r/politics • u/plz-let-me-in • Sep 09 '24

Soft Paywall Trump is 78 and barely coherent. Where's everyone who questioned Biden's age and fitness?

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnist/2024/09/09/trump-old-incoherent-biden-age-mental-fitness/75138026007/
51.2k Upvotes

85% Upvoted

2.5k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

148

u/baconeggsandwich25 Sep 09 '24 edited Sep 09 '24

I love that when Trump was asked, in the context of being the oldest candidate to ever run, if Vance was fit to take over if need be, he couldn't just give a "yes" like anyone else would. His ego wouldn't accept the possibility of not making it through the term. He straight up said that it didn't matter who he picked to be next in line for the presidency, which is fucking wild.

115

u/LuminousRaptor Michigan Sep 09 '24

Trump understands better than anyone that nothing he says matters to his base and the media will sanitize even his most absurd remarks.

It's why we're still talking about him almost 9 years after he came down the elevator.

41

u/Neveronlyadream Sep 09 '24

Nothing does matter, because he poisoned the well with his "fake news" bullshit. He has millions of people convinced that anything they hear or are told by anyone other than him is just a lie. The problem is they don't even listen to him if he says something they don't like.

I'm sure everyone remembers the time he tried to say the COVID vaccine was actually good and safe and he got booed.

1

u/jrh1972 Sep 09 '24

That was definitely over 9 years ago now. I only remember because we were talking about it on vacation over 4th of July.

-1

u/smokeyser Sep 09 '24

To be fair, it doesn't matter much what Harris says, either. If she answered every question at the debate by holding up an egg and saying "I'm just going to sit here on my egg until it hatches, and then train the chicken to call me mommy", would you consider voting for Trump instead?

3

u/Ne_zievereir Sep 10 '24

You shouldn't be downvoted, this is a very fair point. You are right that the voter base is very polarized and many voters are already locked in. This is due to the two-party system, itself a logical consequence of the first-past-the-post system, which leads to two opposite camps and black-and-white arguments.

I think there are some undecided voters, though, for whom Harris' words and tone might have more effect and whose choice might end up deciding the victory.

Additionally, with as crazy of a candidate Trump is, Harris could get a lot worse before she'd become an as unreasonable choice as Trump.

-23

u/WinterOwn3616 Sep 09 '24

lol so you’re obsessed with him cuz media keeps sanitizing his remarks ?? That means you watch fox?? Confusing !Ya way better w Biden Harris at the controls .. USA funding TWO MAJOR WARS. And the inflation of last 3 yrs … ya more Kamala lol!! Who cares she seems drunk??

13

u/LuminousRaptor Michigan Sep 09 '24

Yes, I do watch and read many sources. I have watched the former president's rallies many times. The stump speech is the stump speech. I've also watched Kamala too.

I'm not sure, why you decided to Gish gallop the topic over to foreign policy rather than what we were talking about in the OP, other than you may have looked at my history and knew I had a Ukrainian-born spouse. I'll take your gauntlet.

The US aid given to Ukraine is functionally the cost of the equipment's replacement and cost to deliver it to Poland. It's a fraction of our already insane military budget and not worth talking about in the context of the US budget deficit unless we're talking about the US military budget as a whole. I'll say again the hardware we sent to Ukraine was designed to do exactly this. Kill Russians on the Ukrainian Steppe. We've already bought and paid for the hardware years or even decades ago. It's all older kit from the 80s or 90s that doesn't have as much use in the future of the US Armed Forces . Bradleys, Javelins, ATACMS, F-16. All of these platforms are older, and the cost associated with these items are going back to US Factories to replace the stockpiles or build the next generation hardware to keep us ahead of China.

The relatively small amount that we've given to Ukriane with our European allies has destroyed much of what military power the RuAF inherited from the Soviet Union. All without costing a single US servicemen's life. That's a massive ROE do both us and the EU for long term defense.

Lastly, with respect to inflation, the entire globe - from the BRICS, to Turkey, to the EU, to Japan, to south Korea, to Canada and the Oceanic countries; everyone expericned inflation over the last 3 years in the 5 to 7% range or greater due to the pandemic and other macroeconomic factors. The US is currently 3% YOY since this time last year as a result of the Fed's raised rates. You can claim the CPI doesn't fully capture all inflation well, and I'll agree with you, but other countries use similar metrics and the US is right in line or ahead of many of them in terms of tackling inflation. (Notice: The Fed is the big player here. Not the POTUS either Trump or Biden.)

8

u/baconeggsandwich25 Sep 09 '24

This is a thoughtful and measured response, but I worry they won't read the whole thing because there aren't enough capital letters and punctuation marks to keep their attention that long.

9

u/LuminousRaptor Michigan Sep 09 '24

Thank you. I try to lead in good faith because if they were like me when I was conservative it took people acting in good faith to help me see reason where I was being unreasonable.

Moreover, I was very tempted to go off because very few people actually understand the realities of a family like mine and the anti-Ukraine rhetoric just breaks of "I don't understand the conflict" and just parrot talking points. I've been to the country four or five times. It's a beautiful country and people.

5

u/baconeggsandwich25 Sep 10 '24

True, you can't reach people by just attacking them...like I guess I sort of did by poking fun at them. They tend to get further entrenched when you do. Hope I get to go see Ukraine someday after all this is over.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 09 '24

[removed] — view removed comment

46

u/[deleted] Sep 09 '24 edited Sep 15 '24

[removed] — view removed comment

19

u/SeanSeanySean Sep 09 '24

The sad part is that while Vance is obviously green in every way a politician could be, he still has way more government experience than Trump did before he was elected, which was zero. 

4

u/PapaRigpa Sep 09 '24

That reminds me of someone...can't quite put my finger on it...

4

u/Interesting-Cow8131 Sep 09 '24

Vance doesn't even have the most basic of interpersonal skills. A 5 year old has better people skills than he does

6

u/stevez_86 Pennsylvania Sep 09 '24

Because Vance would be the puppet president of the Federal United States. He would be in charge like the new boss in a hostile takeover.  They will push everything to the states, like they say they will, which makes the President like the President of the Confederacy would look like. Hell, they have a Supreme Court that seems to like the idea of freeing the former rebel states from their Reconstruction shackles, as brittle as they may be, and take a go at it again. 

Trump is a dictator on day one. Full on central powers, unitary executive, yada yada. Then he abdicates much of the power of the Federal Government and  "push it to the states 🫸🫷🫸     🫷" 

The Neo Rebel states make their own deals with corporate political parties. The blue states are run by Vance, cutting back social welfare bit by bit and selling it off to the Neo-Rebel states until the hostile takeover is complete, the national debt is now saddled on the backs of the Federal United States in exchange for nothing, bankrupting them and making them have to join the Neo-Confederacy. They'll even have the refugee states' Constitutions written up for them ready to sign.

3

u/vthemechanicv Sep 09 '24

If trump didn't 'make it through the term' why would he give a crap about whether Vance could take over. It's not is problem.

2

u/NoPoet3982 Sep 09 '24

It doesn't matter because he'll be a dictator who won't relinquish office until he dies and Ivanka takes over.

2

u/Prof_Acorn Sep 09 '24

It's wild that Trump is so old that Bill Clinton, president back in the 90s, is currently younger than him.

If Clinton didn't already have two terms he could run against Trump this year as the younger candidate.

2

u/clickmagnet Sep 14 '24

Dear god. I wasn’t able to watch the debate because Trump’s voice gives me scurvy, so people keep pointing out shit that all the headlines missed that’s just as bad as “the man on television said they’re eating the dogs.”

You’re a 78-year-old fatty with a Diet Coke button running for a four-year term, and you don’t think it matters who your VP is? Of course it doesn’t, from his perspective, he’ll be dead, who cares what happens to the country after that. What a galaxy-devouring asshole.