything else. He clearly doesn't have a plan to stop Ukraine, since without Western backing Ukraine won't be negotiating from any position of strength and there will be no guarantees that Putin doesn't just swallow the rest of the country after a year or two's pause to refit the Russian army.
