First presidential debate - September 26: Trump vs Hillary

[Cthulhu 2020]

The Narrative of Decline is easily felt if you don't live near Palo Alto or New York City.

I don't live near either and it's business as usual. But I also don't watch TV where most people get their panties in a twist thinking the world is going to end because the terrorists/immigrants/TPP are coming to get us!

[Garnier Fructis]

The Narrative of Decline is easily felt if you don't live near Palo Alto or New York City.

I live mere hours form the border, so nowhere close to Palo Alto or NYC or any similar place. Everything is fine and has been fine. Up until recently I lived in an area that was majority latino/arab (which incidentally is why I always laughed at people on message boards telling me to live with them and see what it was like; I did and it's great!).

But that aside, there's a difference between feeling that something is true and having that something actually be true. There's definitely a real feeling of Christian oppression, when the reality is that we're starting to end their oppression of others. Perception does not always equal reality. And that's why Trump's campaign is largely successful: people feel that these problems are bigger than they really are, and he's simply tapping into that.

[Nynax]

I mean, technically the loser would be whichever one of them goes up there and shits their pants. Unless they do it quietly and wear diapers I guess. Unless one of the questions is "dear lord what is that corpse like effluvium?".

The fate of our country relies on the best person for the job also having mastered their sphincter.

I don't think there's going to be "winning" or "losing" in a traditionally direct sense between the two... this election is so polarized, current Hillary and Trump supporters are beyond swaying. Truth is, Hillary is really still after all the Bernie supporters that went 3rd party but there's no one among Trump supporters for her. Similarly there's no Hillary supporters for Trump to grab, he's still trying to convince central leaning Republicans that he isn't a fraud...

Honestly I think the outcome of this entire election hinges on how many of the younger voters and Bernie supporters Hillary can convince to NOT go third party, cause Trumps only path to victory depends on that demographic not showing up or spreading too thin.

[Independent voter]

It's going to have huge ratings. Normally only a few watch the debates but there's going to be a big turn out for this. I'm kind of excited. Like what if Hillary faints or Trump drops an "N" bomb for some reason?

[Garnier Fructis]

It's going to have huge ratings. Normally only a few watch the debates but there's going to be a big turn out for this. I'm kind of excited. Like what if Hillary faints or Trump drops an "N" bomb for some reason?

It basically comes down to whether or not Hillary feints and whether or not she can bait Trump into a tantrum. Which, as we've seen over the last few months, doesn't take very much effort at all.

[melodramocracy]

I will be quite disappointed if there is not at least one epic meltdown during this debate.... I'm hoping that shitlord Trump from the republican debates shows up for this, not his timid, reading-from-teleprompters twin brother that's been seen more recently.

[Breccia]

Fact checkers show them both to be liars.

That's like saying Babe Ruth and the kid down the street both play baseball, but glossing over the fact that one is a world-famous legend of the sport and the other did okay in his team's little league.

Trump's intentional deceit runs both far and wide, well beyond the scope of Clinton by a vast gulf of untruth.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-me...clinton-trump/

And that's just the lies themselves, not the other details like "what did they lie about".

Trying to even insinuate the two candidates are in the same ballpark when it comes to their lies is either willful ignorance or sarcasm.

- - - Updated - - -

It basically comes down to whether or not Hillary feints and whether or not she can bait Trump into a tantrum. Which, as we've seen over the last few months, doesn't take very much effort at all.

Yeah, but this time will be different. Trump knows he has to look Presidential at least once in front of an audience he doesn't control if he's going to win. His handlers surely know, and have been drilling it into him over and over, if they're worth the money Trump promised but never paid them.

- - - Updated - - -

Okay, this CNN article is probably the definitive version of anything this thread could possibly be about. It's damn near flawless.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/25/opinio...ham/index.html

Trump's strengths
• Manipulating the moderators. Trump's been pretty outspoken about the possibility of unfair moderators. Why? Because debate moderators can be played, just like sports officials. Whenever my debate teams think we have judges predisposed against us, we subtly ask about their "philosophy" of judging and aim to find out how we can overcome their bias. In almost all circumstances, at the end of the debate, the judges vote for us because of overcorrection. They want so badly to appear fair that they end up being unfair to the other team.
• Critic of status quo. Syria, Iraq, Libya, trade with China -- you name it and Trump will criticize it. He's a first-rate armchair quarterback.
• Fear mongering. This actually works for a lot of people. Everything is "terrible" and "horrible," Trump says. Actually, theories of persuasion have been tested, and "fear of losing" something you already have is much more persuasive than appeals to gain something new you don't currently possess.
• Personality. Trump can be both funny and charming. Hey, the Rubio water bottle bit still cracks me up.
• Handling hostility. He's used to it. When the crowd booed him in the previous debates, he brushed aside the boo-birds like he was sweeping pigeons off the terrace of his penthouse.
• Evading questions. Trump has several tactics for this. He provides general answers, ignores the question completely or turns it into an attack on his opponent by accusing them of the same thing. (It's the Pee-wee Herman response, "I know you are but what am I?") Finally, whenever pressed on some ridiculous claim, Trump uses his get-out-of-jail-free card is to respond with, "A lot of people say," and "I've heard many people." He simply brushes the question off like he would lint on his cashmere and then blames it on faceless "other people."

Trump's weaknesses
• Policy knowledge. This could be his undoing. Just read the latest challenge from Mark Cuban as proof that nobody thinks Trump understands policy. Cuban will give him $10 million if Trump will let Cuban grill him on policy positions for four hours. Ten. Million. Dollars.
• Punishing format. Two candidates on stage and 90 minutes to fill. Saying "We don't win anymore" and "I'll make better deals" repeatedly should get tiresome pretty quickly in this format.
• Thin skin. Trump doesn't like criticism of any kind. And he has a childish way of dealing with it by name-calling. If he loses his temper in the debate, as he has in the past, it will appear much worse when it's just the two of them up there.
• Flip-flops and lies. Let's be real. Trump lies in debates more than anyone ... ever. You can look this up on any fact-checking website. My favorite: Sixty percent of claims that PolitiFact has checked have been rated false or pants-on-fire (outright lies) and under 3% of his claims have been rated as true!
• Hubris. Trump honestly thinks he's won all the debates so far. I'm not making this up. This is a weakness if it has led him to conclude he doesn't need to do the kind of substantial preparation most candidates do.

Clinton's strengths
• Knowledge. Clinton simply knows her stuff about the economy, civil rights, Russian relations, the war on terror and other issues. You may not agree with her, but you won't think she's under-informed.
• Future policy. This is where she can set herself apart from Trump. She can speak articulately about the direction we should take, as a country, in the future. Trump's forte is criticizing the past. Clinton's is pointing toward the future.
• Ability to draw sharp contrasts. Clinton has been solid, even in the primary debates, at delineating the differences between her proposals and his.
• Attitude. I know people think she's too robotic and stiff, and that's a weakness. However, in several debates, Clinton's approach has been more relaxed, calm, and she even seems to enjoy the debates with a conversational quality.

Clinton's weaknesses
• Her personality. In these debates, people want to see a "real" person. That means personality and feelings. Joy, fear, anger, disgust and sadness were all part of Riley's emotions in "Inside Out," the Pixar movie. Well heck, if a cartoon character has emotions, why can't Clinton?
• Long-winded. She never finishes her answer on time, and she runs over the dinging timer, runs through the buzzer in the background, runs past the moderator's attempts to start up again, and I think she even ran over my neighbor's dog while she was at it. These long-winded answers, as if to grandmother's house we go, serve her poorly. You can't get to the "big finish" of your answer if you're being talked over and sirens are blaring. She needs to get to the point sooner.
• Evasive answers. Do you remember when she said Wall Street gave her contributions because of 9/11? Or in the next debate, same question, Clinton said that she got less money from Wall Street than from teachers. These didn't pass the smell test. She's got to do better.

I really don't feel the need to continue after that. It's just...beautiful.

[hrugner]

I don't think there's going to be "winning" or "losing" in a traditionally direct sense between the two... this election is so polarized, current Hillary and Trump supporters are beyond swaying. Truth is, Hillary is really still after all the Bernie supporters that went 3rd party but there's no one among Trump supporters for her. Similarly there's no Hillary supporters for Trump to grab, he's still trying to convince central leaning Republicans that he isn't a fraud...

Honestly I think the outcome of this entire election hinges on how many of the younger voters and Bernie supporters Hillary can convince to NOT go third party, cause Trumps only path to victory depends on that demographic not showing up or spreading too thin.

Unfortunately, her campaign has been bending over backward to make her look like an imbecile to the younger crowd. If she doesn't get those jokers in line she's going to go down as the woman who lost the presidency because she thought she was fighting a cartoon frog.

[Garnier Fructis]

• Long-winded. She never finishes her answer on time, and she runs over the dinging timer, runs through the buzzer in the background, runs past the moderator's attempts to start up again, and I think she even ran over my neighbor's dog while she was at it.

This is a winner.

[I Push Buttons]

I feel like this debate is going to be pretty vanilla and that Trump is going to tone it down.

His team has got to know Hillary and her team have rehearsed every possible shot he can take at her to spin it and make it sound good. And I doubt Hillary is going to take too many shots either because she can just talk shop and sound better since Trump's plans are absurd.

I think the biggest victim of the night will be Obama, who Trump will complain about/blame every issue in the world on in pretty much every answer.

[Lenonis]

I think the biggest victim of the night will be Obama, who Trump will complain about/blame every issue in the world on in pretty much every answer.

I think Trump will throw a few punches at the "establishment" in general, including the GOP folks. He's likely to insult quite a few folks I'd imagine.

[Deletedaccount1]

Trumpu-san is going to win this debate. I feel it in my bones, the fall of crooked Hillary.

I wish they had let the third party candidates or at least Gary Johnson join in. It would have put more pressure for Hillary and Trump to deal with all their bs and cognitive dissonance.

[Lenonis]

Trumpu-san is going to win this debate. I feel it in my bones, the fall of crooked Hillary.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that regardless of what happens you'll think Trump won the debate.

I wish they had let the third party candidates or at least Gary Johnson join in. It would have put more pressure for Hillary and Trump to deal with all their bs and cognitive dissonance.

I think it's pretty reasonable to say that if you can't even muster up 15% in polling you'd just be a distraction during the debate.

Think of it this way -- this is 90 minutes to get to know two people, either of whom could be the next president. Their policy, personality, etc. Having others up there who have no chance of willing in just about any scenario would just suck the oxygen out of the room and decrease the time we get to see Trump and Clinton in action.

[akris15]

That's like saying Babe Ruth and the kid down the street both play baseball, but glossing over the fact that one is a world-famous legend of the sport and the other did okay in his team's little league.

Trump's intentional deceit runs both far and wide, well beyond the scope of Clinton by a vast gulf of untruth.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-me...clinton-trump/

And that's just the lies themselves, not the other details like "what did they lie about".

Trying to even insinuate the two candidates are in the same ballpark when it comes to their lies is either willful ignorance or sarcasm.

- - - Updated - - -



Yeah, but this time will be different. Trump knows he has to look Presidential at least once in front of an audience he doesn't control if he's going to win. His handlers surely know, and have been drilling it into him over and over, if they're worth the money Trump promised but never paid them.

- - - Updated - - -

Okay, this CNN article is probably the definitive version of anything this thread could possibly be about. It's damn near flawless.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/25/opinio...ham/index.html

Trump's strengths
• Manipulating the moderators. Trump's been pretty outspoken about the possibility of unfair moderators. Why? Because debate moderators can be played, just like sports officials. Whenever my debate teams think we have judges predisposed against us, we subtly ask about their "philosophy" of judging and aim to find out how we can overcome their bias. In almost all circumstances, at the end of the debate, the judges vote for us because of overcorrection. They want so badly to appear fair that they end up being unfair to the other team.
• Critic of status quo. Syria, Iraq, Libya, trade with China -- you name it and Trump will criticize it. He's a first-rate armchair quarterback.
• Fear mongering. This actually works for a lot of people. Everything is "terrible" and "horrible," Trump says. Actually, theories of persuasion have been tested, and "fear of losing" something you already have is much more persuasive than appeals to gain something new you don't currently possess.
• Personality. Trump can be both funny and charming. Hey, the Rubio water bottle bit still cracks me up.
• Handling hostility. He's used to it. When the crowd booed him in the previous debates, he brushed aside the boo-birds like he was sweeping pigeons off the terrace of his penthouse.
• Evading questions. Trump has several tactics for this. He provides general answers, ignores the question completely or turns it into an attack on his opponent by accusing them of the same thing. (It's the Pee-wee Herman response, "I know you are but what am I?") Finally, whenever pressed on some ridiculous claim, Trump uses his get-out-of-jail-free card is to respond with, "A lot of people say," and "I've heard many people." He simply brushes the question off like he would lint on his cashmere and then blames it on faceless "other people."

Trump's weaknesses
• Policy knowledge. This could be his undoing. Just read the latest challenge from Mark Cuban as proof that nobody thinks Trump understands policy. Cuban will give him $10 million if Trump will let Cuban grill him on policy positions for four hours. Ten. Million. Dollars.
• Punishing format. Two candidates on stage and 90 minutes to fill. Saying "We don't win anymore" and "I'll make better deals" repeatedly should get tiresome pretty quickly in this format.
• Thin skin. Trump doesn't like criticism of any kind. And he has a childish way of dealing with it by name-calling. If he loses his temper in the debate, as he has in the past, it will appear much worse when it's just the two of them up there.
• Flip-flops and lies. Let's be real. Trump lies in debates more than anyone ... ever. You can look this up on any fact-checking website. My favorite: Sixty percent of claims that PolitiFact has checked have been rated false or pants-on-fire (outright lies) and under 3% of his claims have been rated as true!
• Hubris. Trump honestly thinks he's won all the debates so far. I'm not making this up. This is a weakness if it has led him to conclude he doesn't need to do the kind of substantial preparation most candidates do.

Clinton's strengths
• Knowledge. Clinton simply knows her stuff about the economy, civil rights, Russian relations, the war on terror and other issues. You may not agree with her, but you won't think she's under-informed.
• Future policy. This is where she can set herself apart from Trump. She can speak articulately about the direction we should take, as a country, in the future. Trump's forte is criticizing the past. Clinton's is pointing toward the future.
• Ability to draw sharp contrasts. Clinton has been solid, even in the primary debates, at delineating the differences between her proposals and his.
• Attitude. I know people think she's too robotic and stiff, and that's a weakness. However, in several debates, Clinton's approach has been more relaxed, calm, and she even seems to enjoy the debates with a conversational quality.

Clinton's weaknesses
• Her personality. In these debates, people want to see a "real" person. That means personality and feelings. Joy, fear, anger, disgust and sadness were all part of Riley's emotions in "Inside Out," the Pixar movie. Well heck, if a cartoon character has emotions, why can't Clinton?
• Long-winded. She never finishes her answer on time, and she runs over the dinging timer, runs through the buzzer in the background, runs past the moderator's attempts to start up again, and I think she even ran over my neighbor's dog while she was at it. These long-winded answers, as if to grandmother's house we go, serve her poorly. You can't get to the "big finish" of your answer if you're being talked over and sirens are blaring. She needs to get to the point sooner.
• Evasive answers. Do you remember when she said Wall Street gave her contributions because of 9/11? Or in the next debate, same question, Clinton said that she got less money from Wall Street than from teachers. These didn't pass the smell test. She's got to do better.

I really don't feel the need to continue after that. It's just...beautiful.

Wow that pretty accurate all around.

Yet the first comment pretty much sums it up too:

Vote for The Tool (Hillary Clinton)
- or -
Vote for The Fool (Donald J. Trump)

[satimy]

IF they did that it'd be the last debate for a while. With Donald you don't have to do that, simply fact checking the guy is enough to embarrass the hell out of him.

Unfortunately facts mean a lot of subjective things to heavily biased individuals. Any jerk off moderator can call something a fact, however that doesn't make it an actual fact.

[Lenonis]

Unfortunately facts mean a lot of subjective things to heavily biased individuals. Any jerk off moderator can call something a fact, however that doesn't make it an actual fact.

Er...well...I know what you mean but there are really clear examples that could be used.

For example:
Trump: "I was always against the Iraq war, it was always a terrible idea."
Moderator: "No, you actually were for the war in *whenever*"

Things like that can be easily challenged and really have no room to declare it's just bias. Same thing with the calculations done for economic policies and the like, or things like "Mexico will pay for the wall." Well..no, Mexico said they won't, so you need to come up with more to actually answer that question.

[satimy]

Er...well...I know what you mean but there are really clear examples that could be used.

For example:
Trump: "I was always against the Iraq war, it was always a terrible idea."
Moderator: "No, you actually were for the war in *whenever*"

Things like that can be easily challenged and really have no room to declare it's just bias. Same thing with the calculations done for economic policies and the like, or things like "Mexico will pay for the wall." Well..no, Mexico said they won't, so you need to come up with more to actually answer that question.

Mexico could pay for the walls in ways other than cutting us a check, ways in which they have no power.

[Deletedaccount1]

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that regardless of what happens you'll think Trump won the debate.

I think it's pretty reasonable to say that if you can't even muster up 15% in polling you'd just be a distraction during the debate.

Think of it this way -- this is 90 minutes to get to know two people, either of whom could be the next president. Their policy, personality, etc. Having others up there who have no chance of willing in just about any scenario would just suck the oxygen out of the room and decrease the time we get to see Trump and Clinton in action.

No I hope he loses the debate but he is good at deflecting and attacking. As long as he does his homework, there isn't much Clinton can attack him on. I hope she can pull herself together for the first time in months but she seems pretty content about letting the gap close between her and the most hated presidential candidate in generations.

Everyone already knows them. You can't turn on the news without seeing their faces and hearing them give speeches. Anyone who remotely follows this election knows their positions and their stories. Anyone who doesn't probably doesn't care about the debate in the first place. Allowing Gary Johnson to debate (who is polling higher than any third party candidate since Ross Perot) would put a little bit of pressure on them to actually be smart for once instead of just appeasing to their base and pandering to their parties.

[archimonde9999]

trumps a pretty good debater so this will be intersesting

[Lenonis]

Mexico could pay for the walls in ways other than cutting us a check, ways in which they have no power.

Which Trump would need to elaborate on, and then explain how it wouldn't have negative ramifications for us.

That's not quite fact checking through -- that's just pressing for details.

Trump has done a lot of vague handwaving when it comes to policy and any moderator worth his/her salt should press for details if not given any, especially since having Mexico pay for the wall is a key part of his whole shtick. If Mexico won't pay for it and we can't force him a cornerstone of his immigration policy crumbles to dust. I mean, heck, even if you are a Trump supporter you should want to know the details so you can be assured that the wall would actually happen!