"But lost in the hand wringing was Donald Trump’s usual bombastic litany of lies, hyperbole, bigotry, ignorance, and fear mongering. His performance demonstrated once again that he is a danger to democracy and unfit for office.”

“In fact, the debate about the debate is misplaced. The only person who should withdraw from the race is Trump.”

  • @NeptuneOrbit@lemmy.world
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    1685 months ago

    I’ve yet to hear a good criticism of Biden that isn’t also true of Trump. Yet the media rarely writes a headline like “Trump should drop out/resign/kill himself”

    Because he obviously won’t. He will pursue your freedoms, wealth and sanity until his dying breath.

    • EleventhHour
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      765 months ago

      Biden stuttered and is old.

      Neither disqualifies him for the presidency

      • @OccamsTeapot@lemmy.world
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        255 months ago

        This is not fair description of his debate performance. He didn’t stutter, he crashed like an old computer trying to keep 50 chrome tabs running and then barely dragged himself out of it with incoherent nonsense like “we beat Medicare.”

        It doesn’t disqualify him, it just lowers the bar for Trump.

        • @Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
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          175 months ago

          It doesn’t disqualify him, it just lowers the bar for Trump

          This is the real takeaway. We’ve reached a point where we’re not even sure either one can stay awake during important meetings.

          See? Shoulda went with Bernie Sanders. He may be just as old, but he’s too angry to rest. He sees the injustices of the world, and he’s been barking about them since the 60s. Getting arrested for his causes.

          I’m not saying Biden isn’t sincere, but Sanders is so sincere that he’s passionately angry at the system. The only thing that disqualifies him in my eyes is his age…but fuck, if these are our only other two options, it’s not much of a disqualification, is it? Biden gets confused halfway through his thought process that he moves over to another thought process midsentence. And Trump doesn’t even start the sentence with a coherent thought process.

          So…uhhhh…guess we’re all just fucked?

        • @NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          He’s old, it was his bedtime and instead we asked him to go to a debate. He did just fine, and there was nothing incoherent about it. Even trump was coherent, he just lied and kept saying how everything he did and was involved in was the greatest thing to ever be done ever, which made him look psycho (which he is)

          • @DxK@lemmy.world
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            195 months ago

            He’s old, it was his bedtime and instead we asked him to go to a debate. He did just fine, and there was nothing incoherent about it.

            Seriously. Unlike Trump, who spent his entire Presidency ranting on Twitter all night and golfing all day… Biden probably goes to bed early both because he’s old and because he spends his days actually doing his job. The debate performance was disappointing, I get it. But the media acting like he’s being Weekend at Bernie’s Dianne Feinstein’d around D.C. is ridiculous. It sucks that this is where we’re at as a country… but “old guy” vs. “old guy who wants a fascist dictatorship” should not be a fucking struggle for voters.

            • @Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
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              115 months ago

              I think the struggle for voters is wondering why we don’t just hand the keys to country back to england. I mean seriously…THIS is the best we got??? Lets check in on English politics, shall we?

              reads about Englands July 4th election

              Well fuck…

            • @4am@lemm.ee
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              -125 months ago

              Yeah, that’s what we want: A guy who couldn’t handle waking up in an emergency. /s

              Face it libs, he looked like he was ready to croak. And I fucking HATE Donald Trump. But you are pulling another notorious RBG if you think keeping Biden in the race is good for the country. Instead, it’s just becoming easy to see who the neolib shills really are; they’re the only ones desperate enough to defend this.

              For real put in literally anyone else and you can beat Trump. Fucking literally ANYONE.

              • @DxK@lemmy.world
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                35 months ago

                As I said:

                It sucks that this is where we’re at as a country… but “old guy” vs. “old guy who wants a fascist dictatorship” should not be a fucking struggle for voters.

          • @Zaktor@sopuli.xyz
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            135 months ago

            He’s old, it was his bedtime and instead we asked him to go to a debate.

            Holy crap how can you say things like this and think it’s supporting him? The presidency isn’t something that just pauses for bedtime and campaigning involves a lot of being “on” over and over again, sometimes at night.

          • @ABCDE@lemmy.world
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            115 months ago

            He did just fine, and there was nothing incoherent about it

            He really didn’t from what I saw, it was awful.

          • @steal_your_face@lemmy.ml
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            65 months ago

            There was nothing incoherent about it? Did you watch the debate? I’ll vote for the man but he was horrible in the debate.

        • Butt Pirate
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          55 months ago

          “Abortion rights are good! Why don’t you talk about all the immigrants killing our pregnant women why don’t you talk about that?”

          Trump: “I will do exactly that, thank you”.

        • @twistypencil@lemmy.world
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          15 months ago

          I only watched 30 minutes of the debate, but what I saw was not as bad as that. He got a couple zingers off, had some good points, rattled off some stats, seemed annoyed at Trump lying over and over and did stutter, and looked like he had a headache.

          I’ll bet you that if he was on his A game, everyone would have been yelling performance enhancement drugs!

          So yeah, calling for him to resign because he struggled to deal with a bunch of shitty js websites, full of ads, and several mining crypto in the background, while leaking memory… Seems like caving into republican talking points way too easily…

          • @OccamsTeapot@lemmy.world
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            05 months ago

            Yeah I also watched a 30 minute highlight video because since Trump has been involved I’ve found watching the whole thing to be intolerable. I am totally open to anybody showing me “high points” for Biden that maybe CNN skipped over in their condensed version.

            He got a couple zingers off

            Lol please share. “Morals of an alleycat”? (or whatever the exact quote is)

            As for the rest, I agree that obviously for general factual content Biden even on his deathbed will beat Trump. However it was undermined by the errors, e.g. getting the price of insulin wrong and millions/billions mixed up more than once. That is the problem.

            I’ll bet you that if he was on his A game, everyone would have been yelling performance enhancement drugs!

            Almost certainly. But he wasn’t so it’s not really the point here.

            Seems like caving into republican talking points way too easily…

            You know what they say about stopped clocks. They will always have this shit to say about Biden, absolutely. So why have I (and many others, NYT included) all of a sudden “caved into” republican talking points after ignoring or arguing against them until now?

            Honestly to me the more interesting “talking points” at the minute are from some democrats, who after (assumedly) reacting in horror with the rest of us after the debate, have latched onto the “He had a cold” excuse that they came out with and tried to pass the whole thing off as a “stutter” issue.

            I think people can see the difference between a stutter and whatever the hell happened at the debate. He wasn’t stuttering, he was freezing up and getting sentences jumbled up. He was not capable of having a coherent debate, and the only saving grace is that Trump isn’t either (different reasons, but still).

            So I find it a little strange how people are talking about his performance, now. We all know what we watched, and that is why everybody freaked the fuck out straight afterwards. Trying to gaslight everyone is not a productive or helpful strategy. (Not you necessarily, by the way, just “the discourse” in general. I would like to see any examples you have of what you’re saying)

      • @FlexibleToast@lemmy.world
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        115 months ago

        He has even said he is slowing down and can’t debate as well as used to. This doesn’t technically disqualify him, but it should be a huge red flag that he isn’t and wasn’t the best candidate. That’s the real problem.

        • EleventhHour
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          oh, no disagreement here-- but it’s either Biden or Cheeto Mussolini.

          i’m glad you’re not choosing that latter!

          • @Anamnesis@lemmy.world
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            15 months ago

            I’m against Biden but I’ll vote for him if I have to. He should absolutely drop out of the race. He’s going to RBG us.

            • @corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
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              105 months ago

              He’s going to RBG us.

              If Pres Biden ends up resigning during his administration, early or late, almost anyone else in the country is still a better replacement than Mr Trump. Actual mobsters may be better at running the country than Mr Trump.

              • @vividspecter@lemm.ee
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                45 months ago

                It doesn’t even matter all that much in the case of the Democratic party. Any Democratic president would ultimately follow the platform of the party, and you can see that by the fact that Biden’s agenda has been a lot more progressive than most expected, but makes sense since the party has become more progressive in recent years.

                It doesn’t apply as much with Trump because he’s a wannabe dictator and there’s a huge cult of personality behind him. He can do whatever he wants and the Republican party will follow, because they’ll be kicked out of the party if they protest in the slightest.

      • smnwcj
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        25 months ago

        Unfortunately the question isn’t whether to fire him, but if he can win an election appearing as a sickly confused old man.

        He spit in the face of an energized lefty base, so he is gambling the future of the country on low information Pennsylvanian voters in a popularity contest.

      • @Maggoty@lemmy.world
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        -25 months ago

        If you can’t stay on topic in a stressful situation then yeah, there might be a fucking problem. A Stutter is fine. Switching topics completely is not a stutter.

        • EleventhHour
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          15 months ago

          you mean when he kept responding to Trump’s tirade of lies? THAT was all over the place, so it makes sense that Biden would have to cover a lot of ground.

      • @FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today
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        -65 months ago

        Trumps a better speaker but he’s been eating Mickey D’s for the last 65 years, an age difference of 3 years is not a huge advantage.

        • EleventhHour
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          205 months ago

          he may hove spoken more clearly, but - by no means - is he a better speaker. he spent the entire debate incoherently spewing his unhinged conspiracy theories and lie after lie.

          • @FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today
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            5 months ago

            You don’t have to tell the truth to speak well, nor would it be difficult to beat Biden’s lyrical performance.

    • AFK BRB Chocolate
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      235 months ago

      Exactly! If you say that Biden should drop out for the good of the country, a bunch of people nod their heads, but if you say trump should, everyone just laughs.

      I’m for sure on team “Not Trump, and not a Republican.” I think the debate really may have weakened Biden’s chances, but I can’t think of anyone who I’m confident could do better in the election. And I really mean “in the election” - there are certainly some who I think could do better as president, but they either don’t have the name recognition or wouldn’t pull in the moderates.

      I’d love to see a true progressive, but there are an awful lot of people who simply won’t vote for one. So I’m sticking with Biden and hoping for the best.

      • @tburkhol@lemmy.world
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        185 months ago

        It’s because dropping out is 100% not in Trump’s character. He’s in the race for himself, everyone - even his supporters - knows that, and asking him to drop out is like asking a zebra to try all-black.

        Biden, OTOH, is a public servant and presents himself as trying to do the best things possible for the country. He ran in 2020 to ‘save us from Trump,’ and he’s running again with that premise. You can disagree with Biden on what is best for the country, and maybe convince him that someone else might be better able to beat Trump in 2024. I’m not really all that engaged, so I have no idea who the next-best Democrat would be, but Biden stepping aside is at least within the realm of conceivable possibilities.

        • AFK BRB Chocolate
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          25 months ago

          I completely agree, which was more or less my point.

          I can’t think of a Democrat who has a better chance from this juncture, sadly.

          • @HaleHirsute@infosec.pub
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            15 months ago

            You can’t? I can think of 20 of them who all have a better chance to win than Biden, who now has a zero chance to win.

            • AFK BRB Chocolate
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              25 months ago

              I think you’re overreacting. He’s far from assured, but also far from out of the race.

      • I’d love to see a true progressive, but there are an awful lot of people who simply won’t vote for one. So I’m sticking with Biden and hoping for the best.

        There’s an awful lot of people who also simply won’t vote for someone in Biden’s physical condition. Don’t even need to replace him with someone progressive. Most of his voters are “blue no matter who” people who wouldn’t care if he was replaced.

        • AFK BRB Chocolate
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          95 months ago

          I think the numbers of those two groups are significantly different. There are a number of moderate Republicans who will vote for Biden but wouldn’t vote for someone like Sanders or AOC.

          • @krashmo@lemmy.world
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            85 months ago

            There are no moderate Republicans. Anyone who calls themselves a Republican in 2024 is a fascist, whether intentionally or not makes no practical difference. They will never ever vote for a Democrat. Calling them reachable voters is so hilariously out of touch that it makes me wonder where you’ve been the last 8 years.

          • Biden being replaced by a progressive like AOC or Sanders isn’t even remotely likely though, which is why I didn’t mention all of the people who won’t vote if they’re not motivated to who’d come out for someone like AOC/Sanders/Warren/etc. And replace him with a “moderate” who didn’t support Israel, and you’d get a lot more votes from people who are alienated by that issue.

      • El Barto
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        85 months ago

        I hate it when people fantasizes with the death of that asshole.

        Because 1) if he dies, he will be immediately elevated to god status. Not good. Case in point: Venezuela.

        And 2) I want that asshole to spend his days in prison, even if it’s house arrest.

        • @BassTurd@lemmy.world
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          115 months ago

          Idc if he ascends to God status, because he’s already there to his ilk. If he wasn’t alive, he wouldn’t be able to do anything else bad, and I wouldn’t have to here his stupid voice anymore. He might be a martyr, but he’d be the best kind of martyr. A dead one.

            • @BassTurd@lemmy.world
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              25 months ago

              As I was typing it out I thought that, and almost looked it up, but then I thought, can’t a living prisoner also be a martyr? In end I didn’t verify, and I am probably wrong. The essence of what I meant still stands though, and that’s what’s important.

              • @AbidanYre@lemmy.world
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                25 months ago

                I just threw it into duckduckgo. It came back with the American heritage dictionary having 6 definitions that were evenly split between death and great suffering.

          • El Barto
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            -15 months ago

            Case in point: Venezuela. More extreme, yet more obvious point: Jesus and Christianity.

            Once Chávez died, his legacy was cemented.

            Once Jesus (the man) died, well, you know the rest. 2024 years of religious bullshit. Two millennia!

            You think Trump can’t do anything bad dead? You don’t know his base. I could see his most extremist fans doing real damage in the name of their dead savior. For decades to come.

            • @BassTurd@lemmy.world
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              05 months ago

              I think his legacy is as far reached as it’s going to get. He will never reach the status of either of your points. There may be the outliers that elevate him, but the masses won’t care.

        • mad_asshatter
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          55 months ago

          …he will be immediately elevated to god status…

          The lying, adulterous, treasonous, traitor is well-beyond there…

          • El Barto
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            15 months ago

            You have no idea how much more he can get. Chavez was already all that too whe he was alive. People celebrated his death, and then a month later there was a collective “oh shit…!”

    • El Barto
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      I’ve yet to hear a good criticism of Biden that isn’t also true of Trump.

      Example?

      Has Biden tried to overturn the government?

      Edit: I see it now. Disregard the above.

      • @brian@lemmy.ca
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        I think you’re taking it the wrong way. I understand it as “anything negative about Biden, is also true about Trump”

        • Biden is old, so is Trump
        • Biden struggles speaking cohesively, so does Trump
        • etc.
      • @kinsnik@lemmy.world
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        115 months ago

        That is a valid criticism of Trump that is not true for biden. What op said was that any valid criticism of biden would also be true for trump, not the other way around. So trump has all the bad stuff that biden has plus the whole traitor, convicted criminal, narcissistic cult leader thing

    • @givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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      15 months ago

      Because he obviously won’t.

      Exactly.

      No one is talking about trump doing the selfless thing, because it’s not going to happen.

      But Biden is supposed to be better than trump.

      And unlike trump, Biden isn’t facing prison if he doesn’t personally win. He’s just trying to stop trump, but so are lots of other people. So shouldn’t we let the person with the best chances go?

      Like, if you had a game winning free throw, and any player can take it, are you putting Shaq up there or Michael Jordan?

      Like, Rudy is a great movie, and America loves to root for the underdog. But you don’t put him in on the last play of the Super Bowl.

      You put your best players in. And Biden and his team in the DNC are obviously not our best people. They can step aside now, or after they lose and let trump back in the White House.

  • @jeffw@lemmy.world
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    585 months ago

    To understand this scathing rebuttal, you should know about the original NYTimes article, where their editorial board wrote:

    To Serve His Country, President Biden Should Leave the Race

    This is a wonderfully penned counterpunch. Shout out to my local paper for serving it up

    • @lennybird@lemmy.world
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      It’s cute. But this is, of course, a given. And we don’t expect Hitler to do the right thing. We expect Biden to.

      • @Skydancer@pawb.social
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        35 months ago

        We expect biden to.

        No we don’t. Some of us believe there’s a shadow of a prayer he might be pushed into it by Democrat party leaders and his own advisors, but even the politicos calling for his withdrawal have been clear that they expect him to lurch his way to an electoral disaster.

    • Diplomjodler
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      185 months ago

      That’s not even the worst of it. He actively works for a hostile power.

      • @MehBlah@lemmy.world
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        95 months ago

        Either putin has footage of him killing someone or he is getting paid. Either way its just more self serving crimes.

        • @JovialMicrobial@lemm.ee
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          105 months ago

          I think it’s probably more simple than that. Trump is jealous that Putin has his own country and he doesn’t. In Trump’s mind he’s the best so he also needs to own an entire country just so he can outdo Putin.

          He’s probably working with putin to achieve this goal, and the details we can speculate about, but the motivation is likely that petty.

          • @46_and_2@lemmy.world
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            That’s a possible motivation as well, but his unwillingness to say ever anything bad Putin tells me he’s holding him with some kompromat.

            I mean, Trump has never passed the opportunity to badmouth anyone else, with the exception of his crime family. Why is he making this exception also for Putin, going out of his way to always be on his good side and lick his boots?

            There’s got to be some pretty damaging information about him, that would be beyond his usual shady business dealings or just Russia plain helping his campaign - people already know these and it hasn’t made a dent in his electability amongst his MAGA base. It’s got to be something amazingly awful even for Trump’s standards to keep him in line like that.

          • @MojoMcJojo@lemmy.world
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            55 months ago

            Absolutely. He’s jealous that Putin can do whatever he wants and not get on trouble for it. No one is allowed to tell Putin he did anything wrong. Trump is a spoiled brat. “Putin can have people killed and not get in trouble, Waaahh! I Wana do that too!” That’s as far as his thought process goes.

        • @Ragnarok314159@sopuli.xyz
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          15 months ago

          No, it’s worse than that, but not in the way you think. Him killing someone wouldn’t matter to his followers, they would love him even more for being an alpha man or some crap like that.

          Putin likely has footage of Trump with a large, black woman in a BDSM situation of him crying and whimpering. That would make his voters shy away from him, shattering his tough guy image.

  • Davel23
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    415 months ago

    To serve his country…

    When has he ever done anything to even hint that he serves anything but himself?

  • @emax_gomax@lemmy.world
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    195 months ago

    Hah, no ones deluded enough to think trump wants to serve America or even that he gives a flying f*ck about what’s good for it. This man is the pure crystallisation of “I don’t need to win, I just need you to lose”. He’ll set this country on fire before taking any kind of responsibility or agency for the position he’s vying for.

    • @Bytemeister@lemmy.world
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      Hah, no ones deluded enough to think trump wants to serve America or even that he gives a flying f*ck about what’s good for it.

      Oh my sweet summer child…

      They believe that Trump is simultaneously the reincarnation of JFK jr, and JFK jr is going to come back from the dead and be his VP. Scientist need to invent about 200 more dimensions in order to describe the space their mental gymnastics flips and cartwheels through.

      • @emax_gomax@lemmy.world
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        15 months ago

        Do they really. I’ve been lucky enough not to know or interact with anyone like this. My impression has been he’s patently corrupt enough to push through things they want so they support him. Like conservative supreme court justices who abolished roe v wade. The man is a habitual adulterer and I doubt anyone thinks he hasn’t had a mistress get an abortion. They don’t care he doesn’t represent their ideals, they just care he’ll support them regardless.

    • @vividspecter@lemm.ee
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      He needs to win so he gets that sweet, sweet presidential immunity for the countless crimes he has committed. Whether that fully protects him remains to be seen, but that’s clearly the goal.

  • @Maggoty@lemmy.world
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    155 months ago

    NYT did in fact talk about Trump in their editorial. They lamented that any sane party would consider him ineligible after his debate performance. But because we can’t have nice things, the onus is now on Biden.

    All the “rebuttals” keep ignoring that.

    • @CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social
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      125 months ago

      Tbh he could probably make plenty as a conservative media personality of some kind. Start some webshow and sell tacky branded garbage and fake health supplements to his supporters or something like that

      • @errer@lemmy.world
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        25 months ago

        He definitely will if all the prosecutions against him continued to completion…that’s why he needs to stay in the race at this point. He doesn’t give a fuck about the country.

  • @Treczoks@lemmy.world
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    95 months ago

    Who believes that Trump would serve his country? Trump would happily see the country go down in f-ing flames if it served him. Because he is the only one who counts for him, anything else does not matter at all.