Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the gop

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

The willow is too close to the house.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Tide comes in. Tide goes out. You can’t explain that.

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

Fear or fury? The choice is ours.

When they say they’re pro-life, they don’t mean yours.

Alternative history is always a weak argument. Always.

Giving up is unforgivable. ~Joe Biden

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

If you voted for Trump, you don’t get to speak about ethics, morals, or rule of law.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

Someone should tell Republicans that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, or possibly the first.

I was confident that someone would point it out and thought why not me.

This country desperately needs a functioning fourth estate.

If ‘weird’ was the finish line, they ran through the tape and kept running.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

You are here: Home / Elections / Election 2020 / Late Night Debate Postmortem Open Thread (Part One)

Late Night Debate Postmortem Open Thread (Part One)

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Dumbest Moderation Decision of the Evening:


 
DUMBEST POSSIBLE ‘SERIOUS PERSON’ TAKE OF THE EVENING:


(Bruenig deleted this tweet, but not quite soon enough… )


 

Reader Interactions

61Comments

  1. 1.

    Jerzy Russian

    Can someone kindly kick Mr. Matt Bruenig in the nuts? The only way we can make any progress is if stupidity like that is painful.

  3. 3.

    NotMax

    Awaiting the director’s cut, with the scene of the moderators having an oversized anvil dropped on them.

  5. 5.

    Joe Falco

    All I want for Christmas is no more than 4 or 5 Democratic candidates left. And I guess Bernie can still be in it if his health will allow it.

  7. 7.

    Mary G

    It was terrible. DNC needs to hire moderators whose living doesn’t depend on getting meaningless sound bites.

  8. 8.

    jl

    I think the futurist semi-fascist hugely over sized sets they build for these things are amusing, just to say something positive about the debate.

    I also take grim satisfaction that I, and everyone else here, are right when we predict that 90 percent of the questions will be the same at every debate, some almost verbatim.

  9. 9.

    SoupCatcher

    I’m still smiling about the big picture takeaway from the final question: for the two front runners, the only good Republican is a dead Republican.

  10. 10.

    Joe Falco

    @mrmoshpotato: I just want fewer candidates. I don’t count Bernie among them because he’s not a Democrat. If he were to become the nominee tomorrow, fine, I’ll support him. As far as my preferences go at the moment, I’m still rooting for Warren. I’d really like to see a much more narrowed field at another debate so we can have an actual debate.

  11. 11.

    Sister Golden Bear

    Watching my rights being taken away in real-time, yet again.

    Judge Strikes Down Obamacare Protections For Trans Patients

    It’s the same wingnut federal district judge in Texas who declared Obamacare unconstitutional last December, and I’m sure they’re trying to tee up this case as well for a Supreme Court ruling. Given the current justices — and given the tone of the arguments in the LGBT anti-job discrimination rights last week, , I’m nervous to say the least.

  14. 14.

    piratedan

    @Mary G: completely agree, maybe find some real fucking reporters asking real questions that aren’t being fed thru a goddamn network news director. I don’t mind tough honest questions that need more than a soundbite to answer.

  20. 20.

    Mandalay

    @jl:

    I though maybe Uncle Joe Biden was trying to appeal to blue haired little old lady vote.

    The way he was shouting at the end was blatant pandering to the hard of hearing vote.

  21. 21.

    jl

    @Mary G: Would be good to require certain topics be covered.
    Need questions regularly on about climate change, pollution and environmental policy, housing shortage, role of money in politics and elections, transportation policy, influence of Wall Street on US economic policy (just as important as technology in recent job losses).
    I think only one question on those over all the debates so far, and on others, none.

  22. 22.

    JWR

    @Sister Golden Bear:

    Watching my rights being taken away in real-time, yet again.

    This was why I found Biden’s answer, when asked if he would support expanding the SC, so disheartening. “Look, everything’s fine the way it is, so no court-packing, you guys”.

  29. 29.

    JWR

    @mrmoshpotato: Yeah, pretty much. And as I’ve said before, I’m not up on all the plans for expanding the court, but as things stand, I see no other way out. (It’s been at 9 justices since like forever, right? Googling… since 1869? Damn!)

  30. 30.

    Anne Laurie

    @Major Major Major Major:

    The Bruenigs are both hectoring bores.

    But they make a very nice living off their particular ‘brand’!

    (which AFAICT is ‘hectoring tradlife bores with a lot of hipster friends from their private-school youths.’)

  31. 31.

    sukabi

    @Sab: around where I’m at there are little old ladies sporting hair in colors that would make crayola happy.

  33. 33.

    Anne Laurie

    @Sister Golden Bear:

    Note to Kleefeld: Reagan passed the “far-reaching law to end the public carrying of guns” because it was the Black Panthers carrying guns in public.

    Also, he was pro-choice because, in those days, it was assumed that it would be women of color & filthy hippy liberals getting those abortions. But I’m 90% sure Kleefeld *intended* his tweet as irony.

  34. 34.

    PJ

    @Major Major Major Major: I understand that, from time to time, we must grapple with the void, in the cold brutality of nature and in the fathomless darkness of our own hearts, but I don’t understand why the powers that be grant newspaper inches to the vapid “hot takes” of people like the Bruenigs, for whom critical thinking is anathema and an idiotic contrarian zinger is gold.

  35. 35.

    BlueDWarrior

    @PJ: Because a lot of these editors who ostensibly have training are still dumb as hell, and those with a right-leaning axe to grind can use that to say “Well the media is liberal by default, so have all of your opinion makers be ‘conservative’. You know, for balance.”

    And then there is also the case that some of these editors have axes to grind themselves.

  36. 36.

    Aleta

    Why should a multi-corporate organization that’s biased toward making profits and that profits in several ways from elections — selling campaign ads, news show ratings, talk show and comedy show ratings, election night ratings — be running the debates, picking the questions and questioners, setting the rhythm, and dividing that power up among themselves. It makes no sense, except in a bad way.

  37. 37.

    Aleta

    @Aleta: And then the organization will try to step back and lets the candidates and the electoral process take the blame for an inadequate debate.

  39. 39.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    I told you Bernie wouldn’t let a little thing like a myocardial infarction keep him from the nearest camera.

  40. 40.

    JWR

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    Yeah, it’s not like the country has grown since 1869.

    Exactly. And I just read this on NBC, which is where I got the year:

    If Congress increases the size of the Supreme Court for transparently partisan political reasons, it would cement the idea the justices are little more than politicians in robes, and that the court is little more than an additional — and very powerful — arm through which partisan political power can be exercised.

    Which is exactly what McConnell did with Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, and if those selections weren’t partisan political power grabs, if they’re not “politicians in robes”, then WTF does he think they are? And now that the Republicans have, for all intents “packed” the court, then somehow that’s where it should all end? Somehow, I don’t think so.

  41. 41.

    Chetan Murthy

    @JWR:

    Which is exactly what McConnell did with Gorsuch and Kavanaugh Scalia, Rehnquist, &co did with Bush v. Gore.

    FTFY.

  42. 42.

    Sab

    @sukabi: I was going to get my hair dyed weirdly, but my hairdresser rolled his eyes. He is in his mid-sixties, and we are afraid of his eventual inevitable retirement. My husband gets angry every time I have a stupid hair idea:”You are going to make him retire in exasperation!” I hate my bangs, so I am going for E Warren haircut. That should be safe, sensible, and easily maintained.

  45. 45.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Juju: Would you care to reconsider that? How about “If the moon were made of cheese, would you eat it?”

  46. 46.

    Amir Khalid

    @Juju:

    I think the last question should have been, if you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?

    If I were a candidate, I’d answer with, “A rambutan tree. I like rambutans.” (American candidates can replace rambutan with their own favourite fruit.)

  47. 47.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @JWR:

    This was why I found Biden’s answer, when asked if he would support expanding the SC, so disheartening.

    I don’t recall a single candidate with a law degree being in favor of expanding the Supreme Court.

  48. 48.

    Chyron HR

    Why doesn’t the next Democratic president just mint a giant trillion-dollar novelty penny and appoint it to the Supreme Court?

  50. 50.

    Zinsky

    I was only able to watch about 15 minutes of it before my rising blood pressure made me turn it off. These debates are not helpful at all, in my opinion. Short, canned answers to unthoughtful questions. No one is really thinking on their feet, other than Warren and Castro, and are just mindlessly regurgitating rehearsed sound snippets. Pathetic.

  51. 51.

    Bobby Thomson

    @David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:

    Breuning’s candidate (wilmer) doesn’t read at all.

    Truth. That’s one of the reasons he responded to Biden’s reasonable question about where you gonna come up with $30 trillion with bumper sticker platitudes.

  54. 54.

    Ken

    On expanding the Court, my answer would be “I think it would be appropriate. Consider some of their recent decisions [here, name a couple]. It’s obvious that they’re badly overworked and making errors. Spreading out the load a bit would relieve the pressure.”

    Of course I have the luxury of not actually being a candidate.

  57. 57.

    Amir Khalid

    @Alain:
    I’ve never had rambutans as anything but fresh fruit. But The Google tells me you can make jam out of them which goes well with meats, smoothies, and such. I suppose anything you can do with lychees you can also do with rambutans, whose flesh is very similar.

    Another thing some like to do with rambutans is pose two of them together with a banana to make a very rude, NSFW still life. You probably won’t want to do that.

  58. 58.

    J R in WV

    @RobertDSC-Mac Mini:

    Harris is still my favorite. Warren is after her and no one else.

    Me too. Or Warren, and Harris after her and no one else.

    ETA remove not so smart quip about rambutan fruits.

  59. 59.

    Alain

    @Amir Khalid: thanks! I’ll pick some up and see how I like them next time I’m at the right market. They’ve always looked a little intimidating so I never investigated, but knowing someone who loves them makes me curious.

  60. 60.

    Amir Khalid

    @Chyron HR:
    My guess: there’s always a chance, however unlikely, that the trillion-dollar coin might not do well at its Senate confirmation hearing.

  61. 61.

    Citizen Alan

    @JWR:

    How about a compromise? In lieu of increasing the size of the Court, we just send the Rape Justice to jail for all that perjury he committed over the years.

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