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The First Presidential Debate
Not since Godzilla fought King Kong have people so anticipated the confrontation between a radioactive lizard and a brutish ape. The first presidential debate was billed to me by various news sources as the culmination of the campaign a TV event that could rival and surpass the Super Bowl. Naturally I was curious to see it, and like some people who watch NASCAR I was secretly hoping to see something (or in this case someone) crash and burn. I think my first and overall impression of the debate was that while at times spicy it really seemed very conventional overall. So if you didn’t see it, but have kept up with the news of the campaign you aren’t going to see anything new by watching it. Save yourself the 1.5 hours. That said I will go into a more detailed set of impressions about this debate.
First off, I would just like to put my cards on the table here. I am one of those scurrilous people who for a lack of a better term is a NeverTrumper. I don’t like the guy or his policies. I also don’t like Hillary Clinton and I have no plan to vote for her. In fact right now I am likely to vote for no one for president (or maybe Evan McMullin if he is on the ballot in IL, but then again I repeat myself). A recent post by @claire asked us what if anything Trump or Hillary could say at this debate that would change my mind to vote for them. Well whatever that thing was none of them said it. As is my wont I will break this down by the two candidates and give you my impressions of each and how they did.
Hillary Clinton: Going into this debate what I heard from pundits was that she had to work on making herself likable and trustworthy to the general electorate, while still seeming strong and presidential, and not overly scolding and pedantic. I think given her deficit in appearing human and warm she probably exceeded expectations, but it’s hard for me to judge this because of my own biases against her. Certainly if people were expecting her to be overly shrill and tone deaf like she was in a certain recent video, she managed to avoid that. She looked healthy, and relaxed. Maybe a bit too relaxed. There were times when her level of cool almost seemed like she was sedated. I think it might have served her well to actually be able to display some outrage and anger, but if she felt any of that it was not obvious. Frankly when Trump went on a long and somewhat incomprehensible defense of his birther stance I think some actual outrage would have helped her. I am not a fan of Obama but I felt more outraged and defensive of him than she did. Anger is fine especially if it is righteous anger, something that Trump took full advantage of in this debate and which she avoided.
The one thing that was obvious was that Hillary was well prepared and maybe even a bit too prepared, because I noticed that she had a few well prepped lines that she threw in there. I knew that they were well prepped because they were delivered poorly and for the most part fell flat. Most egregious of these was her Trumped Up Reaganomics line (just terrible delivery, made me wince to hear it). Though she did have one that stood out to me for its good delivery, it even made me smile. They were in the middle of their argument about taxes and tax returns and Trump was deflecting by going on about how in debt we are to which she interjected that it is perhaps because Trump has been avoiding paying his taxes. Generally I would say she did a good job of presenting the Democratic line, and if this had been a written essay she would have done better.
Donald Trump: Going into this debate what I kept hearing was two things. From Republicans it was that Trump needs to just show that he has some mastery of the facts and is solid, and from Democrats I kept hearing this whole thing about which Donald would show up at the debate. Frankly, I don’t much understand what the Dems were talking about. If there is one thing we know about Donald Trump it is that there is only one Donald Trump. Trump was aggressive; attacking Hillary as impotent and unable to solve any of our problems despite having been in office for 30 years (which is an exaggeration). He focused a lot on trade and how much we have been screwed by it and other nations. He talked about law and order in our cities, and on foreign policy he had a long argument with Lester Holt about his track record on Iraq (he was against it, just ask Sean Hannity). Trumps best asset in this debate was his righteous anger. He probably did the best job he has done of channeling and expressing it as an attack on Clinton that I can remember him doing. From the stand point of tone I think he sounded good, angry but not unhinged. From the stand point of policy I think he was on much shakier ground and I expect the “fact checkers” to be out in force.
This debate had some great Trumpian nonsensical deflections the best of which might have been his claim that he settled a lawsuit over discriminatory renting practices in the late 70’s with a non admission of guilt clause in it. Now I’m not a lawyer, but just because you don’t admit guilt in a settlement doesn’t actually mean you aren’t guilty. But, that is Trump for you. I imagine Democrats will be pulling their hair out over that one. One thing that struck me as a missed opportunity for Trump was to push much harder against Clinton on her server. That said Trump certainly seemed in charge and as long as you don’t try to parse out his words too much he probably did a good job projecting mastery of the issues. At least in so far as he needed to argue that things have been going poorly and Hillary Clinton has done nothing to fix them.
So who won the debate and who lost it? Well, I don’t really know. Frankly, if Hillary had been hoping to draw Trump into some jaw dropping tirade she failed. Nothing he did or said at this debate was any where as bad as other things he has done. That said, you never know what will get to people. If Trump hoped to look presidential he succeed only in so far as those watching want a president who is angry at everyone and everything for screwing America over (which arguably is what a lot of people want).
Let me know what you guys think of the debate. Who did you think did well? Were you convinced to change your vote?
Published in General
That is precisely the argument we made after WWII when we hung various German and Japanese leaders. Why not just say that if you kill a man you can take his house? The question is do we really want that world back? Trump seems to not care if we go back to that and many nationalists here and abroad seem to relish the idea too. It is a conception of the world not rooted in reality, but rather in naked amoral power. It is the exact opposite of the Christian Humanist ideal that has shaped modern society. What crime can not be justified by power? And those who seek to use that justification often think themselves the powerful. Yet, what will they say when they find they are not? This is what is at stake with Russia and China. This is what Trump and his supporters don’t get, and this is what Obama and his leftist self loathers have undermined.
That’s almost enough to make me rethink my vote for Trump. I despise Chelsea almost as much as I do Hillary. She’s a vapid entitled princess with, as far as I can tell, absolutely zero accomplishment other than being the daughter of two prominent politicians. Ever since I saw that quote of hers about how she “had tried to care about money, but couldn’t”. Yeah, that’s why you took the $300,000/year part-time job with NBC, you little [redacted for COC]
Yeah that’s my general take. But my question was on NAFTA in particular (since Trump used it as example of Hillary supporting bad trade deal). What is the general consensus from economists on the success of NAFTA. I have always just assumed that it was a net positive or we wouldn’t continue it, is that a bad assumption?
Worse, he justified it by saying that she was a real disaster because she gained weight. While I actually agree that an unsightly amount of weight gain would be genuinely disqualifying for the job of Miss Universe — one of the few jobs in which that’s entirely relevant to job performance — it’s idiotic to bring that up. It’s sticking a finger into the psychic third rail. There are few subjects about which people are touchier than they are about being called “fat.” And no one wants to hear that from a (rapid-expanding) Donald Trump.
I think the consensus among economists is mild net positive — not nearly so much as its proponents expected, but the ledger is on the positive side.
I remember when she was a funny-looking kid in the White House and the press was truly cruel about her awkwardness and her homeliness. I just felt so sorry for her. People were so cruel about a little girl.
As a general rule, economists like free trade. It’s not that you won’t find dissenters or those with various takes on it can be done better, but that’s the general intellectual consensus if you go onto any major college campus and talk to the academics who are teaching business, finance, economics, etc.
You’ll also see that echoed by private industry analytical types for the most part when their talking heads appear on your cable news TV screen.
That is exactly what we have told them. As a culture we have rejected the notion that wars of conquest are good and just. In limited cases we have accepted the notion that territory taken from an aggressor in a defensive war can be held if that territory is strategically required to prevent the aggressor from attacking again, such as Israel holding the Golan Heights, which Israel took from Syria after the six-day war because it was too easy to shell the Israeli population from there. But in general, we do not hold territory as conquerors.
The purpose of war is ‘diplomacy by other means’ when diplomacy fails and two parties cannot reconcile differences that they believe represent existential threats. Defensive wars against aggressors who wish to conquer you or otherwise exert dominance over you through force are a good example.
Consider the aftermath of WWII – The allies held territory throughout the world. Japan and Germany were occupied, and the U.S. occupied almost all Japanese island territory throughout the Pacific. And what did they do? They gave it all back and went home. Then the U.S. spent billions through the Marshall Plan to help rebuild them. Pretty much the same thing that was done in Iraq after the war.
The Soviet Union, on the other hand, intentionally entered the war against Japan late in the game for the purpose of conquering and holding their northern Islands, and they annexed held territory in Europe for their own gain. The west strongly opposed those actions.
By ‘we’ you must mean the Obama administration. Because there was sharp disagreement over the total force withdrawal, with opponents of it predicting pretty accurately what the results of that unilateral withdrawal would be.
If the CW that he lost turns out to be accurate, it’s going to be this — the Rosie O’Donnell, Miss Universe, Fat Pig, blah, blah, blah story. Seriously? He couldn’t prepare for this? With his history? And with women comprising over 50% of the voting population? Why not just go to a black church and use the “N” word? Or a gar bar and scream out “F—–ts!” You just don’t talk about people that way while you’re asking for their votes.
Agreed. But then she grew up into a creepy parasite like her parents.
I am kinda with Herbert here, but maybe with a twist. The more important aspect of controlling the oil profits would be be to prevent them from being used to fund opposition to our forces and/or to support terrorism. When the Allies and Axis powers fought for control of the oil fields in Norway, I assume it was not just so
Am I wrong? ( I am seriously asking because there are a lot of people here when know WWII history better than me.)If so, how is using the oil processed into gas as fuel to run your tanks different in principle from using the profits from oil to buy your tanks and pay your army?
Norweighens,Norwaygens, (those of hardy Nordic stock) could re-invest in their economy, I assume it was to fuel the war efforts.This just in from Wikipedia on Oil Campaign of WWII.
“Joint Chiefs of Staff Directive 1067 prohibited German post-war production of oil through July 1947, and the United States Army made post-war provisions to rehabilitate and use petroleum installations where needed, as well as to dispose of unneeded captured equipment.”
Don’t know what this means, but answer lies therein.
VaL & Claire,
Please read this. Expanding Miss Universe
Trump tried to defend her at the time. She was 118 lbs and won the Miss Universe Pagent. About 10 months later she was 60 lbs heavier. The idea of a Miss Universe is that she tours and promotes after she wins. Obviously, she broke a contractual arrangement. If you read the article Trump as the Executive Producer of the Pagent was trying to be as diplomatic as possible. She was a complete handful and he probably deserves a medal not a false accusation of sexism.
You are inflating the oil thing wildly into something that it is not. You are making a false accusation of Imperial Adventurism that is rather ridiculous.
cont.
cont. from #102
ISIS was and is genocidal. Keeping them from obtaining the oil by any means would have stemmed their forward advance and saved lives. Possibly many Yazidi women’s lives. The bad foreign policy of Obama – Clinton – Kerry can’t be made up for by cheap shots. Hillary Clinton is guilty of multiple felonies and everyone in the world knows it. This was significant malfeasance in office breaching National Security.
As usual, corruption & malfeasance in office plus not stopping a genocidal force aren’t of much interest. Cheap false accusations of sexism and adventurism are all that is cool.
Regards,
Jim
The thing is (Claire can you confirm), a huge part of our Middle East policy works with the knowledge that in the Arab world we are seen by most as looking out primarily for our oil and oil supply interest (along with Israel protection). Taking over Iraqi oil fields, would confirm those suspicions. Btw, I think the Kuwaiti’s paid us back with their oil revenue what we spent defending them…
I THINK THIS IS THE ANSWER:
I guess my point is, if the Marshall plan was thought to be so progressive and compassionate, and we used oil to support that plan–what changed in 60 or 70 years? (I get that DT did not articulate his meaning to any extent).
Or as Eli Lake put it on Twitter: “Guys. Come on. There are lots of women who love to be insulted about their weight. They vote too. This is no biggie.”
He didn’t say it and this is nonsense. The incident happened in 1997. He didn’t call her those names. The CNN article called her those names. If a professional athlete had signed a contract that stipulated that he would get a very large salary if he kept himself in reasonably good condition and he had put on the 60 lbs, he’d be out of a job. They didn’t rush to judge her either. I suspect they desperately tried to help her. She must have had some kind of breakdown to have gained that much weight in that short a time. I sincerely doubt that anyone who made it that far in an international beauty competition had any misunderstanding about this.
Regards,
Jim
The CNN poll was comprised of 41% Democrats, 26% Republicans and 33% Independents all of whom were preselected by the CNN pollsters through “random” interviews. Make of it what you will.
Yea, I know the stats. I’m the one who linked to them. Those numbers are a couple points off the population as a whole. And CNN acknowledged it on the air from the moment they broadcast the results. But they’re much more representative than an online survey that anyone who wants can participate in.
By the way — you do understand, don’t you, that the goal is to mirror the electorate (on many demographics in addition to just party affiliation), not to have even numbers of democrats and republicans?
Read last night’s transcript.
Regards,
Cato
Cato,
You can direct me to the fabulously terrifying quote in response to a 20-year-old non-issue falsely manufactured into an insult to all women. As the length of time from the actual incident is extreme this would bring into play many other events of long ago. Perhaps Kathleen Willey, Paula Jones, and Juanita Broaddrick would like to attend the next debate and sit in the front row. We are talking real rape not “rape culture” rape. Hillary ground these women into the dust and never looked back.
Regards,
Jim
Hasn’t Bill only been accused of rape in one of the above you listed? Trump has a couple of women that have made that allegation against him.
@jamesgawron my take on this Miss Universe thing is that it is a no win argument for Trump the best he can hope to do is to put forth the fact that she broke her contract and that for the sake of the modeling business she was in they had to make her loose weight and that this was the business she chose to get into. This may all be true. I am arguing that it is beside the point. Moving on and calling this issue a distraction is what you have to do. Tonight CNN is having an interview with this woman. If Trump is smart he will avoid engaging in this debate because just like with the Khans and the Judge he can only lose by picking a fight with these people. So bringing it up on his own on Fox & Friends was just a bad political move. He doesn’t have to explain anything here. Beyond saying it was a long time ago, and all of this is just a distraction from the issues of today.
As to the the oil. My objection is that his line is stupid and it either betrays deep ignorance or an unsavory world view. If he wanted to say we should have stayed in Iraq to keep this from happening he should just have said that. If we had stayed the oil would be a nonissue.
Cont.
In fact. When Hillary defended Obama’s pull out she said that Bush had negotiated the date, and that US soldiers could not have stayed longer because they would have lacked legal protections. If Trump had been sharper, he would have rejoined that it was her job to make sure that they got those protections. If she argued the Iraqis could not be convinced to give them he could have said that it was because she was bad at her job, and under his administration negotiating such deals would not prove too difficult.
If my daughter had degrees from Stanford, Columbia and Oxford, I wouldn’t say she had zero accomplishments to her name.
Come on.
It’s not Chelsea Clinton’s fault that her parents are horrible. If your parents were the Clintons, you’d support them, too. They’re her parents.
That said, yeah.
The line about her not caring about money is ridiculous. Or it isn’t, but it doesn’t mean anything because she’s never had to care about money… other than those months when her parents were “broke,” I guess. ;)
Who cares if you say money doesn’t matter when you have millions at your disposal? It’s like saying you don’t care about starvation when you’re fat.
This is the same thing we got from the left when we asked what Obama had accomplished in his life.
It’s her fault that she is, by all accounts, following in their corrupt footsteps.
Really? What is she alleged to have done?
She’s in deep with the Foundation.