Most recent comments from 538 live blog - a few somewhat head scratching
Biden’s comment that “I’m not totally opposed to defunding police officers” is going to make it into a Trump ad or two.
Threat to the suburbs is a theme we’ve heard a lot from Trump over the past few months. Biden responds by pointing out that the suburbs are increasingly diverse. That’s true, to a certain extent — but as I’ve heard from political scientists I’ve spoken to recently, Trump is probably talking here to a very specific type of suburban voter who is more likely to live in a homogenous (mostly white) community.
The framing of these questions really ignores questions about racism as a systemic and structural issue. Biden’s comments about “looking down on people” might be strategic, but they’re also sort of letting the Trump administration orders on critical race theory set the terms of debate. Those comments build on a specific brand of white identity politics — as of a few years ago, it was pretty common for white people to feel they were victims of racial discrimination. The conversation on this appeared to shift quite a bit over the summer, with economic disadvantage and problems with the criminal justice system coming to the forefront, at least for a moment..
I’m not sure it will do that, Micah … I think Trump has successfully prevented Biden from making his case. But Trump hasn’t done anything to proactively convince people to vote for him, which he needs to do. So even though Trump seems more in control of the debate, I think this debate is a draw so far.
Honestly, for Democrats angry about the Trump administration, Biden expressing anger and exasperation about Trump might help him shore up the base. Still think so far this “debate” is a wash.
To answer my own prompt, Micah … one thing I don’t think this is necessarily going to do is drive up Biden’s personal negatives. Biden is rather deliberately trying to come across at the more decent person, even though he’s enduring some insults and is a bit less “alpha.” Now, maybe what it does do is make people more cynical about the election, which could lower turnout, and that might be good for Trump, but it’s hard to say.
Yeah, it’s maybe going to get lost in the messiness of the evening, but that was a lot of ducking and weaving from the president when asked to simply condemn white supremacists.
“Stand back and standby,” says Trump when asked to condemn white supremacist groups like Proud Boys. Not exactly a condemnation.
Trump’s grasp of forest fires is … weird and wrong. I don’t know what else to say about it right now.
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