‘How Are You All Still Doing This?’: Pundits Roasted For Painting Trump As A Newly Tamed Beast

President Donald Trump reacts during the final presidential debate at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, on October 22, 2020. (Photo by JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images)
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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:

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  1. Why is anyone surprised at this response? This is how they roll. If people think it’s over than they won’t click on any of the blogs to keep the money flowing in. Remember what Les Moores said about the tRump clown show in 2016:

    “It may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS,” Moonves said at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference in San Francisco, according to The Hollywood Reporter — perfectly distilling what media critics have long suspected was motivating the round-the-clock coverage of Trump’s presidential bid.

    “Most of the ads are not about issues. They’re sort of like the debates,” Moonves said, noting, “[t]here’s a lot of money in the marketplace.”

    It’s a hook and it’s all about money. PLUS: Most people are hip to this tactic, especially Chuck Todd.

  2. The best thing I saw posted last night was that ‘Trump is the same crazy Uncle, spouting the same racist, bigoted garbage but he’s using his indoor voice!’

  3. Pundits: ‘I like my racism and cruelty without yelling, thank you very much.’

  4. The media may think they are giving trump a mulligan but they don’t realize how low they have set the bar for him. They want to push the idea that he did a great job because he demonstrated more restraint than the first debate completely missing all the nonsense an gobbly gook talk he was spewing.

Continue the discussion at forums.talkingpointsmemo.com

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