Alright, I'm going to watch the debate and tweet and stuff, so feel free to follow along or mute this thread if you'd rather not.

I have one large Taj Mahal lager and three or four Belgian ales. This feels, perhaps, insufficient.

Anyway, off we go...

1/

The question of the night is:

Who is going to show up - Speedfreak Trump or Sammy Sedate Trump?

I'm betting on Speedfreak Trump. He wants to be "on" tonight. So, he'll be redlining on some prescription crank of one kind or another.

2/

I will be watching along on MSNBC but may swing over to CNN if studio cut-ins get annoying.

The debate hasn't started yet and I'm already annoyed by it.

This bodes poorly for my mood-state throughout. This may be a bumpy ride.

Let me slip in a few last prefaces before the debate starts:

1) Debates generally have less impact than we all tend to think
2) The "winner" and "loser" depend on what gets picked up and played over and over *after* the debate
3) Trump is behind. He needs this more.

Jesus H. Christmas, Trump is positively Nuclear Orange. Dayglo. Looks like a garish pumpkin brought to life to haunt children's dreams.

He looks ridiculous.

What is that color? It's clown paint.

Biden and Trump take the stage and step to their podiums.

Chris Wallace kicks it off.

First question is about the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett.

Trump answers. Dissembles about having the White House and Senate so he can do it. Meh.

Biden immediately hammers home that Justice Handmaid is part of Trump's plot to destroy the healthcare system which tens of millions Americans rely on.

Trump is Mumbly McMushmouth.

They tranq'ed him. Blowdart full of Xanax to the neck probably.

Trump is interrupting regularly and just blurting out random nonsense.

Wallace is making little to no effort to thwart the tactic.

So far, Wallace is getting streamrolled.

Get it together, Chris.

Asked and received. Wallace steps in, chides Trump and demands he be the one who asks the questions.

Wallace then rolls into a question about the non-existent healthcare plan Trump always swears he is about to roll out.

Trump rambles incoherently about how he is scoring super cheap insulin somewhere.

So far, Trump is literally interrupting every single time Biden speaks.

This is unwatchable so far.

Trump is just spewing bullshit like the dumbest kid in high school who just snorted six crushed up No-Doz.

His hands are pink. His face is orange.

He keeps waving his hands around which looks like someone waving bologna in front of a pumpkin pie.

Trump interrupts again and again... and Biden says:

"Will you shut up, man." and then smiles and starts laughing.

Trump has a problem here.

All he can do is filibuster and interrupt - but Biden is laughing at him. Out loud.

We'll see where this goes from here but I think we just reached a fork in the road.

Trump was trying to push Biden's buttons. Joe was roused to irritation briefly. And now he's laughing at Trump like he is a toddler behaving badly.

Biden is getting his legs under him.

Like all narcissists, Trump is utterly reliant on the other person showing emotion. A person who goes "gray rock" and shows none is their kryptonite.

If Biden stays unflappable, this will be a long night for Trump.

Come on, Joe. Duck Mode, sir. Let it roll off.

So far, thirty minutes in, I would imagine the debate has had the following impact:

- Some people turned the channel
- None changed their minds

Again, that accrues to Joe's favor.

Joe is settling in. Speaking calmly. Laughing off Trump's attempts to rile him up.

Narcissists don't like to be laughed at... like, at all.

Trump is acting more and more like a petulant little fuckstick.

This won't play well with any but his most loyal base.

No joke, Biden is laughing almost every time Trump speaks.

That's a very effective tactic against someone like Trump.

Trump is an emotional vampire. He relies on being able to find the vein. When he can't tap into it, he flails. He just incoherently attacks trying to find it.

Pumpkin Spice is unable to string together a coherent paragraph.

It's all just random declarative statements in an unconnected sequence. Word soup.

Biden, when not interrupted, sounds like a grownup.

Trump now alleges New York City is a ghost town but he brought back football.

For real. That's the kind of nutbaggery we're being subjected to here.

Chris Wallace asks Trump about paying only $750 in federal income taxes.

Trump rambles. Wallace presses him. Trump attempts to dodge. Wallace won't let him. Biden keeps interjecting with "show us your taxes."

Trump is flailing.

Biden is going to spike this volleyball.

Biden steps up to spike the volleyball.

Trump interrupts, starts talking over Biden.

Biden interrupts back with "You are a president screwing things up. You are the worst president this country has ever had."

Ouch. That's your first major soundbite.

Wallace (paraphrasing): Don, you say you've done a fantastic job of creating jobs... but you actually created far fewer than Obama.

Trump is swinging but keeps taking punches.

Biden punching him in the mouth on job creation in Michigan, Ohio.

Trump responds by telling one of his current favorite lies:

Claiming automakers from around the world have suddenly opened a bunch of factories.

Ironically, they're in Ohio where an auto plant Trump promised to save shuttered last year.

Trump now ranting about Hunter Biden. Ranting over Biden every time he attempts to speak.

"It's hard to get a word in edgewise with this clown." - Joe Biden

Man, this is a shitshow. But Trump's shtick is not working.

Trump had no strategy other than to be a bully.

That doesn't work with Biden's temperament though.

It just comes off as exactly what it is: a buffoon with no answers and no track record to run on hoping he can browbeat his opponent

Trump has converted zero people so far tonight.

And we're an hour in.

The window of opportunity is all but closed because this has been unwatchable for all but the very motivated - and their minds are made up.

I wish there was an intermission.

I need another beer.

This is painful.

Wallace asks Trump why he eliminated racial sensitivity training.

Mango McGee prattles on in a bizarre word vomit about how teaching people to be less racist meant "there were people who had no status - which was like a reverse kind of thing."

No joke, he basically said anti-racism is racist.

Biden: "You are the racist."

Trump is not used to getting punched in the mouth like this without being able to really get a rise no matter how many punches he throws.

Biden: "He wouldn't go to a suburb unless he took a wrong turn. I was raised in a suburb. These racist dogwhistles aren't working anymore."

Trump needed to draw blood tonight. Instead, he's the one getting hit square in the mouth without any mincing of words.

Hillary used a similar approach in 2016.

"You're the puppet."

Biden is just throwing more of those punches, on more subjects, about Trump personally.

Trump is trying to alpha-dog Biden but is getting bitten every time he turns around.

I know I am biased - and I know the cultists over at Fox News will say Trump did an amazing job - but this has been his worst debate performance of any I watched including both the 2016 primaries and general.

He seems very small. And desperate. And nearly incoherent.

One of the biggest differences between this debate and the prior ones is that we've all been subjected to four years of Trump's bullshit now.

So, now, when he spews his hyperbolic stupidity, it just goes in one ear and out the other.

Even his fans know he is full of shit.

Trump interrupting Biden to rant about Hunter Biden again.

I can't believe they're still trying to ride that pony.

Ivanka was just implicated as a co-conspirator in Trump's running tax evasion rackets.

Yet, they're still flogging this. It's a weirdly impotent strategy.

Wallace asks about climate change.

In the space of two mins, Trump reprises his belief that forests could really use some tidying up and rolling back fuel efficiency standards is actually good because cars have computers now and they're expensive but not as expensive anymore...

...because he made them cheaper so people can buy them and that means older ones aren't on the road and that means they're cleaner so it all works out, see?

Uh. Wut?

Rolling back fuel efficiency standards increases pollution and worsens climate change. Period.

I am glad we are reaching the end here. This has been a chore.

Thanks to the absence of intermissions, I have endured this without the benefit of a single beer. Not one. I failed to get one before they started and here we are.

This has been like an appendectomy sans anesthesia.

While they roll through the last of answers no one will hear, remember or be influenced by, I might as well sum up the net-takeaways IMHO.

Trump hasn't helped himself at all.

Biden did just fine. Not sure he gained ground but he certainly didn't lose any.

In the immediate aftermath, both camps will say their guy did great.

By midday tomorrow at the latest though, we'll hear the rumbles from anonymous Republican strategists grousing about how Trump was a one-trick pony who lost his giddy-up.

There is going to be a fair amount of single malt scotch grimly consumed later tonight by establishment Rs who were hoping Trump could somehow reverse course and not drag down-ballot candidates to the bottom of Lake Travis with him.

Paging Ernst, McSally, Collins. Bad news.

Last question is about election security. Answers were largely cross-talk - none of which will be remembered two days from now.

There will be ample chatter among the pundit class about the argument here but it won't change voters' minds.

And I stand corrected.

Trump just urged his people to go into polls to "watch".

That's actually entirely illegal.

Trump just "urged" his nutbag dim bulbs to commit a crime on Election Day.

Trump's biggest soundbite from tonight will be the one where he encouraged criminality.

And we're done.

I will now venture off to get a beer and let this event settle a bit.

If you happen to have an interest in sliding a cold one down my virtual bar, I wouldn't object. In fact, I'd be humbly in your debt. https://ko-fi.com/therealhoarse 

I am going to opt for one of the Belgian beers. They remind me of Belgium. Which reminds me of long ago days when I visited. Which feels like a mental vacation from the hellscape of our various current national trainwrecks.

So, that would be nice.

I might add a couple closing notes but not until I'm at least one beer down.

Cheers.

Postscripts to come momentarily.

Okay, my final thoughts are coming together.

True story: last night, I had a nightmare about this debate. In it, Biden froze for an uncomfortably long time. A painfully long time. Frozen. Unspeaking.

Eek. Didn't start my day with a smile.

It was just a nightmare but it reflected what I saw as his only real vulnerability: a costly, huge gaffe.

He made no such gaffes.

He had moments when he was good to very good.

He had no moments when he was bad... and none when he was even significantly halting in his answers.

So, Trump needed to knock him off his game... and he not only failed to do that; he looked alternately small, childish, rude, obnoxious, angry, and most of all, desperate.

Which elevated Biden as more presidential in contrast.

And the thing is, Trump had no better play... and thus, there is no Plan B he can tap for the next debate.

He can't go toe to toe in a cogent discussion. He can't be more ranty and unhinged than he was tonight.

Sixgun Sam fired blanks because he is out of bullets.

Trump is in the "winback phase" of a brand's lifecycle.

Was once more popular. Has lost support. Facing an urgent need to both stem erosion and win back some former customers.

And he has no aptitude for any of that. He is incapable.

If I'm the Biden Campaign, I'm happy to ecstatic about tonight and feeling pretty darn good about being able to repeat the success in the remaining debates.

If I'm the Trump Campaign, I'm drinking heavily and nervously plotting ways to keep Trump from watching TV tomorrow.

Above all, I'm relieved.

Our guy faced what can be a really disorienting, overpowering thing: a raging narcissist fully bent on pressing your buttons.

And he weathered that storm well.

And he'll replicate what worked and smooth what could have been better for next time.

And with that, I'll end this.

Well done, Joe.

Tonight's dreams will be better.