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The Guys at the Bar in Downtown L.A., Or, Anybody Else Care to Report What He Saw and Heard?
Just received the following email from a friend–and it gave me a thought. Several fine posts below discuss various opinions about the debate, and we are, Lord knows, a group with opinions. But I myself find there’s something fascinating, and at least loosely useful, about actual reporting on the debates–about observation and anecdotes as opposed to opinions.
As I say, this item, just in from a friend. Does anyone else here in the House of Ricochet have a debate scene to describe or anecdote to share?
Published in GeneralI admit that the Jonathan Club in downtown Los Angeles isn’t exactly a bellwether for this election. But, given that LA so-called ‘elites’ are overwhelmingly liberal, I was astounded that in a room of more than 50 people, only three were definitively pro-HRC. I was even more surprised when some applause broke out in favor of the GOP candidate . . .
which is all just to say: it ain’t just hillbillies at this point.
As part of a homework assignment my daughter had to watch the debate with me.
She couldn’t follow Trump – particularly after the first half-hour or so of the debate. His answers increasingly veered off of the path and traveled in verbal circles, leaving her confused as to what the question even was, let alone the answer.
My daughter is 15 and intelligent. Trump doesn’t have the luxury of confusing a person of her level of intelligence. He needs to be clear and concise.
Not sure I agree here. Trump is selling feelings. For the first 30min or so he was successful. The remaining hour less so. I see a definite split in reactions: the more highly educated you are the less you are can overlook Trump’s shortcomings on content. I wasn’t at a Bar in LA but this is the reaction amongst my various friends and employees (the Democrat receptionist loved Trump, the libertarian computer science PhD hated him).
Maybe they enjoyed that Trump was doing what they wished Sanders had done all along.
I watched it alone and don’t have an anecdote, but I found yours heartening, Peter. I thought Trump did fine. It was great that he kept pointing out she’d already had 30 years to fix things, but he also missed some opportunities. I think he’ll do better next time.
In the picture I notice that Trump is wearing blue while Hillary is wearing red.
I heard somewhere that those two colors are what you wear (don’t remember which) when you want to convey power or persuasiveness or something like that…
But I also noticed that they were wearing the opposite party’s colors. Which means nothing, of course. I just happened to notice it.
I forgot to turn on the debate until about 40 minutes in, but even then I was sharing my time with my wife and daughter. My dearest wife didn’t pay much attention to the thing on whole, and I minded the television only as my dear 10 month old daughter took breaks from crawling across the floor, on me, the walls, or playing with books and interesting toys. Neither seemed much impressed by the whole show and I can’t say that I blame them. Lamby the Lamb, the Berenstain Bears, and the infant push cart were so much more entertaining, especially when used by a little girl who likes playtime with daddy.
I really don’t want Hillary to win.
I seriously dislike Trump, I think at least for awhile his learning curb would be painful for us all. But he is a competent adult, and if Obama can do it, so can he.
But I really don’t want Hillary to win, even if she would do a better job. I really hate to have her rewarded for her lies and criminal actions. I want there to be a consequence for her.
So the debate did nothing to change that.
So what if Hillary is pretty good in public? It’s what she does behind the scenes that trouble me!
My wife and I were groaning at his drone on defenses of past actions but my almost 14 year old would holler when he zinged her. She is government and people hate government, especially failed and corrupt government , so basically government.
What few one line shots he took at her worked for my kid which probably translates to a lot of the population that dislikes her. I suspect that group wants more pimp slapping which likely would not help his cause with female voters.
My wife thought he had a cold.
And ALL of the above mentioned characters-including the infant push cart-would be better presidential candidates than the current choices.
Reaction from the machine shop I was in this morning:
“Hillary is one nasty package”
“Yeah.”
“Trump was too nice to the [redacted by author]”
“Yeah”
“Two more of these?”
“Crap”
I watched the debate by myself, just like I watched all the other debates I posted reviews of. Then I wrote up my review right after seeing the debate and before I took in any other analysis. While this isn’t reporting on people in a bar it is as close to my honest and uninfluenced reaction as I could report. Crowds have away of shaping our perception of an event. Did most people watch this debate with others? I expect they probably watched it with family members or alone. What I am curious about, Peter, is what did you think of it?
There are some practical advantages to watching these debates:
You’re a noticer, as Larry McMurtry said in Lonesome Dove. I ain’t much of a noticer, especially of the colors of clothes. It saves time.
Spent the evening with my husband (conservative), Daughter (conservative), son-in-law (at 35 this is the first time he will vote. call him apolitical), and a gay married couple. One is the product of Mexican immigrants, the other a newly minted US citizen. Australian by birth. This couple until recently was reflexively liberal and supported Democrats. And son #3. A machinist engaged to an artist who fancies himself a bit of a philosopher.
None in the crowd were qualified to grade the debate; only the candidates. But they all walked away feeling okay about their Trump vote. All agreed that Trump left some low-hanging fruit and there were some real missed opportunities.
Son #2 is Facetiming with his dad right now from Japan; I overheard their discussion. Neither are impressed with either candidate, but as son #2 said: at least Trump won’t actively work against the military.
So no, it ain’t just hillbillies anymore. Although to be frank there are a few in my crowd who could be mistaken for such.
I watched it with my husband who hates politics. His reaction? Why did you think I would get anything out of looking at two a**holes I can’t stop from having some impact on my life?
He found it all deeply depressing.
We disagreed with pretty much every word Clinton uttered, but we also disagreed with Trump when he said anything that might resemble substance.
Anyway… You wanted anecdotes…
Friends invited us along to a debate viewing party sponsored by a conservative talk radio station and held at a local dinner/bar theater. Everyone had to have a ticket (with their name on it) to get in, though as far I could see ID’s were not checked. The guy who took my ticket looked at it, asked if I was Jan, and when I nodded, waved me on in.
People showed up early and were quite friendly. The theater was full except for a few seats and all attendees seemed to be Trump supporters of one variety or another. I did not see any hillbillies. During the debate the crowd was upbeat, clapping and cheering when Trump got in a dig, and giving him advice when he rambled. A couple of guys behind us sometimes got a bit loud in talking trash to the enormous grinning, head-bobbing Clinton on the big screen.
The consensus among the party-goers was that Trump did okay. All-in-all, it was an interesting experience and we enjoyed ourselves.
Did not watch the debate – but had a brief text conversation with my 36 year-old son in LA, who was watching it with his 10 year-old son.
My son, who isn’t particularly political at all, thought HRC’s performance was robotic and awful in general.
My grandson thought Trump was kidding when he said he’d “build a wall.”
But the big take-away was that my son’s hip, urban, LA musician friends are very wary of career politicians. As a result, HRC is not trusted at all, and Trump offers them an alternative.
So – that kinda blew my mind.
I watched the debate alone — with the sound turned off. I teach public speaking at an urban community college and I have found over the years that I will lead a much more useful discussion with my students if I limit the comments to the nonverbal arena. (Higher education is – regrettably – a mine field when it comes to political discourse. Plus, I insist on sticking to the subject I teach.)
While I can appreciate — and even partially agree with — @songwriter‘s son’s HRC “robotic” assessment, I’m afraid it doesn’t come close to the parade of grimaces, head shakes, and other dismissive behaviors from her opponent. In even a high school competitive debate tournament, Mr. Trump would have been disqualified.
One can only marvel at how far we’ve come from that evening back in 2000 when a single sigh from a candidate was considered a possible fatal blow to his election chances!
I watched with family –a group of 5, age range 90 to twenty something; three first generation Irish( including a one percenter), one Irish-born citizen, the others second generation. All are conservatives.
The first murmerings were about Lester Holt: “He’s not challenging Clinton.” Obviously, the stupid birther issue was more enticing to him than cyber security. I wanted Trump to go for the jugular here, but his reticence did display Holt’s bias.
Someone moaned at Trump’s comment about Blacks living in hell. A neighborhood with Shootings,gangs, pushers, rotten schools, no jobs is hellish, and the one who has the guts to say it may be the one who has the guts to fight it. In response, Hillary said something about their wonderful, uplifting churches. What is her point? Shut up about the rotten schools etc.A and go pray?
On this point,Trump usually brings in school choice. Hillary’s life support from union hot air makes her vulnerable here.
We had no hillbillies; the media does love this cvharacterization of Trump supporters. I have also heard “the masses”, even “the great unwashed”. I now call the media “the bubble people” and their disdain (an ugly quality) is matched only by Obama’s.
I.M. Fine
I do appreciate your wisdom in avoiding political content in a college classes. I think though that I prefer the grimaces to an idiotic, robotic,smug? smiling that is sometimes ill-suited to the content.
Anamcara: I understand your position completely. And I agree. The key phrase in your response is “to the content.” I chose to eliminate the content when I turned the sound of the debate down; therefore what might correctly be judged smug can be seen in a somewhat less harsh light without context. Maybe that’s why Hamlet famously said “Suit the action to the word, the word to the action.” (Of course he was giving advice to actors at the time — but that might be completely appropriate in our present scenario!)
When the debate began, my first reaction was to seeing those two faces up on the screen. In spite of knowing they really are the candidates, it felt to me like one of those fictional movies where real politicians and newspeople are dropped in to provide versimilitude.
I only watched the first half hour, during which Trump reportedly did the best, and I wonder how many other people tuned out before he started fading, and were left with an overall positive impression? During that half hour Clinton talked in gassy generalities and platitudes, when she wasn’t just calling us all racists and sexists. Trump at least was using things that sounded vaguely like facts, with numbers and stuff. He sounded prepared when he did that.
It also seemed to me that the debate was not mainly between Trump and Clinton; it was between Lester Holt and Trump. Clinton just stood aside and smirked and smiled inappropriately while the two of them had at it, and I thought Holt got the worst of it. Does it matter to low information viewers if Trump beat Hillary, as long as he beat someone? (I ask this seriously.)
Finally, I am left wondering what people make of Hillary’s manner? I found her frankly weird, giving off the same vibe as in her Between Two Palms appearance. I kept watching her eyes to see if they would start pointing in two different directions. Do people really find this Presidential?