While history will show that incumbents (presidents) usually don’t perform well in the 1st debate. I don’t know if we can apply those same rules to someone like Donald J Trump.
In 2012 then President Barack Obama went into his 1st debate against Mitt Romney, with a little cockiness and did not emphasis debate prep work. A hour later Obama walked off the stage rocked by a well prepared Romney.
Obama would regain his debate form and arguably won the next 2 debates (or tied) and went on to a 2nd term as president of the United States.
So what is it about the first debate for incumbents? It’s actually pretty simple. A president tends to be busy with domestic/foreign affairs, you know being presidential. And after 4-years of being president there is not much debating you are doing. The closest thing to it would be holding a press conference and taking questions from the media.
But those same rules don’t really apply to President Trump and Joe Biden will have to be on his game. So what makes Trump different?
He doesn’t care about facts or being correct. Trump cares about embarrassing and making sure he’s not embarrassed. So he will do what he has done best for his entire career… Attacking people and telling lies, and Biden has too be careful not fall into the trap of trying to counter Trump’s BS and stick to his script. Every once in awhile throw in a zinger and Fact-Check Trump but do go down a rabbit hole.
For Trump, he just has to be Trump, and that means we have no idea what he will be!
I have great confidence in my intelligence people, but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today. And what he did is an incredible offer; he offered to have the people working on the case come and work with their investigators with respect to the 12 people. I think that’s an incredible offer. –President Donald Trump
And with that statement President Donald Trump chose Vladamir Putin over the United States Intelligence apparatus.
In response to Trump’s Helsinki moment, a former Trump National Security Council official said the following,
Dude. This is a total [effing] disgrace. The President has lost his mind.
Stunned Republicans lawmakers and allies are backing US intelligence, but have been “gentle” in their criticism of the president.
SMH, can you imagine if this was 2011 and President Obama showed the same kind of love to Putin?!?!
As always….
If there is something to be said, “It’s On Broadway” to step up and say it!!
With President Donald Trump announcing today (Tuesday May 7th) that the United States will pull out of the Iran Nuclear Deal aka Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), this move reaches beyond Iran.
I never read Trump’s book ‘Trump: The Art of the Deal’ so I don’t know if this is his idea of deal making 101. If it is then we may be in BIG trouble!
Trump has not only possibly pushed Iran back on a path of a nuclear weapons program, but he may have also killed any type of deal that could have been made with North Korea before negotiations have even started.
Instead of trying to fix whatever “flaws” there was with the Iran Deal, Trump has decided that re-instituting US sanctions was the way to bring Iran back to the negotiation table. But if you are Iran, why would you come back to negotiate any deal if it can be ripped up?
And if you are Kim Jong Un why would you agree to any deal from Trump?
Or, if you are Kim Jong Un, do you now believe you have the advantage/leverage?
Trump is desperate to leave his mark on the presidency of the United States. The Iran Deal was called historic (not by Republicans but still), and now he has taken that apart. With North Korea and Kim Jong Un Trump may believe he can make history in making a deal, but in his thirst for making history will Trump make a deal for the sake of making a deal? And will Kim Jong Un use that to his advantage?
As always….
If there is something to be said, “It’s On Broadway” to step up and say it!!
Plain and simple, and this is something I have been telling people since he became President of the United States. Unfortunately way too many of you out there still don’t get it, and fall for it EVERY time Trump sends out a tweet, or says something off-the-cuff during photo-ops.
Example, Donald Trump says the following this past Monday
“You don’t know until you test it, but I think, I really believe I’d run in there, even if I didn’t have a weapon, and I think most of the people in this room would have done that too,”
Social media went nuts with all types of memes and mentioning how Trump avoided the draft with deferments.
Whhhyyyyyyy????
Any sane person knows Trump is full of shit, and yes there are Trump supporters who believe it, but who cares? You are never going to convince a Trump Supporter that Trump is full of shit, so why waste the energy? Why give this story ANY energy at all?
It never fails as my social media feeds still goes nuts, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. And this is causing serious issues with people’s mental states…
In September 2017 TheWashington Post’s Dana Milbank wrote about this,
“Since the start of Trump’s rise to power,” Aibel writes, analysts “have become acutely attuned to traumatic arousals” in patients from the political environment. “Several colleagues have shared that many formerly eating disordered patients were retriggered to bulimic episodes that hadn’t occurred in many years until Trump’s candidacy. . . . In the run-up to the election, mental health providers of all stripes were reporting ‘a striking number of anxious and depressed clients who are fixated on the election, primarily fearful of Trump.’ Since Election Day, such colloquialisms as Trump Slump, Trump Anxiety and Trump Affective Disorder achieved cultural and perhaps even clinical currency (in an informally diagnostic sense, of course) along with increases in reported incidents of bullying” and the like.
Those on the right might label this “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” much as I and others detected an “Obama Derangement Syndrome” previously. But the mental trauma caused by politics has reached a point, Aibel argues, where psychoanalysts must rethink how they do things.
As mentioned by Milbank, conservatives definitely had anxiety over Barack Obama, but this seems different. And maybe I notice it more because I am a Democrat and I have more friends who are Democrats. Whatever it is people have to relax a lil bit.
I am no Trump fan, I have despised the man since the 80s (Central Park 5), but I refuse to let this man affect my day-to-day quality of life. And this is coming from someone who loves politics. For those who no me I was that person that debate politics for hours on Twitter and Facebook. I would go to sleep debating and then I would continue that debate first thing in the morning.
And what did I gain from that?
Nothing, absolutely nothing!
Well, not completely nothing, but nothing of substance that would help me going forward. I had to learn that not everyone on Twitter is was worth my energy.
In all honesty I am way too smart to waste time on some lame with 15 followers… I know that sounds so bad, but what’s worse is that people are hyperventilating on their Facebook and Instagram feeds, where more than likely they are screaming to people who think like them.
It’s amazing that people/media still react to Trump, by now we know this guys story. This is the same man who felt the need to lie about the size of his inauguration crowd, and thought it was necessary to have his Press Secretary (Sean Spicer) lie about it as well.
Everything Trump does is not a four-alarm fire, relax…
As always….
If there is something to be said, “It’s On Broadway” to step up and say it!!
It's On Broadway 