Debate-watchers say Biden won first debate — CBS News poll

In the first presidential debate between President Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden, voters who watched Tuesday night said Biden won the debate, but overwhelmingly called the debate's tone negative, and most said they felt annoyed watching it, according to a CBS News survey.

Forty-eight percent said Biden won, while 41% thought Mr. Trump was the winner. Biden's margin here is not too different than his lead in national polls. Ten percent called the debate a tie.

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Few voters who watched found the debate informative. Just 17% said it was. Most came away feeling annoyed: it was the top feeling expressed by each candidate's supporters. A third of voters felt entertained — more of Mr. Trump's voters felt this way than Biden's.

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Even this MSM article points out that the result of the poll reflected prior preference rather any shift in sentiment coming from this farce. And if Biden can only "win" 48% of the electorate as of now, he is the one in electoral trouble (assuming the votes will be counted honestly.) The Republican Electoral College advantage makes this a close race as of now.

Note how the Trump supporters told the pollsters that they were entertained by the show. This reflects something discussed at the bottom of a thread about Trump and pro wrestling just yesterday:

From yours truly:

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I sincerely believe that this biographical detail is the key to understanding the Trump Phenomenon in American Politics. The basic marketing strategy of wrestling is a mock battle between Good and Evil, with Evil characters always making transparent rationalizations of their Evil Behavior as they claim the Good Guys are really the Bad Guys.

Trump took this schtick into the 2012 GOP Primary, ostensibly backing Newt Gingrich, while promoting himself.

I get nothing but blank stares whenever I bring up this detail to a TDS sufferer. I find this amusing. In the world of wrestling, they divide the audience into two distinct groups -- the Marks and the Smarts. The Marks believe they are watching a real fight between characters who really hate each other. The Smarts realize they are watching an exhibition of fake mayhem, but enjoy both the spectacle and the histrionics of the Show.

It is so ironic that the upper middle class liberals are the Marks and the unsophisticated and unknowledgeable wingnuts in the empty states are the Smarts -- who see how well Trump's villainous act drives liberals beyond the bend, and love it.

I have friends and relatives in real life who are literally immobilized with loathing for this jerkoff. Virtually everything that bothers them is stuff he says -- rather that anything that he actually does.

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And this reply from Travelerxxx:

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I know and have worked alongside many, many hardcore Trump supporters. My guess is that 90% of them fall into the Smarts category. They fully understand what's going on and get great satisfaction from watching Trump "make lib'ruls cry." In a way, it's all they've got. Many of these voted for Obama, and had to watch as he screwed them over. In a way, they've given up, but they are going to at least go down laughing. I've seen that attitude over and over and over again.

I've watched some of these folks sitting in front of a television while Trump was speaking or at a press conference -- much of the time they would be practically rolling on the floor laughing. They know Trump is a liar, they know he's a con man, they know he's a philanderer, they know he's a tax cheat, they know he's a draft dodger, but they don't care any longer. He's as deplorable as they've been told they are, so he's their guy.

Here's the sad part - and I've mentioned this before on C99: Many of these same people, these deplorables laughing with Trump, came to me during the 2016 election with very serious and heartfelt questions about Bernie Sanders. It was as if they were going to get the chance to vote for FDR again.

And they would have.

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I do not have any confidence that the votes are counted honestly in the USA and the clusterfuck of this election I think obliges everybody to consider the possibility that the mutual accusations of vote stealing by the two parties might have some mutual validity.

I cannot for the life of me imagine why we are heading toward civil war, but last night's debate was yet another log on the fire of that conspiracy theory. Ninety Minutes of Chaos as the two top political figures in the country try to "win" votes. Instead they annoyed the piss out of anybody foolish enough to watch their exercise in Annoyance.