He knows his base will still see it, even if they don't hear everything. That is what he cares about. Messaging the base. And his message is going to be to "put her in her place". He has absolute interest in portraying himself as the alpha male who does his own thing, rules and norms be damned. That's his whole brand.

And this is assuming that the moderators have a spine. Do you think they're going to actively shut his mic off if he goes past time? There's zero chance of that happening. Trump going off at random on a hot mic = ratings. Trump demanded no fact checking last time and he got it. They continually give in to Trump's demands because they want to continue having access to him, they don't want to be labelled as "fake news" in one of his tweets, and they know that his soundbytes generate attention, and therefore ratings, and therefore money.

There has never been an instance where Trump has been successfully corralled by debate moderators. I have no reason to believe that the next debate will magicallly be the first.

Trump has a natrually loud voice and loves to shout. Even if his mic is muted, her mic will still pick up at least some of what he's saying. And viewers will still see he's saying something.

Plus, muted mics don't change the fact that she'll be sitting right near him and will be able to hear him. Even if the mics don't pick it up, he can still throw her off. Try talking to one person while you have another person shouting nonsense at full volume into your ear. That's what would be happening. Muted mics or no, Harris will try making her talking points and he'll just keep shouting just to throw her off. If her mics pick it up, he'll consider it a bonus.

Remember, everybody thought the last debate was going to be a cakewalk for Biden. All he had to do was show up and not look like a sundowning dementia patient. And look how that turned out.

Harris may be able to "handle it" in that he's not going to get her all worked up where she'll break down and cry or something. But will she be able to hold her own on the debate floor? She is untested in that realm and her rally speeches show that she's still not the most confident public speaker, and I could see a situation where Trump just doesn't allow her to get a word in edgewise. Even if he says nothing but his usual incoherent word salads, if he can essentially bully her into silence by just throwing her off with his usual interruptions, firehoses of lies, and shouting down her responses, it could bolster his strongman persona, play to his mysoginist base by "putting her in her place", and give some independent voters the impression that she can't keep up.

Like I said, Harris hasn't been tested. Arguing in a courtroom is one thing when there's a judge who can keep the opposition in check and has the ability to enforce it. It's different when it's moderators who are toothless and can't or won't do anything about Trump who doesn't give a shit about the rules at all. And her continuing uneasiness when she gives rally speeches in front of friendly crowds makes me wonder how she'll handle someone who's game plan is literally to make her look like she belongs back in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant.

Harris' game plan right from the beginning is that he goes to the debate and just lashes out. That's why she wanted the open mics. But like I said before, Biden got the debate he wanted on his terms and it ended up ending his campaign. Hopefully Harris isn't making the same mistake.

I just haven't filled out the paperwork yet. I've got 12 years. I've got time.

Valid point.

Yeah, I apologize. That came off as more argumentative than I intended. I wholeheartedly agree with you and was just trying to show the absurdity of the suggestion that turning our schools into fortresses would do a damn thing. Not only is it political theater, it's a logistical, financial, and educational impossibility and any attempt at doing so could be easily thwarted in seconds in about 10 different ways.

I mean for the love of God, a shooter could just it in their car across the street and fire into the schoolyard during recess, or when kids are coming to/leaving school. I don't care if the school is built like ADX-Florence. You ain't stopping that. There will always be a bottleneck that can be exploited.

Pathetic.

I'm stating it right now. I am officially running for President in the 2024, 2028, 2032, and 2036 elections. Therefore, to avoid the appearance of impropriety and not show political bias, the criminal court system cannot send me to jail until after the 2036 election, regardless of what crimes I commit or am convicted of in the mean time. The crimes I commit between now and then are irrelevant. I mean, you can convict me of those crimes if you'd like. You just can't punish me for it because I'm a Presidential Candidate under the Trump standard set forth by this judge.

This act of "not showing bias" goes to show the exact bias that the entire court system continues to give to Trump: giving him special privileges that exactly zero other people in this country would have extended to them in the same situation. And in one fell swoop, Merchan shows that he's absolutely no better than the rest of them; when push comes to shove, every single one of them will go out of their way to avoid holding Trump accountable for anything, all the while wondering why he keeps doing it.

He's doing it because it works. He's doing it because you let him. He's doing it because you are unwilling to do anything to stop him.

And he's going to keep doing it because you continue to let him win. Fuck this judge and fuck every other judge who continues to rule that Trump gets special treatment as if it's some kind of fucking birthright.

There is more than can be done besides turning schools into fortresses and thoughts and prayers.

I have almost 20 years of experience working in the public school system. You know those "fortresses"? They're also for show. Unless you're literally putting every child through a metal detector individually (which would take way too much time), any student can easily sneak a weapon right in their backpack. Schools simply do not have the time or resources to be checking every individual student every time the metal detector goes off, assuming they have one in the first place. Those bulletproof windows don't do shit when the shooter is in the building already. And any adult can socially engineer their way to access by simply claiming to be a parent, vendor, substitute teacher, or whatever. I have been to dozens of districts. The number of "fortresses" that could effectively stop a school shooter is exactly zero.

Give me a public school building anywhere in the country, and I'll show you ten ways that all of your security measures will do exactly nothing. I will bet large sums of money on it.

I know the Trump train is going full steam ahead and Vance is just along for the ride. And I know who's driving the train. But is there nobody pulling Vance aside and telling him that every once in a while he needs to learn to shut the fuck up?

It's one thing for Trump to say it himself. He's an incoherent moron who can't put together a coherent thought, and can be written off like a homeless person in the park preaching to the pigeons. But JD Vance is an articulate, educated individual. But IMO, the fact that he's actually coherent just makes it worse when he says it because that means actual, significant thought has been put into it, which also means coherent thought has been put into implementing it.

Just think of how much more dangerous Trump would be if he were actually a coherent, functioning person. That's JD Vance.

D is an imbecile, BUT I don’t think he’s entirely off of base here. Grandparents (and other extended family members) have historically been very involved in the raising of young children.

First, my children are not my parents', siblings', or friends' responsibility. Just like their kids aren't mine.

Second, in an age where people are continuing to work even beyond retirement (either by choice or need), these people all likely have work and family responsibilities of their own. And even if they don't, what if they simply just don't want the burden of taking your child for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week? I know plenty of grandparents who like the idea of the kids coming by on the weekend where they can load them up with sugar and send them home, and who's opinion is that of "Hey, I raised my kids. My job is done. It's your turn now.", and do not want the day-to-day responsibilites of child care.

What about those who have no family? Maybe their parents have died. Or maybe they're too old to keep up with the day to day responsibilites? Or your family are simply not the type of people you want your children to be around? What if they live too far away to make childcare a viable option?

Are they also supposed to be responsible for feeding and transporting your child around (to and from school, for example) for free?

Your position just defends the GOP take on the matter that poor people should just rely on these resources as if they're available to everybody without issues, and that family members are all well-adjusted members of society who will gladly essentially take on the full time job of child care worker for free because they have no responsibilities of their own. Look at it this way. If these people have parents, siblings, and friends available to them and they're not using them for child care, there's probably a reason for that. Because I can guaran-fucking-tee you they looked into it.

Completely disagree. Saying "It's a fact of life" while actively trying to combat it is one thing. COVID, for example. A fact of life that we had to deal with while we tried to figure out what it was and how to stop it.

He wasn't saying it's a fact of life like that. He's being completely dismissive and saying "It's a fact of life, it's not going to change, and people are going to have to accept that.". There's no eagerness to combat the problem, and he knows his party has absolutely zero intention of doing so. Heck, he's not even the first politician to say it, and half of his party has believed this for years.

So no, I do not believe this is a quote from a man who is just acknowledging the reality of the world we live in, as he sees it. This is a man who believes that gun violence is just a side-effect of protecting gun rights above any and all else, and any children that die as a result are just an unfortunate statistic.

Fuck JD Vance. That is all.