I don’t know what was wrong with Joe Biden. It’s hard to imagine that they ever would have asked for a debate if this was the way he is normally. We’ve seen him recently holding press conferences and giving speeches and he seemed to be fine. They said he had a cold so maybe he really was on drugs — Nyquil or Mucinex or something that made him seem so shaky and frail. Whatever it was, it was a terrible debate for him and if he does stay in the race (which is almost certain in my opinion) the campaign is going to have a lot of work to do to dig out of the hole that was dug last night. The media smells blood and they are circling like a bunch of starved piranhas.
. . . For some odd reason, moderator Jake Tapper told Trump in the beginning that he didn’t need to answer the questions and that he could use the time however he wanted. Trump ran with that, essentially giving a rally speech whenever he had the floor and was unresponsive to the vast majority of the questions. He made faces and insulted Biden to his face, at one point calling him a criminal and a Manchurian candidate. If anyone had said 10 years ago that this would happen at a presidential debate they would have been laughed out of the room.
After the debate when most of the country had turned off cable news or gone to bed, CNN aired its fact check. And it’s a doozy:
It sure would have been good if even some of that epic litany of lies could have been checked while people were still watching. The decision to have the moderators sit like a couple of potted plants woodenly asking questions about child care while Trump responded with irrelevant lies was inexplicable. Why did they even bother to ask questions at all? They could have just run the timer and let the candidates talk for two minutes each about anything they wanted. It probably would have been more enlightening.
The part about voting is pretty simple logic.
In a voting system where the one who gets majority of the votes wins, the other votes don’t really have an impact. Of course they are part of the race to win, but outside of that, what do the other votes do? Nothing. In other systems those votes would cause a second round to happen, but in the US system they don’t. Those votes are just… gone.
Sure, you could argue that it’s about “sending a message”, but… why? Why do this now while the Project 2025 looms over the US if the Republicans win? The Democratic Party won’t change before the elections and no amount of threatening to vote for 3rd party will change that.
The part about “if you don’t vote for Biden, you vote for Trump” is not literal. It’s more… abstract if that makes sense. Since if you vote for parties that have no realistic chance of winning, it means that a party that has a chance of winning doesn’t get that vote and the party you least want in power is one vote closer to win the election. This logic goes for both Democrats and Republicans. If a Republican votes for third party that has no chance of winning, their vote metaphorically goes to the Democratic party, since the Republican party will be one vote further away from the Democratic party. Hell, this same logic, to some extent, also applies to other systems, but not as much as the US system.
So unless you are predicting Jill Stein to be making history and winning as a third party, a thing that hasn’t happened, that vote won’t affect the elections and the party you least want in power is just one vote closer to be winning.
In a two round system, your vote would matter more, since your vote would be affecting everyone’s chance of getting an absolute majority of 50% all votes. And since everyone, but your chosen party, is one vote further from the 50% mark, a second round has a higher chance of happening.