Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are veering sharply in how they gear up for Tuesday’s presidential debate, setting up a showdown that reflects not just two separate visions for the country but two politicians who approach big moments very differently.
The vice president is cloistered in a historic hotel in downtown Pittsburgh where she can focus on honing crisp two-minute answers, per the debate’s rules. She’s been working with aides since Thursday and chose a venue that allows the Democratic nominee the option of mingling with swing-state voters.
Trump, the Republican nominee, publicly dismisses the value of studying for the debate. The former president is choosing instead to fill his days with campaign-related events on the premise that he’ll know what he needs to do once he steps on the debate stage at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.
“You can go in with all the strategy you want but you have to sort of feel it out as the debate’s taking place,” he said during a town hall with Fox News host Sean Hannity.
Trump then quoted former boxing great Mike Tyson, who said, “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.”
Yeah kinda special case there though I think. But of course they matter to an extent. I think there’s trumps strong hardcore nutter fans who would rather have Putin govern them than Biden or Kamala (actually heard one of them say this on a YT video about Biden).
These people won’t be swayed away from him by anything, therefore debate is irrelevant for them.
Then there are also hardcore anti trump people, the only sensible position to have, frankly. That would be the category I fall into but I’m not American so irrelevant for me lol.
But yeah, for those people, whatever percentage that is the debate doesn’t really matter either.
Then there are some people who are hardcore republicans. Really don’t like Dems but also do kind care about trump being cray cray and maybe cancelling all future elections if he gets in. So these people might be swayed I guess? I dunno. As I’ve wrote this out, I’ve actually more or less come to the conclusion that there really shouldn’t be many people who the debate will change their mind on anything.
But there has to be some undecided but it’s a weird position that I can’t really understand so who knows if it will sway those people either way. Some of them I guess. Also the evidence for these charges against Trump are coming out in a week or so I think, whenever that happens, that’s not gonna be good for trump. That’s for sure. How bad it will affect him I can’t really say, but it’s certainty not gonna increase his support.
So I can only imagine it will thankfully DECREASE IT. Overall I think Trumps bitten off more than he can chew. With these charges and with him basically alienating half the population (women) over abortion, I’d like to THINK, the Dems have this in the bag. But fucking vote people!
There are a certain subset of people that just vote R because they always have because of where they grew up or how their parents voted or what have you and pay attention to basically fucking nothing but the biggest of headlines. These are the ones he might still be able to lose if he fucks up hard enough, because at this point I suspect a lot of them are not exactly hyped about voting for him anyway and are just coasting on a combination of sunk cost fallacy and a nigh on pathological fear of change.
This is why I think he might just bail on the debate; he can only lose votes if he debates.
Also, he’s a coward.
If he does, great. He can’t interrupt or defend any questions. Let the back and forth go through as normal with emphasis on the quiet that would be Trump’s responses
republicans are going to deludedly believe that kamala bombed this debate no matter what, they will literally believe anything if it suits their narrative.
So as long as kamala has a reasonable performance and gives trump a run for his money that’s all that’s required, dig into real policy, dig into real statements, don’t let him get away with anything, and i think it should pretty much only go well for her at that point.