Tuesday, September 27, 2016

The First Presidential Debate

As I listen to the post-debate focus group on CBS, my head is about to explode. Their reasons for and against both candidates makes me want to choke these people. Of course, I knew they would be stupid from the beginning:

I would say that Donald Trump looked stronger early on, but then Hillary Clinton wore him down with her phoney smile every time he would attack her, and then she would counter. By the end of the night, Trump got tentative with his attacks, and they seemed less effective.

The moderator, Lester Holt, was ok until he went after Trump on his support for the Iraq War. Considering Clinton actually voted for the war as a senator, that seemed like a rather biased attack, holding Trump's feet to the fire over an issue where Clinton was even more culpable.

CBS News' Bob Schieffer made a good point after the debate about how neither of them said how they would actually create some kind of coalition in order to get their ideas passed in Washington.

Overall, Trump was all style, no substance, and Clinton was all wrong substance.

Here are some of my insights from the debate:

  • Trump nailed her on TPP. Clinton will support it. The political elite support TPP, and she is the candidate of the elite.
  • Trump's protectionism was annoying. It is what makes him just as scary as she is for her progressive socialism.
  • Clinton bringing up her website fact-checking him was silly. Any half-intelligent person wouldn't look to Clinton for fact-checking on the debate.
  • Throughout the debate, Trump was painting Clinton with establishment colors. His addressing her as "Secretary Clinton" was part of it. She didn't seem to notice, or else wasn't denying it.
  • Trump's statement that not paying taxes "makes me smart" is spot-on.(if he's doing it legally)
  • Trump was playing defense on his bankruptcies. He cut the number from Clinton's 6 down to 4, but that's still ugly. No successful businessman has 4 bankruptcies, and Trump's defense of it was poor.
  • Both Trump and Clinton are clearly for gun control. Kiss your guns goodbye.
  • I can't believe Clinton brought up using the terrorist watch list for gun control. A list where the government can arbitrarily add anyone, and is nearly impossible to appeal if you have been improperly been added to it, is no basis for deciding who can or cannot buy a gun.
  • Trump's stupidest comment of the night: If we kept the oil, we could have prevented ISIS. Unfortunately, it would have taken us decades to get all the oil out of there.
  • The birtherism question was valid, and Trump really hasn't answered why he carried it on years after Obama released the birth certificate. On the other hand, Clinton hasn't really defended bringing it up before Trump.
If you held a gun to my head and forced me to pick a winner, I would select Trump, only because his empty-suited style does carry some appeal over Clinton's wrong-headed ideology. However, don't read that as any kind of support from me. I consider both of them dangerous candidates. He showed himself to be clueless, and her governing ideology is dead wrong. This is a choice between Herbert Hoover and Richard Nixon. And that might be an insult to Hoover and Nixon, because these two candidates are each capable of being the worst presidents in history..

I will still be voting for Libertarian Gary Johnson, and this debate only left me more resolved in this support. The two major candidates are dangerous, when they aren't stupid.
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