Donald Trump is reportedly backing out of a scheduled September debate.That's according to Sam Stein, of The Bulwark and MSNBC, who wrote on the social media app X on Thursday night that the decision was made, "given the continued political chaos" surrounding Joe Biden and the Democrat Party. The st...
  • ThePowerOfGeek@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2451·
    2 months ago

    Brave Sir Donald ran away.

    Bravely ran away away.

    When danger reared it’s ugly head,

    He bravely turned his tail and fled.

    Yes, brave Sir Donald turned about

    And gallantly he chickened out.

    Gingerly taking to his feet,

    He beat a very brave retreat.

    Bravest of the brave, Sir Donald!

  • Prandom_returns@lemm.ee
    1461·
    2 months ago

    If it was any other, normal country, the debate schedule would not be based on whether someone wants to show up or not.

    If a canditate doesn’t show up, the other candidate gets to talk about their campaign.

    • Coelacanth@feddit.nu
      481·
      2 months ago

      The US is bizarro world in so many aspects. Political Supreme Court appointees that are appointed for life (!), two party system, the electoral college, the absurdly long election cycles…

      • wieson@feddit.org
        321·
        2 months ago

        The fact that the first lady does speeches and the presidents family is in the spotlight at all. (Rather dynastic for a democracy)

        • Asafum@feddit.nl
          4·
          2 months ago

          Come on now we can’t have the poors voting now can we??

          How are we supposed to keep our stranglehold on wealth the country if we allowed the poors to have their say!?

      • bleistift2@sopuli.xyzEnglish
        17·
        2 months ago

        Political Supreme Court appointees that are appointed for life (!),

        Judges are appointed for life, so they can be impartial and don’t need to worry about who won’t hire them after their term ends if they made unfavorable decisions.

        the absurdly long election cycles…

        4 years is absurdly long to you? Getting things done in politics takes time. How long should the cycle be in your opinion?

        • lemonmelon@lemmy.world
          9·
          2 months ago

          The “political” before “Supreme Court apointees” implies a lack of impartiality.

          “Election cycle” and “term of office” aren’t synonymous.

        • Coelacanth@feddit.nu
          6·
          2 months ago

          Judges are appointed for life, so they can be impartial and don’t need to worry about who won’t hire them after their term ends if they made unfavorable decisions.

          Brother I’m not talking about letting the new president fire them at will, I’m talking about term limits and retirement ages.

          4 years is absurdly long to you?

          This one is maybe on me since my word choice was possibly ambiguous, but I was referring to the campaign cycle - not the length of the term.

          • bleistift2@sopuli.xyzEnglish
            11·
            2 months ago

            Ok, then we agree on all points except term limits for judges. Forced retirement is fine by me, but yanking them out of office before they retire has the drawback I mentioned before.

        • CapeWearingAeroplane@sopuli.xyz
          1·
          2 months ago

          The US supreme court judges are appointed by politicians: They are political appointees. In a lot of other countries supreme court judges are selected by a non-political committee, like every other non-political appointee.

          • bleistift2@sopuli.xyzEnglish
            1·
            2 months ago

            In a lot of other countries supreme court judges are selected by a non-political committee

            My worldwide knowledge of this is limited. In Germany, each of the two ‘houses’ of parliament (Bundestag and Bundesrat) elect one half of the ‘Supreme Court’’s (Bundesverfassungsgericht) members (judges and other staff).

            Article 94 of the constitution. (Translated)

    • barsquid@lemmy.world
      14·
      2 months ago

      In a normal country an insurrectionist and rapist would not be a candidate, let alone in the top two. We are already well beyond rational thinking about any of this.

  • Red_October@lemmy.world
    841·
    2 months ago

    Well he’s not wrong, in the end. Televising the brutal beating of a handicapped old man would be pretty inappropriate.

  • toasterOven@eviltoast.orgEnglish
    77·
    2 months ago

    Hold the debate anyway. Have Kamala appear next to an empty chair.

    Moderator: giving Trump a couple more minutes to appear.

    (~5 min later)

    Moderator: Trump is a no show. Hmm… he originally eagerly agreed to this September debate with Biden. It’s unclear why the change of heart, but I have to say he forfeits by default.

    Kamala (interrupts): Hold on, please call Trump’s probation officer to verify his attendance permission while we wait a few more min. He’s understandably a bit skiddish with prosecutors lately but I would like to yield some of my time & do him this courtesy since he donated to my campaign in 2011 & 2013.

    (~5 min later)

    Moderator: no go, but would you like to answer the questions next to an empty chair to have your answers heard anyway?

    Kamala: yes, this way he can take all the time he needs to prepare a scripted response later given his cognitive challenges….

      • toasterOven@eviltoast.orgEnglish
        121·
        2 months ago

        NY Times is a closed website. Paywalled or something? I could not reach it from Tor at least not with my browser. Could be a popup-blocker blocker, not sure. Anyway, the link I gave is a NY Times front-end that is openly accessible, though clearnet users might have to append a .cab or something. There are probably NY Times FEs on clearnet but I don’t know of any ATM.

        (edit) actually I think that’s NY Times official onion server. Anyway, for whatever reason it has better accessibility than the clearnet version.

    • modifier@lemmy.ca
      15·
      2 months ago

      I never thought there was the slightest chance of him ever actually debating her, but I am astonished by how lazy and flimsy their pretext is for backing out.

    • Thrashy@lemmy.world
      7·
      2 months ago

      The only people who didn’t take that bet were ones who didn’t see the point of putting money on 1:1.01 odds.

  • Wytch@lemmy.zipEnglish
    683·
    2 months ago

    His supporters will require Olympic level mental gymnastics to dispel the unease they’re gonna get if they even hear about this. Backing down from a debate looks cowardly no matter what his lame excuse and they’ll feel the truth of that.

    • OneWomanCreamTeam@sh.itjust.works
      29·
      2 months ago

      They’re going to do everything they can to paint Kamala as an illegitimate candidate, and spin his refusal to debate her as simply refusing to legitimize her.

      Trump’s base doesn’t know shit about fuck, so if their god emperor says she’s illegitimate they won’t even think about it further.

      • Cethin@lemmy.zipEnglish
        6·
        2 months ago

        Well, those people weren’t going to change their mind anyway. The debate wasn’t for them.

      • Zetta@mander.xyz
        7·
        2 months ago

        Yea the vast majority of his supporters are not the brightest individuals, they don’t need mental gymnastics because they are so stupid

    • ripcord@lemmy.world
      26·
      2 months ago

      You would think this. But it hasn’t been true for years. Intellectual dishonesty+laziness is the default now.

    • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      2·
      2 months ago

      They’re far past even bothering with mental gymnastics. Their brains have gotten so accustomed to constant cognitive dissonance that they’ve basically turned that feature off.

      Whatever talking point is chosen for them will be the reality. Really takes the pressure off them I guess.

      I can’t even imagine what that must be like… It’s like there’s no concrete, consistent reality to them. Wild.

  • archonet@lemy.lol
    642·
    2 months ago

    Chickenshit.

    Seriously, just have Kamala call him a chickenshit little weasel in a press conference. Instant ego meltdown and I’LL SEE YOU AT THE DEBATE within the day, I guarantee it.

  • DickFiasco@lemm.ee
    581·
    2 months ago

    Yes, it would be inappropriate for Harris to fight a battle of wits against an unarmed man.

    • III@lemmy.worldEnglish
      121·
      2 months ago

      I don’t know if you know this, but Trump’s uncle was a professor at MIT. Just a random piece of information that bares no change to your completely factual and valid statement.

      • CrabAndBroom@lemmy.mlEnglish
        2·
        2 months ago

        Or, as Trump himself put it:

        Look, having nuclear — my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes, OK, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart — you know, if you’re a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, like, OK, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I’m one of the smartest people anywhere in the world — it’s true! — but when you’re a conservative Republican they try — oh, do they do a number — that’s why I always start off: Went to Wharton, was a good student, went there, went there, did this, built a fortune — you know I have to give my like credentials all the time, because we’re a little disadvantaged — but you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me — it would have been so easy, and it’s not as important as these lives are — nuclear is so powerful; my uncle explained that to me many, many years ago, the power and that was 35 years ago; he would explain the power of what’s going to happen and he was right, who would have thought? — but when you look at what’s going on with the four prisoners — now it used to be three, now it’s four — but when it was three and even now, I would have said it’s all in the messenger; fellas, and it is fellas because, you know, they don’t, they haven’t figured that the women are smarter right now than the men, so, you know, it’s gonna take them about another 150 years — but the Persians are great negotiators, the Iranians are great negotiators, so, and they, they just killed, they just killed us, this is horrible

  • Dagamant@lemmy.world
    571·
    2 months ago

    If your platform and policy are good, you can debate anyone at any time. If your platform is just “other guy bad” then you’re gonna have a hard time.