Living through this concussion this past year exposed me to novel, darker sides of the human condition I’d read about before but never felt in my flesh. Finally now on the mend, I can look back and say I’m now a empathic person thanks to this experience, and hopefully will spend the rest of my life treating other people with more understanding and kindness.
Living through Trump’s rise feels similar, but with the silver linings stripped away. His dark, emotion-driven, know-nothing, leader-centric style of politics I’ve read about but never came close to understanding viscerally. I remember some high school debate round where the opposing team said that Hitler was elected to power, and I just started cracking up, sure he had no idea what he was talking about. I thought in 2008 that the rational, uplifting, and conciliatory Barack Obama was surely peddling the most effective style of politics. The rise of the Tea Party and subsequent hardening of GOP opposition gave me a sense that there was something I was missing about how this stuff worked. Trump’s rise, however, blew away any pretensions that I had to understanding mass politics.
I wish I could’ve spent my whole life never exposed to these political dark arts. I’m now starting from scratch, reading more psychology and sociology as well as taking in history in a different way. The more I learn, the less I want to live in a world where Donald Trumps have a place on the national stage. Trying to think of silver linings, all I can come up with was Trump opening the Overton Window for acceptable GOP policies on a few issues like LGBT rights and paid family leave. Maybe, if he loses, the GOP will rethink some of their orthodoxies and come to the Democrats more interested in finding common ground. But probably not, particularly since Hillary Clinton will be sitting on the other side of the negotiating table.
Aside from that, he has done lasting and irreparable damage. He has normalized coarseness, antisemitism, sexism and bigotry to a degree I thought unimaginable in 21st century America. He has advocated war crimes and dismissed the post-WWII foreign policy consensus that has held off great power war and nuclear conflict for 75 years. Even if Hillary wins, we won’t be able to turn back the clock on the currents Trump has unearthed, only seek better understanding to more effectively contain them.
Now, onto the debate. I have such little sense of what an undecided voter in this election is weighing that it’s hard to value any of my opinions much.
Economics
I thought they both spent the first twenty minutes of the opening economics section pretty poorly. Clinton felt tentative, and Trump came off low energy and under the weather. It is still pretty shocking to hear a candidate for high office have such disorganized thoughts. I really wanted Hillary at one point to say, ok Trump, we get it, you think trade is bad, but can you name four other policies that would help create jobs?
Trump had a smart tack trying to tie Hillary to everything bad that has happened in politics (“ And, Hillary, I’d just ask you this. You’ve been doing this for 30 years. Why are you just thinking about these solutions right now?”). Regardless of what you’re upset about as a voter, he’s giving you an avenue to project your grievance directly onto Hillary. It also allows him to sidestep actually talking about policy and bring it back to people disliking her.
That said, I’m thankful that Trump isn’t a better candidate. If he were smarter, he would go full-on populist and be attacking the banks and proposing high taxes on the rich.
Trump interrupted Clinton the most during this debate, which I think came off poorly. I was surprised she didn’t use his outbursts to offer him a challenge and say something like, “Donald are you capable of keeping your mouth shut for more than two minutes at a time?”
I also think it was a poor move deferring to her website and the media for fact-checking. It would’ve been much more effective if she had the direct quotes, dates, and publications memorized, and when Trump said something outrageous said in response, “well on June 20th in 2015 you said to the Wall St. Journal that, and I quote, ‘XYZ’.”
Lester Holt began his disappearing act in this section. I wish the moderators had mute buttons for the microphones; it’s ridiculous that they allow for this sort of cross-talk. However, for any liberals who complain that Holt was silent, remember that the vast majority of the questions (the race question, the economic question framed by inequality, the ‘looks’ question, the ‘will you respect the outcome of this election’ question) were questioning Trump’s fitness. He didn’t even ask a question about the emails until Trump brought it up, and when he did he phrased it weakly (“ he also raised the issue of your e-mails. Do you want to respond to that?”). Holt said nothing on Benghazi, Libya, or the Clinton Foundation.
Trump’s strategy of attacking Clinton’s strongest points (that also happen to be his weakest) is fascinating and effective. He said that she “has no plan” and harped on her poor temperament. This paints Hillary into a corner of having to say something like “no, you have no plan,” leading into Trump’s favorite type of debate: the recess argument. She’s not quite sharp enough on her feet to get at him in stichomythia-type back and forths.
Hillary finally hit her stride with her answer about Trump and the tax returns. It was polished but didn’t feel too rehearsed and hit home.
CLINTON: So you’ve got to ask yourself, why won’t he release his tax returns? And I think there may be a couple of reasons. First, maybe he’s not as rich as he says he is. Second, maybe he’s not as charitable as he claims to be. Third, we don’t know all of his business dealings, but we have been told through investigative reporting that he owes about $650 million to Wall Street and foreign banks. Or maybe he doesn’t want the American people, all of you watching tonight, to know that he’s paid nothing in federal taxes, because the only years that anybody’s ever seen were a couple of years when he had to turn them over to state authorities when he was trying to get a casino license, and they showed he didn’t pay any federal income tax.
TRUMP: That makes me smart.
However, she missed a big opportunity here to hit him when he said “that makes me smart,” just like she did earlier on an exchange about the Great Recession
CLINTON: In fact, Donald was one of the people who rooted for the housing crisis. He said, back in 2006, “Gee, I hope it does collapse, because then I can go in and buy some and make some money.” Well, it did collapse.
TRUMP: That’s called business, by the way.
Once she gets into one of her memorized two-minute stump speeches, she has a hard time breaking out of them to respond to Trump’s ad libs. A more nimble politician would’ve used this to start on a different track, saying “well that’s not the type of business we need in America — business preying on the backs of the middle class. Throughout your career you’ve defrauded thousands of hardworking Americans out of their money, selling false promises and empty dreams. In fact, this is what your campaign is based on: false promises and empty dreams.” Instead, she started talking about how independent experts think her tax plan is better than Trump’s. Hillary’s got a pretty consistent jab. It’s a shame she’s never developed a hook.
Foreign Policy
One fascinating undercurrent was that Trump can’t help seeking approval from everyone, even Hillary Clinton.
In another instance of Trump being a bad candidate whose lack of policy knowledge hurts him, during the attack on his support of the Iraq war not once did he say, “Well Hillary, in 2003 you actually voted for it. So who’s more to blame, me for going on the radio, or you for actually helping the war happen?”
I don’t know why Holt didn’t straight up quote the Howard Stern interview in 2002 where Trump said, “Ya I guess so.”
The nuclear exchange was another missed opportunity for Hillary Clinton. Instead of challenging Trump on his knowledge and competence (“Ok Trump, so you say nuclear is your number one worry, but have you learned what the Triad is yet? Do you know that deterrence comes from credibility, not shooting your mouth off?”) she was too elliptical when saying things like “words matter.” She also went into Secretary of State mode, speaking to foreign leaders (“I want to reassure our allies…”) instead of the American people. She should’ve made a stronger case that these alliances keep us safe.
US commitments to Japan and South Korea have gotten a lot of coverage for Trump’s comments about them, but if I’d pick an Asian nation most at risk from a Trump presidency I’d go with Taiwan. They’re the nation with the strongest and most determined antagonist, and I can totally see Trump ‘cutting a beautiful deal’ with the Chinese (who, recall, praised the PRC for its “strength” in putting down the 1989 “riot”) and promising to cut off our military aid in return for some meaningless economic concession.
Also, It’s pretty incredible to me following TPP for years when I regularly came across Congresspeople who hadn’t heard of it to all of a sudden it being a major presidential debate topic.
Closing Questions
Hillary finished really strong with her ‘stamina’ and ‘looks’ rebuttals. She almost missed her moment once again by only refuting the ‘stamina’ bit, but thankfully came back to it and Holt was a big enough pushover that he let her speak to the point.
I found it fascinating that for a few moments during this debate (agreeing with her a few times on gun policy in particular), it seemed like Trump couldn’t help seeking approval from Hillary. However much he says he’s outside of the establishment, he desperately wants to be in the club. Do read Garrison Keilor’s Trump takedown if you haven’t already.
So what do you do this winter? Hang around one of your mansions? Hit some golf balls? Hire a ghostwriter to do a new autobiography?
What the fans don’t know is that it’s not much fun being a billionaire. You own a lot of big houses and you wander around in them, followed by a waiter, a bartender, a masseuse, three housekeepers, and a concierge, and they probably gossip about you behind your back. Just like nine-tenths of your campaign staff. You’re losing and they know it and they’re telling mean stories about you to everybody and his brother.
Meanwhile, you keep plugging away. It’s the hardest work you’ve ever done. You walk out in the white cap and you rant for an hour about stuff that means nothing and the fans scream and wave their signs and you wish you could level with them for once and say one true thing: I love you to death and when this is over I will have nothing that I want.
