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First, full disclosure: I am entirely agnostic on the debate because we did not watch it. We were working with a young dog. When you bring a new dog home, it takes time. It’s not a thing; it’s a conscious being.
I won't say who won or lost since I did not watch it and just saw a clip here or there. However, given some ratings I have seen referencing the actual number of watchers, I suspect the larger audience was abroad.
Growing up, we watched American presidential debates (in translation) in Mexico City. Americans don’t realize how much debates and States of the Union are watched abroad. They can influence stock exchanges around the world. As we used to say, the rest get pneumonia when Americans get a cold. So, with no further, here is the Russian resistance:
The loser in the debate between Trump and Biden was… Putin.
Do you remember the last time Putin debated with a competitor? Right. And no one remembers. Because Putin never had any debates or competitors. He killed them all — like Nemtsov and Navalny. Therefore, one can look with sincere envy at the debate between two older American politicians who are calling each other penultimate names with a twinkle.
🗣 But the interest of American debates, of course, is not only in the exchange of “courtesy” between candidates for the White House. And what they said about Putin’s war. The debate clearly showed that in the United States there is a bipartisan consensus on Ukraine: Republicans, Democrats, Trump, and Biden — both candidates rejected Putin’s “peace” plan as an ultimatum and impracticable. Yes, both candidates want peace. But not on the terms of Ukraine’s surrender.
Biden’s victory means an increase in arms supplies to Ukraine; he cannot allow a “second exit from Afghanistan” (the first, by the way, Trump repeatedly reminded him of at the debate). But Trump’s victory also means an increase in arms supplies to Ukraine. Donald’s cowboyism is well known, and Putin will only be pacified by a show of force. The expectation that America will sit down at the negotiating table after the elections is stupid. Trump is going to bend, not bend. But Putin is not going to give up his intentions, so the Russians still face a very long war with thousands of casualties in order to advance 70 meters per week.
👉 So… Putin lost at the last debate in the USA. They stopped being afraid of Russia. Nobody is going to make advances to the Kremlin ruler. They are ready to talk to Russia, but not to satisfy impossible ultimatums. And the longer Russia fights for Chasov Yar, losing a thousand soldiers a day, the weaker Russia will be, and not the United States or the collective West. This means that Putin’s negotiating position will only get worse every day.
But if the war and the losses of the Russian Armed Forces in meat assaults only increase, and Putin is not going to give up his delusional demands, then the Russians will inevitably face a new wave of mobilization, which the Kremlin has so far managed to avoid. You can sneer at the decrepit Biden and Trump as much as you like, but while they are decrepit, tens of thousands of Russian citizens will become fertilizer for the Ukrainian black soil.
💬 We must face the truth: both the United States and China are using Putin’s inadequacy for their own purposes. The more the Kremlin utilizes its army and human potential in Ukraine, the more it buries the Russian economy and nullifies scientific and technological potential, the sooner only two superpowers will remain on the world Olympus — America and the Middle Kingdom. So in six months (no matter who wins the US elections), we will probably again hear something somewhat predictable from Putin: we have again been deceived and led by the nose.
The first section of this is telling. There were no debates on the way to the Russian election. We all knew who was going to win. The only question was how much? So, there was no debate.
Second, foreign policy vis a vis Ukraine and Russia is not expected to change much. The second point is that, at least according to these guys, Americans have lost all fear of Russia.
Interestingly, China is also mentioned here. They realize that China is ascendant while Russia is becoming increasingly less important. These are also Russian patriots, and they don’t like that.
So, when watching debates and SOTUs, realize there is a different universe of watchers. In many cases, like I did with Dad, people watch with a fifteen-second delay instant translation. One of the first debates I remember was one of the 1976 Jimmy Carter—Gerald Ford debates. Once I moved to the States, of course, we watched debates.
In 2016, my mother and I watched one of the Hillary Clinton—Donald Trump debates in Mexico City on CNN. We also watched his first SOTU. At this point, you can find CNN around the world.
I know this is not the view of American politics you were expecting. While most viewers don’t get to vote in American elections, the audiences are large. Other people who watched this were national leaders, both friendly and not, diplomatic staff, academics, business leaders, and just regular Joes and Janes.
The other reality is that while we all have these discussions, the rest of the world is just watching. But if Lawrence O’Donnell was correct in how many Americans watched this…as somebody who knows a tad of American politics, it’s immaterial.
Why? The Nielsen data shows it as a low-watch event. This is the money quote, way down the top of the page via CNN:
While the debate drew the largest television audience of the year, it represents over a 30% drop in audience from 2020, when more than 73 million people watched the first debate between Trump and Biden across all television networks. In 2016, a record 84 million tuned in to the first debate matchup between Hillary Clinton and Trump.
I think the race is pretty fixed, just by looking at ratings. And Lawrence O’Donnell—yes, he is a partisan, so bear that in mind—breaks these points well.
Now, the other stories are about Russia and Ukraine. We have no actual confirmation. But there is deep speculation the Falcons are already flying combat missions. Here is one of the speculative posts on Twitter. There are more:
I was of the belief that the other day when the 🇷🇺 Botworld was loosing their mind about British RAF R135 over the Black Sea escorted by RAF Typhoons, you also had a peculiar setup with the NATO AWACS flying just west of Liviv. My initial reaction was that the F-16s were being inserted and the R135, along with its Typhoon escort, which was effectively taking the place of FORTE.
This was solely a misdirection play. A hey, look here… don’t look at the F-16’s being inserted into the country.
I agree with your assessment that they’ve arrived.
It does not mean the Falcons alone will win the war, but it puts more pressure on the Federation. Looking at the debate…this is where all those foreign watchers come in—we may see a mixture of Russian active measures and classic democratic lack of spine.
So, our race will now be critical for this war's future. Growing up in Mexico, we knew who had the White House mattered. It was more profoundly and differently than Americans. That resistance channel is making that exact point.
As to who won? I don’t have an opinion. I did not watch it. But I figured this look through the eyes of a foreign entity may be of interest. However, I agree with O’Donnell on a couple of his points. In 2016, Hillary Clinton won the debates but lost the election. This low of a watching public might indicate a race that might be fixed. So, watch the polling, as much as it is increasingly less reliable. That will be a better indicator of who won. If the race remains frozen or barely moves, nobody truly wins, and we are at a moment when voters have made their minds,
One last thing. This is the earliest debate in American history. It's not even convention season yet, and most voters don't pay attention this early. And yes, I saw a few clips. In the era of media manipulation and AI, I am pretty agnostic on that, too.
Your quote “…foreign policy vis a vis Ukraine and Russia is not expected to change much.” seems to run counter to most of what I’ve read as Trump has been portrayed as leaving Ukraine and by extension Europe much to their own devises. I understand that Trump’s first presidency seemed erratic when it came to foreign affairs but he seems pretty forthright on American participation levels this time around. I’d be interested why you believe he won’t change US trajectory if elected.