During Thursday night’s debate (you know, the one that had a new rule on muting mics), President Donald Trump managed to avoid repeatedly heckling and shouting over Democratic candidate Joe Biden as often as he did last time–prompting “new tone”-hungry pundits to predictably applaud him for sort of exercising a restraint that one would expect from any grown adult.
Those pundits found themselves under fire from critics who pointed out that Trump hardly deserves a gold star for not slipping on banana peels as often as he did before, especially considering how the President still spouted a bunch of nonsensical conspiracy theories and racist comments that weren’t any more coherent just because he didn’t scream them this time:
All of this is happening like clockwork pic.twitter.com/sIqU2kWJW3
— Jamison Foser (@jamisonfoser) October 23, 2020
Ladies and gentleman, I present to you your DC press corps. https://t.co/g7qEZnfZPk
— i'm that trigger (@luckybastard77) October 23, 2020
omg dr fauci can you develop a vaccine for New Tonitis https://t.co/vsiqZyV8Ik
— Matt Negrin, HOST OF HARDBALL AT 7PM ON MSNBC (@MattNegrin) October 23, 2020
I just heard Chuck Todd say that “Trump did probably stop the bleeding tonight and that’s important” and I want to scream.
— Scott Hechinger (@ScottHech) October 23, 2020
How can this still be happening? https://t.co/cvzV9nnxwv pic.twitter.com/BPqHAaA1fr
— Matthew Gertz (@MattGertz) October 22, 2020
The President struck a new gentler tone tonight when he described his orphan warehouses as clean
— Jess Dweck (@TheDweck) October 23, 2020
What is this compulsion? Does it have a clinical name? I want to know what to tell the doctors when I check people in. https://t.co/NfOf8NMJTZ
— Ken Tremendous (@KenTremendous) October 23, 2020
I say this fully aware that I’m an opinion journalist who also makes wrong assumptions sometimes, but:
I think a lot of pundits analyze these debates with the assumption that the typical American is conservative or sympathetic to Trump and that’s just simply not true.
— Abdallah Fayyad (@abdallah_fayyad) October 23, 2020
??♂️ pic.twitter.com/VHKZfnWlGY
— Dave Itzkoff (@ditzkoff) October 23, 2020
The Americans lost more men at Omaha Beach than the Germans, so I suspect that means the Germans won. https://t.co/hYuS1UFPVu
— Fuss Still Doesn't Have The Plague (@semperfitrex) October 23, 2020
How are you all still doing this? https://t.co/XiPolzg9vO
— Gabe Ortíz (@TUSK81) October 23, 2020
