Last night’s (Sept. 29) inaugural presidential debate was, in a word, disgusting. From Trump’s apparent nod to white supremacist group the Proud Boys to his weaponizing Biden’s late son as a point of argument, and that the two continuously, over and over, just screamed over each other, the whole thing did very little to inspire any sort of hope for the future of the U.S.
There were physical reactions to the televised mess, too; nausea, heartbreak, tears, a gut-wrenching realization that our political system is irrevocably broken.
But let’s remember that the country is as it was before the debate aired. And no, that’s not a good place—but all the folks who want better and are working to make that better manifest are still at it. We are still fighting, and last night’s atrocious event will not change that. If anything, the debacle reaffirms the importance of people power.
Of course, we can’t not speak our minds about what happened. Twitter reactions ranged from sharp, quippy call-outs to straight-up condemnations to the candidates’ behavior or messaging to clarifications like, hello, the President just failed to condemn white supremacy when given an easy opportunity to do just that.
Part of moving forward is processing what went down. Here’s what Latinx Twitter had to say in response.