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Well, this is the Trump experience. I mean this debate. He started out really strong, was totally defeating Harris for the first ten minutes or so. Then he just couldn't help but start rambling and making unforced errors. Why decide to bring up abortion and ramble about ninth month abortion? That's not one of the Republicans' strengths. Why bring up Marxism? Outside of the highly online left and right, people generally think of Marxism as some boring thing from decades ago, not as an important issue. Why bring up the Springfield pets thing? That's another highly online issue that plays weird to normies.
Why not just focus on your strengths of crime, the economy, and immigration? He's starting to try to pivot more back to those now, but now he's rambling and raising his voice and acting defensive, which looks bad.
This guy has always sucked at debates other than in the 2016 primaries and when he got to go up against Biden a few months ago, but almost anyone could have won that debate against Biden.
Kamala is a competent but relatively weak debater, a strong debater could easily run rings around her. But Trump has learned nothing, it seems, from past debate performances. He keeps making the same kinds of unforced errors and making himself look bad. He can't stop himself from getting defensive and rambling and bringing up stuff that most people don't care about, or even stuff that favors his opponent.
If he could have just stayed calm and focused, he would have this debate in the bag by now. Instead he is fumbling it. How the fuck can a man have nine years of experience at politics and political debating and not learn the simple lesson of staying calm and looking calm and tough when the context makes it the right decision, instead of getting flustered and emotional all the time?
The odds aren't low that, somewhere in the midwest, they can find an immigrant (or the child of immigrants, England has shown us that's close enough) who did something that vaguely looks like eating a dog or cat. In any sufficiently large group it will happen. And Democrats are going so all-in on denying everything, that there's no room to retreat. All you need is a black guy with a funny name being charged with animal abuse two towns over from Springfield, and the conservative media establishment will blast it to the sky.
That said, far more concerning to me is that Trump's campaign owes money to venues for unpaid bills from years ago, and increasing stories of campaign dysfunction and infighting with funds misappropriated to be spent on legal fees.
I've been wrong about him before, Trump always has a puncher's chance, but I share your feelings of why? Why, in eight years, haven't MAGA Republicans built any real organization outside of Trump's personality? Why, in eight years, is there no political heir to Trumpism? Why, in eight years, isn't there a policy apparatus behind Trump that Trump won't disavow? Why, in eight years, do we lack any MAGA candidates in the Capitol or Governor's Mansions who aren't complete weirdoes?
Allexis Telia Ferrell ate a cat in public in Ohio. However, she was born in the United States, and this seems more likely a mental health problem than a cultural difference.
I'm sure given the urge to dig around enough they'll find something. I'd bet I find somebody in the Poconos and upstate NY and WV and Maine who have kidnapped and tortured or eaten cats.
I can tell the story here anonymously: a "ritually tortured dog" story popped up in our town a few years back after a dog was found dead in a field... It was a coyote that a friend of mine had shot because it was sneaking around the chickens. They'll find something.
Today already I've made the joke "that's what happened to all our feral cats" and "can we tell that warehouse to hire some Haitians to deal with the geese in their retention pond?"
All through my childhood the stories of people supposedly kidnapping or mutilating animals were all, as far as I know, fictitious. But it was a common enough type of rumour that you'd hear it every couple of years - yeah my friend says that his older brother found this dog that was all slashed up with a knife. They think some kid in the neighbourhood is doing it.
That being said the next neighbourhood over from me in Toronto is currently dealing with an actual teenage catkiller at the moment, so this particular story has finally had a proven example for me.
Our own little RFKII stories I guess.
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