Thursday's Most Active Threads

The most active thread by a very considerable margin yesterday was titled, "Official debate thread get in here and bring your smile" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. Needless to say, this thread is about last night's presidential debate between President Joe Biden and former president, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump. The interest in this thread was amazing and while it was only created just before 9 p.m. last night, it has already reached 85 pages and over 1,100 posts. Obviously, it is not possible for me to read a thread of that length. As for the debate, what can be said? The bar for Biden had been set so low that I didn't believe there would be any way that he would not exceed expectations. Clearly I was wrong. Biden, whose voice was raspy apparently as a result of a cold, was difficult to understand, he repeatedly lost his train of thought, he constantly appeared confused and lost, and, perhaps due to camera angles, almost always seemed to be looking out into space. It's not so much that that Biden didn't reach the low bar that had been set, but rather that he precisely met the expectations that Republicans had set for him. The Republicans claimed that Biden is a feeble, tired, old man who lacks the mental capacity for the job. That is likely exactly how most viewers perceived Biden last night. Republicans are obviously overjoyed and practically dancing in the streets. Democrats, who panic even when things are going well, are completely beside themselves. The airwaves, as well as this thread and at least one additional thread, focused on how Biden might be replaced as the Democratic candidate. As I said in a recent post, replacing Biden is not straight forward and I have generally held the position that it is not going to happen. One hurdle that I don't hear mentioned very often is Ohio's deadline to be on the ballot that is earlier than the Democratic National Convention. The current Democratic plan is to formally nominate Biden through a virtual vote held before Ohio's deadline, in which case the convention would be purely ceremonial. It would take a true act of back room politics to convince Biden to bow out and then agree on an alternative candidate before Ohio's August 7th deadline. This would be an amazing feat and I am not sure that there is anyone in a position to make it happen. Of course Democrats could sacrifice the Ohio ballot position and choose a candidate at the convention, but there is an important Senate race in Ohio and Democratic turnout might suffer if there were not a meaningful Democratic presidential candidate on the ballot. Democrats might even be forced to run a write-in campaign for their candidate. Objectively, Biden had his moments during the debate. But by the time those came along, I think most people had already come to their conclusions about his performance. Moreover, the negative impressions will snowball as they are repeated incessantly over the next few days. While Biden clearly lost the debate, there is still a question of the debate's impact on the election. Plenty of posters in this thread were adamant that Biden could even do worse than he did and they would still vote for him. If polls over the next few days don't show a decline in support for Biden, the interest in replacing him will likely decrease. But, any significant drop-off will create additional impetus to find a new candidate.

Note: after publishing this post, I learned that this month Ohio legislatively changed the ballot deadline so that it is now after the DNC. Therefore, the concerns I expressed above about the deadline preceding the DNC are invalid.

Yesterday's second most active thread was also posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. Titled, "CNN denying even one ‘pool reporter’ access to debate studio tonight", the thread was also related to the debate. The original poster linked to an article reporting that the White House Correspondents Association had asked CNN to allow a print reporter from the White House pool to attend the debate in person and CNN had turned them down. This proved very controversial among the MAGA crowd whose heads had already been filled with conspiracies prior to the debate. All of this looks pretty funny in hindsight given Biden's performance. But before the debate, MAGAs were convinced that Biden would be drugged, that CNN's moderators were biased in favor of Biden, that CNN had increased the delay on the video feed to allow gaffes by Biden to be edited, and that Biden would have an earpiece allowing his aides to feed him answers. The fact that CNN would not allow an independent journalist to be in the studio to witness the event said to be proof that the network had something to hide. If any of the MAGA conspiracies and any foundation in fact (they didn't), they obviously didn't require a print journalist to disrupt them. Nobody who witnessed yesterday's events will believe that any of the predicted conspiracies was implemented. As such, this thread ended rather abruptly when posters realized the entire discussion was moot. I would have loved to see some of those who were so sure that everything had been rigged in favor of Biden to return and admit that they had been wrong. But, nobody should hold their breath waiting for that to happen. Instead, the post that is currently the last in the thread claims that the pool reporter was kept out due to Biden's condition which apparently CNN wanted to hide. Yes, CNN definitely prevented a print reporter from reporting on what millions of saw with our own eyes. We need better conspiracy theorists.

The next two most active threads were ones that I've already discussed so the next one for today was titled, "How much do you drink?" and posted in the "Off-Topic" forum. The original poster says that she used to to enjoy drinking but as she got older and hangovers got worse, she lost interest. She also knows several adults for whom drinking has been the cause of problems, both large and small. Now she only drinks a couple of beers a month and considers even that a complete waste of time from which nothing good will come. A significant number of those responding describe being in a similar situation as the original poster. Many of them used to drink frequently when they were younger, but now either don't drink at all or have just the occasional drink. The most common reasons given for the change in behavior is hangovers getting worse, the unwanted calories, and other health concerns such as concern about links between drinking and cancer. There really is a surprising number of posters who have reduced or given up drinking. A small number of posters have health or other reasons that prevent them from drinking and, as such, abstain reluctantly. There are other posters whose drinking is closer to one drink a day, which they consider to be "moderate" drinking. Some posters complained about the tone of the original poster which they considered to be negative towards drinking and drinkers. They expressed concern that in such a context, those who drink would not want to respond in fear of being castigated. Perhaps this feeling also infected the "moderate" drinkers because they seemed to go to pains to stress how their drinking did not cause any problems for them and that they were completely healthy and active. One such poster would almost have us believe that drinking was a sort of fountain of youth for her. The few posters that do admit to a significant amount of regular drinking do elicit some scolding or, in the best case, sympathy from others. This bias towards not drinking provokes some pushback with complaints about "goody goody" answers and an alleged need by non-drinkers to display their virtue. There is interest among some posters in reducing their drinking for various reasons and, therefore, there is some discussion about what worked for other posters to achieve that goal.

The final thread that I will discuss today was posted in the "Entertainment and Pop Culture" forum and titled, "Dave Grohl vs Taylor Swift". When I saw the title of this thread, I thought the original poster must be comparing the two artists and I thought that was a strange comparison. But that didn't turn out to be the case. Instead it turns out that the Foo Fighters front man Dave Grohl has managed to get himself into trouble with the Swifties. During a Foo Fighters concert that happened to be taking place in London on the same evening that Taylor Swift was playing in the city, Grohl noted that you don't want to suffer the wrath of Taylor Swift and, referring to Swift's Eros tour, said that his band calls their tour the "errors tour". But, ignoring his own warning, Grohl went on to say that the errors were a result of playing live, implying that Swift shows are pre-recorded. This was enough to send the Swifties into action, treating Grohl like they might a Ticketmaster representative. Many Swifties were already upset with Grohl as a result of tweets from his daughter complaining about Swift's private jet. In fact, it may have been the strong reaction by the Swifties toward his daughter that provoked Grohl. The original poster of this thread was not aware of the source of this controversy and wanted the details. Even without knowing the details, the original poster stressed that she was in Grohl's camp regardless. Several posters explain the controversy emphasizing that it "is not that deep". Among most of the posters in this thread, Grohl is held in considerable esteem and the posters are willing to quickly forgive any transgressions on his part. Some posters expressed disappointment with Grohl for whom they believed the swipe at Swift was out of character. Multiple posters mentioned past remarks by Grohl expressing appreciation for Swift for bailing him out of a predicament at the home of Paul McCartney. But for some posters, Grohl's remark did not go down well at all. Some didn't appreciate the optics of a middle-aged man criticizing a "young" woman, though Swift's youth was immediately questioned. Others thought that the two shows are so different that there was no reason to compare them. Many thought that, among other things, Grohl was factually wrong and that Swift's show is live and not pre-recorded. This seems to be a matter of interpretation. Swift sings live and her band plays live — something Swift noted in a later show in apparent response to Grohl. But, Swift is reported to use a backing track to support her vocals. The Swifties' anger provoked a backlash of its own by posters who said that Grohl was only joking and his off-the-cuff remark should not be taken so seriously. There is a poster who can't seem to stop posting about anything other than Matty Healy, a former Swift boyfriend. Despite Healy having absolutely nothing to do with this thread, the poster still managed to work him into it.