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Pivotal Moment of 2024
There were many critical moments in 2024, but I pick Biden’s debate challenge to Trump as the pivotal moment of the year. If he hadn’t challenged Trump to a debate, Biden could probably have hidden away and avoided exposing his dementia and incompetence to the entire world. He could have said, “I won’t debate a convicted felon,” and the media would have covered for him.
Trump might have won even without Biden’s debate collapse, but it would have been a squeaker. The Dems and the media could have claimed election fraud and might have challenged the electoral results in Congress. But Biden’s debate challenge set in motion a train of events that resulted in a decisive win for Trump and humiliation for the media. Now Trump has a (limited) mandate and has made progress for conservatives in all segments of society.
Watch again (and again) and enjoy:
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I agree. I just didn’t understand it at the time. I still don’t. Why would he do that? Why would his handlers allow him to do so? If he won’t listen to them, where was Jill?
All he had to do was lay low and wait for the “mail in” “ballots” to seal another “victory”.
But no. Why?
Biden has always been a profoundly weird dude…
In the last few days, he’s been saying that he would have beaten Trump. It’s pure hubris, and I think it is a result of his dementia.
My theory is that everyone knew by that point, and he was getting even worse. Best to back away from the scam at a time of your choosing than to try to extend it another four and a half years and have a dementia driven crisis even worse than the several already underway.
No, he’s always been like that.
Enormous self regard for no apparent reason.
That’s Joe Biden.
I have known people like that. Huge regard for their own merits and “accomplishments,” yet as for said merits and accomplishments? Not so much. Legends in their own minds perhaps?
It is. Joe has exaggerated his intellect before.
He’s had dementia since he was a child. You are both right.
You assume that the media has the wherewithal to feel humiliated. Not.
I think the pivotal moment in 2024 was when Ron DeSantis withdrew from the primaries and endorsed Donald Trump. In fact, I would go as far as to say DeSantis’s magnanimous act changed world history. :)
His decision created the path to a united Republican Party. And his decision enabled people to take a second look at Donald Trump apart from the lawfare being waged against Trump and to consider the possibility that Trump could fix the damage done by the Biden administration.
I believe they were already planning the “Great Replacement” and realized it would have to begin with a public humiliation for all to see. That’s how diabolical they are.
I agree with this, and I think it completely backfired on them.
The press pumped up support for Joe Biden dramatically over a prolonged five-year period to the extent that he had a diehard core of loyal supporters who believed he was saving the country from Donald Trump. And they really liked Biden.
The New York Times looked at the poor Democratic Party turnout in 2024. Their reasons for the low turnout missed what I think was the biggest reason based on a couple of conversations I’ve had since with some Democrats. The New York Times did not see the voters who felt that Harris and the rest of the Democratic Party betrayed Joe Biden. This group of his supporters didn’t think Joe Biden was as senile as others did. Those supporters’ views make sense because Biden’s decline was so gradual. They weren’t seeing anything other than a bad day here and there, which they had been used to seeing since 2020. The press had been telling them consistently “Nothing to see here.” Those supporters believed the press then, and they probably still hold that view.
They couldn’t vote for Trump, but they couldn’t vote for Harris either. They stayed home.
When Biden announced that he wanted to debate Trump, that was my first thought – “Wow. Well, apparently Joe’s handlers have decided to dump him. By publicly humiliating him. Holy crap that’s vicious. What a thing to do to your friend.“
My second thought was, “No, that’s way too cynical. Surely not.“
My third thought was, “Is it possible to be too cynical with these people? I’m not sure. Perhaps?“
Nothing better to demonstrate your candidate’s mental competence than a 14-second video that apparently had to be recorded one or two sentences at a time.
I agree. Biden has always been overconfident and slightly belligerent, even before his dementia. Being, if not a “far-leftist,” at least a democrat who was willing to go along with the far-leftist agenda, he was not in touch with all of reality. Besides, he beat Trump so easily in 2020 that he was probably convinced that he would do it again, despite what the polling was saying. Being old, stubborn, dementia-addled, and a liberal, he was not capable of grasping the changing political situation nor was he capable of adjusting his behavior to adapt to it.
And, like others have said, unfalsifiable theories are the best!
Meh. It’s the Trump shooting, not the debate.
Nor was Biden’s debate challenge as much of a blunder as it seems. He was already losing support in the polls, and the challenge was an act of desperation to stop the “bleeding” poll-wise.
The shooting, on the other hand, and where there was real bleeding, looks like the hand of God intervened for many people. Though I was a Trump supporter, after there was no other Republican alternative, before the shooting — his actions where he raised his fist and yelled, fight, fight, fight in the immediate aftermath made a big impression.
Actor Robert DeNiro, who portrayed the boxer Jake LaMotta among other things, would rant about Trump, calling him a coward, and that he would be glad to get into the ring and fight him. Though I didn’t think much of DeNiro’s ranting, I did give a little credence towards Trump with regards to a lack of physical bravery. After all, many people who brag and BS like Trump end up being less than what they brag about.
Many pundits were saying the shooting gave some cover to people who were embarrassed about their support. They had something to argue with when talking to their friends and loved ones.
You have a point.
Agree . Jeff and I were at the Italian festival in Wilmington, DE, back in the day, a must go to event for DE politicians. Joe sat with us and started gladhanding. We said that we live in Maryland so you can stop sucking up, which he did. His really lovely son Beau came over and said that his wife Hallie and the kids wanted to leave. And Joe totally blew him off. That’s Joe Biden
Seems like Beau wasn’t really of use to Joe until he died.
The debate was pivotal in getting Biden shoved off the ticket but I don’t think it changed the presidential election outcome. Biden was already well behind in the polls which is probably why they agreed to any debate and making it in June gave them time to kick him off if he did poorly. Biden’s numbers collapsed after the debate. Though an awful candidate Harris did manage to get back to pre debate levels. If Biden had hung on as the candidate we would probably have 3 more R senators likely from Wisconsin, Michigan and Nevada. We would also have a larger house majority so the debate did matter.
In retrospect, I think the majority of polling was rigged enough in Harris’s favor to make it look like she was slightly ahead when she really wasn’t. All through her campaign, Scott Rasmussen publicly called out the other pollsters for being dishonest in their methodology. Not one of them shot back at him or defended themselves. His daily polls alone showed that she never had a lead except for outlier days, and his polling turned out to be right on the head when the popular vote was counted.
Your thoughts regarding “ these people’s” cynicism are insufficiently cynical.😎