US Presidential Debates

I switched over to Faux - nothing but a glowing, hand's down win for Trump. Welcome to your bubble - "Trump just reset the game" - I see a Mitt Romney moment coming...

WTF is wrong with these people? Climate change isn't happening, vaccination is bad, trickle down economics is the way to go - and Benghazi! Emails!

Wow... Let's make America sane again. We need a new Australia - banishment - Winter is coming...

WTF is wrong with these people?

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Whatever it is, it's been wrong like this - almost exactly like this - since 1980 in its first strut on stage, and 1994 full blown.

W&Cheney were re-elected, in 2004, by an increased majority of the white male vote.

It's easily possible that without a fortuitous hurricane hitting New Orleans and the inability of Wall Street to delay the Crash another six months, both essentially coincidental and both acting to suppress rather than alter the white male vote, Sara Palin would be the frontrunner for President of the United States right now. McCain/Palin got a majority of the white male vote, but it wasn't big enough overall.
http://ropercenter.cornell.edu/polls/us-elections/how-groups-voted/how-groups-voted-2008/

Randwolf said:

We need a new Australia - banishment - Winter is coming...

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Don't you dare sending Trump here! ( we have enough Trumps of our own ... thank you very much)

Gotta love Trumps final words ( what attribute do you admire in your opponent)
he finally anwers the question....a strong endorsement for HC's election IMO

joepistole said:

Another disturbing moment was when Trump stated he would use his office to prosecute Clinton. That's not how our government is suppose to work. While it appeals to Trump's base, it's a new low in American politics. The United States isn't a banana republic. That's not how things work in the US. Much to the chagrin of Republicans, we don't use government to harass our political opponents as Trump very publicly threatened to do. That should be disturbing to everyone. But with Trump's followers it's a good thing, as long as the harassed people aren't Republican. Trump is an embarrassment. The Republican Party is an embarrassment.

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Even if he did launch a legal challenge for those emails, so called "private emails" do not get deleted and disc scrubbed for nothing.....
He will meet the same result that the previous governmental inquiry got...IMO
Notes:

• 30.k + emails have recipients.
• Ongoing Hacking attempts and whistleblowing by WikiLeaks and ilk.
  
• No leaks have been acknowledged or published.
• Sometimes Highly sensitive actually means Highly sensitive.
• Sometimes the secrets are simply too big.
• Sometimes secrets have to remain secrets permanently. ( the burden of leadership )

example of the type of secret:
"The entire planet will explode in the month of June 2020 with a 98.5% certainty"

Randwolf said:

I switched over to Faux - nothing but a glowing, hand's down win for Trump. Welcome to your bubble - "Trump just reset the game" - I see a Mitt Romney moment coming...

WTF is wrong with these people? Climate change isn't happening, vaccination is bad, trickle down economics is the way to go - and Benghazi! Emails!

Wow... Let's make America sane again. We need a new Australia - banishment - Winter is coming...

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Well, let's see what Ryan, Pence, and other Republicans have to say about Trump's performance. After the tapes where released on Friday, they left Trump hanging. Trump didn't do what they wanted him to do. So what happens next?

Bells said:

His constant deep sucking of breath through his nose, which was so distracting, aside, at least this time he challenged her. But he did so in a way that made him look like a bully and at times petulant. Most importantly, he utterly failed to answer the questions, went completely off the reservation and was unable to detail any of his plans about health care, for example.

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I will say of the sucking that I couldn't decide whether they whacked him up with some run-of-the-mill speedy antihistamine, or something―the drug jokes are inevitable―or, as I wisecracked↱ an analysis:


I also managed to catch Sean Nelson↱ of The Stranger suggesting, "He sniffs on punchlines and conspicuous lies". I have not actually checked to confirm that proposition.

It actually seems like the attitude aspect that will make headlines tomorrow will be the looming, glaring, everybody-wants-to-say-stalkerish routine that was so obvious the campaign not only proclaimed Trump the winner before the event was over, but also started pushing back↱ against how the "spin will be about him standing behind her #yawn". Then again, Salon↱ reports the Twitterverse noted. Nearly an hour before Conway started her pushback, Elizabeth Plank↱ laid it out plainly: "why is trump standing right behind her like that, his body language reminds me of every abuser i've ever encountered."

And the reaction to that ought to make the point. (Note aside: Gentlemen, pay attention, and don't tell them no he's not or no he didn't.)

This week will be proverbially interesting. We're in resounding holy shit territory.

The question of a draw, I would note, is a purely American thing. By no measure was this close, but these debates are extraordinarily superficial performance art. By custom, Hillary Clinton simply cannot win hands down. Except, of course, that this is Donald Trump. She won the CNN/ORC poll last time; she won the CNN/ORC poll this time. But in those early moments right after the debate, when nobody knows quite what to say, equivocation is the safest narrative. Still, though, listening to Chris Matthews lead the equivocation chorus on msnbc tonight was nearly agonizing. I mean, yeah, I get how his political model works; he's a proper politico trying to report and opine without campaigning; he's sensitized toward equivocation by years of protecting his reputation against inevitable charges of favoritism; and in the end he humiliated himself, tonight, trying to drag Hillary Clinton down so as not to be seen giving her too much credit. (Ladies and gentlemen, your liberal media conspiracy.) Look, the legion of GOP hands msnbc presents has every reason to play the both sides narrative, but for whatever criticism people offer of Hillary Clinton's performance―and on msnbc there was plenty―none bother explaining what would have worked. In the end, she pulled off something of a stagecraft feat, talking to the audience and basically ignoring Donald Trump's theatrics behind her. And, well, okay, I'm not quite certain, but I think she actually managed to wallop him with a freaking headline built on Chinese steel girder, and with just enough style to catch me off guard. Where it lands in the chatter and priority this week is hard to predict, but still, it was a very interesting swing.

Frankly, I think she beat the hell out of him, but any question of a draw looks beyond the CNN/ORC poll and tries to measure how people feel. Trump performed for the base; it's all he has left.
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Notes:

Conway, Kellyanne. "How you know @realDonaldTrump won the debate". Twitter. 9 October 2016. Twitter.com. 10 October 2016. http://bit.ly/2dF9Ech

Plank, Elizabeth. "why is trump standing right behind her like that". Twitter. 9 October 2016. Twitter.com. 10 October 2016. http://bit.ly/2dF9Ech

Rozsa, Matthew. "Donald Trump’s town hall debate was a leaning, meaning, inner-city bashing, Muslim-spying dumpster fire, and Twitter knew it". Salon. 9 October 2016. Salon.com. 10 October 2016. http://bit.ly/2d2ezTa

The Stranger. "Second Presidential Debate: The Stranger's Live-Slog". Slog. 9 October 2016. TheStranger.com. 10 October 2016. http://bit.ly/2dYcnYF

The Hillary Clinton and Democrat strategy has been to create distractions. They use National Inquirer caliber gossip news stories, like Trump insulted Big Foot 18 years ago. Or Trump gave the finger to a UFO, whose illegal aliens were going to give the world a fountain of youth drug. This type of news appeals to the gossip crowd and is needed to take away attention from her poor judgement and breaches of the law.

Trump, leaned to adapt to this method of attach, and was able to land some good gossips shots of his own. He had Hillary on the ropes, early. Hillary thinks she is above the law, but she was not above the gossip. This changed the tone of the debate. After that Trump was able to show how Hillary has been in public service for 30 years, with a record of limited and/or disastrous results.

The pivotal moment was when Hillary was confronted with the hacked transcript of one of her talks on Wall Street. She tries to bring Abraham Lincoln into the discussion; honest Abe. She was trying to show that things are not always what they appear to be, based on National Inquirer reporting. That made me think, then if things are not what they appear, why is she not giving Trump the benefit of the doubt about locker room talk? If you live by the sword, you die by the sword. After that, the debate got more civil and stayed more on the issues. This helped Trump have a better debate.

The first question from the audience was from a lady who asked if this election was a suitable example for children. I thought this was a plant for Trump. The reason is, although Trump may have been rude in comments from the past, it was Hillary who was repeating this, over and over for the children to hear. The analogy is bedroom talk and noise is something said or done in privacy and not in front of the kids. It should stay in the bedroom and not be played back on the family TV. That is the bad influence on kids.

Has a casualty of the Trump nomination been the need to point out very publicly the nature of Putin's state apparatus in Russia?

The urgency to point out Trump's flaws has meant that discretion has had to be abandoned and so relations between USA and Russia have taken a further unnecessary hit.

To have to bring up this kind of a discussion in such a high profile event was unfortunate but we are dealing with an unfit candidate ( whose loyalty to his own electorate can perhaps not be taken for granted) and this was collateral damage.

Can we all agree that Trump "lost" both debates, and will "lose" the third one as well? And then move on?

I watched W lose every single debate he was in, a couple of them very badly, and win every election. It's something of a given, given the indefensible stances of the Republican Party since 1968, that the Rep candidate is going to "lose" on points.

Meanwhile, it's hard to imagine how anyone could be undecided unless they were trying to find a way to vote for Trump. So the "undecided" vote needs to stay home, especially if they are white and male.

Brings up the point: Does the simple pettiness and tedium of these debates, regardless of content, erode Trump's turnout? He seemed to take special care to throw his base fighting words ("she'd be in jail"), almost as a counter to the effects of the debate itself, and his instincts seem good in that regard.

wellwisher said:

The Hillary Clinton and Democrat strategy has been to create distractions.

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They do not need to create distractions - that seems to be Trumps primary job. Almost every time that buffoon opens his mouth another distraction comes out.

They use National Inquirer caliber gossip news stories, like Trump insulted Big Foot 18 years ago. Or Trump gave the finger to a UFO, whose illegal aliens were going to give the world a fountain of youth drug. This type of news appeals to the gossip crowd and is needed to take away attention from her poor judgement and breaches of the law.

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Did you forget that Trump ACTUALLY used an absurd National Inguirer story against Cruz?

I don't know who this Trump guy is that you are talking about but he bears no resemblance to the buffoon who is the republican nominee for POTU.

I'm encouraged by the attention being given to such debates because our country in the past has had, and apparently will continue to have, some presidents of whatever race or gender or whatever, who are really, really dumb. I hope the extra attention will be a lasting trend. For those who thought that idea ended with Sarah Palin, take another guess. A free Christian bible and John Birch Society newsletter and Soldier of Fortune magazine trial subscription and American history revision course and a Ted Nugent album with every gun sold, these kind of people. What could possibly be wrong with that?

I do make an effort not to discriminate against stupid people because nature usually isn't very kind to them, but it's difficult when they all seem to take so much pride in their deficient work. If people like that get elected, the consequences will no doubt be neither very intelligent nor very pretty.

Or am I just channeling the guy against whom I plan to cast my vote?

Too long to tweet.

Randwolf said:

WTF is wrong with these people? Climate change isn't happening, vaccination is bad, trickle down economics is the way to go - and Benghazi! Emails!

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Well, I generally try to keep my online presence in check and avoid voicing some of my more, erm, curiouser convictions—albeit more honest ones--but the transpirings of the past few years, and the past few weeks in particular, have only bolstered my PK Dick complex, i.e., the gut-level certainty of simulacra rapidly eclipsing what is.

Point being: I’m not entirely convinced, and have not been for quite some time, that said people are, in fact, people. The crowd cheering Trump’s”defense” of his “locker room talk”? Cheering the guy who seems to think the primary function of a president is to pursue personal vendettas—“You’d be in jail”? And just the whole kinda non-issue aspect of him being a confessed, and seemingly proud, rapist.

Anyhows, I’ve read countless explanations, be they of the manufacturing consent variety, the “protest vote” sort (somehow, Trump is not representative of media elites and “the establishment"?!), and the “they’re just a bunch of whiny white male racists, xenophobes, and misogynists,” and I’ll doubtless read countless more. But I’m just not wholly convinced. Maybe my alleged “delusion” is simply a defense mechanism, or a product of temporal lobe epilepsy, or maybe—just maybe—I’m right: most purported people are in fact androids of a sort.


Edit: That said, I still think I come across as more sane than wellwisher.

iceaura said:

Can we all agree that Trump "lost" both debates, and will "lose" the third one as well? And then move on?
I watched W lose every single debate he was in, a couple of them very badly, and win every election.

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The problem with this is that to win or lose a political debate is something very subjective.

In the hard sciences, there may be such things like objective criteria who is the winner of some discussion. In politics, this is hopeless. Those who watch such debates usually have their own prejudices, and tend to think that their favored guy is winning.

Schmelzer said:

The problem with this is that to win or lose a political debate is something very subjective.

In the hard sciences, there may be such things like objective criteria who is the winner of some discussion. In politics, this is hopeless. Those who watch such debates usually have their own prejudices, and tend to think that their favored guy is winning.

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The "Russian"/wikileaks thing seems really rather peculiar.
It smacks of vilifying the whistle blower.
Which seems even more corrupt than the original misdeed.

on another note:
Jesse Lehrich, Clinton’s foreign policy spokesperson, took to Twitter after Trump said that if he had been in charge when the U.S. decided whether to invade Iraq, Khan would not have died in battle.

“Unlike her, who voted for the war…I would not have had people in Iraq because Iraq was a disaster,” Trump said, referring to Clinton’s vote in support of the war. “So he would be alive today.”

Lehrich fired back on Twitter: “...DonaldTrump - regarding your claim that Captain Khan would be alive if you were president: go fuck yourself.
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Maybe that explains some of the problems with the department of state? Quite often, the department seems to be staffed by belligerent bureaucrats rather than by skilled and effective diplomats.

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how many in here use twitter?

sculptor said:

The "Russian"/wikileaks thing seems really rather peculiar.
It smacks of vilifying the whistle blower.
Which seems even more corrupt than the original misdeed.

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Well, unfortunately for Republicans facts do matter and the fact is Russia has been trying to manipulate this election in Trump's favor. They haven't hacked Republican servers. They have hacked Democratic servers. The fact is Assange was and probably remains a paid agent of the Russian state.

The fact is Trump has been and remains very pro Putin. Trump denied Russian troops were in Ukraine and clearly they are. Trump has given Putin a lot of mileage because Putin has complemented Trump. So any Russian/Wikileaks documents shouldn't be blindly accepted as truthful until vetted and validated.

sculptor said:

Maybe that explains some of the problems with the department of state? Quite often, the department seems to be staffed by belligerent bureaucrats rather than by skilled and effective diplomats.

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I think you need to stop making up random shit in order to pretend you have a punch line. Sorry if reality isn't accommodating your egotism enough, but that does not excuse gaslighting.

Then again, maybe your support for Donald Trump explains some of our problems with the human species. Quite often, people will operate against their own self-interests in order to feel a little thrill of self-empowerment inside their own heads. It's kind of like a drug, and those people end up not being able to do much but scheme self-gratification.

People like that are a detriment to the human species; they ought to be thankful that despite their opposition to humanity and human rights, other people continue to show our species and its existential condition some measure of functional respect.

Your support for Donald Trump's insidious and undignified boasting compels me to remind that while I don't really give a damn how much you hate the United States of America, I really must ask you to please quit opposing the human species.

joepistole said:

Well, unfortunately for Republicans facts do matter and the fact is Russia has been trying to manipulate this election in Trumps favor. They haven't hacked Republican servers. They have hacked Democratic servers. The fact is Assange was and probably remains a paid agent of the Russian state.

The fact is Trump has been and remains very pro Putin. Trump denied Russian troops were in Ukraine and clearly they are. Trump has given Putin a lot of mileage because Putin has complemented Trump. So any Russian/Wikileaks documents shouldn't be blindly accepted as truthful until vetted and validated.

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I imagine they have also hacked the Republican servers,.

If they have they are free to reveal details that may or may not bear a resemblance to what they found. (can the victims point out mistakes?)

I would expect the secret services of both countries to be getting away with whatever they can . Do we think the Cold War has ended as far as it concerns these agencies?

Personally ,if my government were not seeking information regarding a potentially hostile foreign power I would say it was in dereliction of its duty to protect the population.

What the Russian ruling class does with that information is fairly predictable;all that restrains their (patriotic as they see it no doubt) actions is the fear of like retaliation and the knowledge that their actions can (a) be counter productive and (b) let's face it decrease good will towards them.

The spy agencies have operated for a long time now .What has changed is the tools at their disposal with the spread of instantaneous information.

As for Trump ,is the jury out as to what part fool and what part knave (and what part identity wanker) he is?

Consider the diplomatic successes of Byzantium.
War is damned expensive. With effective diplomacy, it can usually be successfully avoided.

"No nation-state did more to advance the cause of activist foreign policy than the Byzantine empire. For over 1,100 years it survived and expanded by skilfully manipulating opponents through its intricate diplomacy. Hundreds of years before Machiavelli, Byzantine historian, John Kinnamos, wrote: 'Since many and various matters lead toward one end, victory, it is a matter of indifference which one uses to reach it'. An examination of Byzantine diplomatic tactics could help today's diplomats understand the motivations of their counterparts at the negotiating table."
"Diplomacy was a necessity for Byzantium because it had enemies on all of its borders and possessed only limited military might. One of the golden rules of the Byzantine elite was to avoid wars at almost all costs. It was fully aware that Byzantium, even with an occasional victory, would lose in the long term if it constantly engaged in military conflict."

And then, we have the likes of Jesse Lehrich, Clinton’s foreign policy spokesperson, whose diplomatic acumen seems to have stagnated at the primary school playground level.