Who won the first Trump-Clinton U.S. Presidential debate? by Trevor McCarthy
Answer by Trevor McCarthy:
Clinton won – hands down.
Trump went off message, pushed his hotels (selling his “brand”), made a number of spectacular lies and nonsense claims (his ISIS commments, and *still* claiming he came out early against the Iraq war… when there is video of him doing otherwise) are just some examples of where he went wrong.
It became clear early on that Trump had no policies to talk about, with only the same old well oiled slogans from his campaign rallies, to fall back on. Ultimately, he pretty mch treated the debate like one of his rallies. He also refused to be held accountable for going off on his fantasies and tangents by the moderator. Note that the moderator did a poor job holding Trump in line. It’s clear that Trump ultimately knows he cannot be physically held in check once the cameras are rolling – short of turning his microphone off, which they should do…
Trump also fell back into his normal patterns of “self praise,” which sounded just plain sad. When an older grown man truly cannot curb his narcissistic tendencies, even when it REALLY MATTERS, It’s painful to look at! It’s bad enough in small kids, but inexcusable in adults!
Meanwhile, Clinton was as expected: she was on target with facts and figures, she knew her people, world leaders and events, policies, numbers… the works.
All this being said, I doubt any of this matters. Most people already have made up their minds. Most of Trump’s supporters already KNOW he lies compulsively, always makes it all about him, and is just BSing, with no real grasp of the facts – and they simply don’t care! They really want an untried guy to wing it with the hardest, most responsible job in the world… consequences be damned. I guess with them it’s, “We’ve tried Democracy, let’s try a Demagogue. What could go wrong? It works for Russia!”
(They do not know that it DOES NOT WORK FOR RUSSIA, only for Putin and a few others. Repressed media, repressed free speech and association, are the norm. Until people LOSE THEIR LIBERTIES, they will not know how valuable it was, or how easily it could be curtailed. Far too many Americans think either, “it can’t happen here.” Or, “if it does, it won’t be that bad.”)